article_snippet: Businesses will be forced to let workers share the fruits of recovery with the biggest real-terms increase in the minimum wage since the financial crisis.
article_snippet: The changes follow the Prime Minister's insistence that businesses should give businesses workers a pay rise.
article_snippet: London Mayor Boris Johnson – a frontrunner to succeed David Cameron – has called for boosting wages even further to be the 'guiding Conservative economic mission' in the next Parliament.
article_snippet: Chancellor George Osborne and Business Minister Matthew Hancock have also been pushing the independent commission which recommends the minimum wage rate for above-inflation rises.
article_snippet: Senior Tories are calling on the Chancellor to go further, and consider tax breaks for firms who pay the ‘living wage’, set above the national minimum wage.
article_snippet: Ed Miliband has said Ed Miliband wants to increase the minimum wage to £8 an hour by 2019.
article_snippet: Mr Osborne has proposed a legal minimum of £7 far sooner.
article_snippet: ‘the national minimum wage has been one of the most successful policies of recent years thanks to the independence of the commission – the independence of the commission politicisation is worrying.
article_snippet: ’ Chuka Umunna, Labour’s shadow business secretary, said: ‘This 20p rise falls far short of the £7 minimum wage which George Osborne promised over a year ago.
article_snippet: Where under David Cameron we’ve seen the value of the minimum wage eroded, we need a recovery for working people.
article_snippet: Only Labour has set a more ambitious target for the minimum wage which would see a rise to £8 by 2020, restoring the link between hard work and pay.
article_snippet: We would also act to ensure the national minimum wage is properly enforced where a Tory-led government has failed to get to grips with non-payment. '