Tim Farron: up the fines for employers who don’t pay minimum wage

The Guardian reports the Liberal Democrat President calling for more action to enforce minimum wage rules:

An urgent change in the law must be introduced to ensure that fines of at least £100,000 are imposed on employers who exploit workers by paying below the national minimum wage, the Liberal Democrat president has said.

Tim Farron spoke out against a “ludicrous” anomaly which means that minimum wage fines are set at half the rate of those imposed for fly-tipping…

Farron said that George Osborne should increase the maximum fine on employers who pay below the minimum wage to £100,000 in his budget in the spring. He said: “The issue for us is to come up with seriously punitive example-setting levels of fine that means that no one would ever contemplate doing it. If you are paying 20 people 10% below the national minimum wage the reality is it is worth doing it even if you get caught. You want to put yourself in a situation where it is not even worth countenancing paying a single person below the minimum wage.”

But the Lib Dem president said it was important to ensure that a neighbour who pays a small sum for babysitting is not caught by the tougher penalties. But he said that a punitive fine would also help catch employers exploiting immigrants or even trafficking people. “Other offences might be discovered – you can remove another veil behind which people can hide these things.”…

Jo Swinson, the Lib Dem business minister, announced new rules in the summer to make it easier to name and shame businesses that do not pay the minimum wage.