Healey Will Not Promise Equal Minimum Wage Before Election
The chancellor, John Healey, has declined to commit to paying 18 to 20-year-olds the full adult minimum wage before the next election, potentially breaking a 2024 manifesto pledge. “There is no question about whether or if, it’s a question of when,” he told the BBC. He also signalled readiness for deep departmental cuts.
Labour promised to remove “discriminatory age bands”; the Budget instead gave younger workers the same rise as everyone else, leaving rates of £11.27 and £13.21. Mr Healey framed the delay as a jobs question, calling a million young people out of work “a moral shame on this nation”. Unions and the party’s left are likely to object. Pressed on whether some departments face cuts of more than 2% a year, he said: “We will carry that through to the 10-year plan and the spending review next year.” The Institute for Fiscal Studies questioned this week whether those real-terms reductions will happen; Kemi Badenoch, in the Sunday Telegraph, says unfunded promises have left a “colossal” black hole, which the Treasury denies.