A Tory MP today called for a higher minimum wage for the capital — saying the current £6.50-an-hour rate is not enough for Londoners to live on.
Chris Philp, the newly-elected MP for Croydon South, spoke after Boris Johnson used a lecture to launch a powerful attack on “billionaires” who fail to pay their staff the £9.15 London Living Wage. It reflect concerns that the rising cost of living is blighting the hopes of people on low incomes who want to live comfortably and raise a family in the capital.
“I do not believe that it is possible to live on the current national minimum wage, especially in London,” said Mr Philp in a letter to the head of the Low Pay Commission, David Norgrove.
Earlier this week the Mayor, delivering the inaugural Sir Simon Milton Memorial Lecture, said: “I do worry that we have 140 billionaires in London — more than any other city ... and yet hardly any of them are taking the trouble to ensure that the companies they lead or invest in are paying their employees the London Living Wage.”
The £6.50 minimum wage is the same across the country. By contrast the voluntary Living Wage has a separate rate for London of £9.15 an hour, and a lower rate for the rest of the country of £7.85. Mr Philp, a successful businessman, said that left a gap of £2.65 an hour for Londoners, compared with £1.35 in the rest of the UK.
He is asking the Low Pay Commission to recommend “significant” rises in the national rate, but also to consider the case for London having a separate higher rate.
“I think it is only reasonable that employers should pay a wage that people can live on,” said the MP. “I could not live on £6.50 an hour.”
He said a higher minimum wage would save public money because many families needed to have their low earnings topped up with tax credits, which meant taxpayers were “subsidising companies who are not paying their staff properly”.
He rejected the idea that jobs would be driven overseas by a higher rate, saying that many minimum wage jobs such as cleaning and agricultural work could only be carried out on-site.
In October the national minimum wage will rise to £6.70.