Employment Bill [Lords]

I am happy to take interventions. One comment made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) dealt with the enforcement of the minimum wage. May I remind colleagues, as the Minister for Employment Relations and Postal Affairs did at the beginning of the debate, that in November 2006 the then Chancellor announced an increase in the budget for the enforcement and the monitoring of the minimum wage for the next four years, amounting to some £11.6 million of extra enforcement and monitoring money? I hope that hon. Members would agree that that is helpful. The enhanced budget enables us to respond in a highly effective way to the changing scene, through the recruitment of additional staff, more research and better communication. With the increased budget, Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs is recruiting an additional 20 people in 2007-08, the majority of whom are front-line enforcement staff, the remainder being part of the minimum wage technical team, which works on supporting the helpline, for example, and inspectors on more complicated cases. We have also significantly increased our publicity budget, maintaining our focus on hard-to-reach groups. That work includes a radio campaign and, indeed, an outreach campaign.