Barbara Keeley MP, Labour’s Shadow Social
Care Minister, commenting
on the Government’s decision to temporarily suspend HMRC enforcement action and
waive historical penalties for sleep-in shifts, said:
“This announcement does little to
help sort out the issue of pay for sleep-in shifts.
“Care providers still face a £400 million
bill and care workers still have no idea when they will get the money they
have rightfully earned. Delaying enforcement action for a few weeks does
nothing to address the issue and is a dangerous and retrograde step that risks
undermining the very principle of a statutory minimum wage. If an exemption is
granted in this case, it will not be long before other employers start pleading
poverty to get out of their duty to properly pay their workforce.
"This Tory Government needs to stop
burying its head in the sand about the problems in social care and put the
funding of social care on a long-term sustainable footing.”
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