Plan to increase youth minimum wage could be delayed

Government sources tell BBC News they could slow down plans to make minimum wage equal across age groups.

Starmer urged to stick to manifesto following reports lifting of youth minimum wage may be delayed – UK politics live

GMB union tells Labour delaying or halting equalisation to adult rates would be unacceptable Good morning. Figures out yesterday showed that the unemployment rate for 18- to 24-year-olds was 14% in the three months to December, which is the highest rate for nearly 11 years excluding Covid. The Times this morning is running a story saying that, in response to concerns about youth unemployment, ministers are “considering ditching Labour’s manifesto pledge to pay young people the same national minimum wage as older workers”. The Times says: Business groups have told ministers they are “pricing a generation of young people out of the workplace” by increasing the cost of hiring workers through rises to the national living wage, wider employment rights and a tax raid on employers’ national insurance. In response, ministers are reviewing their promise to equalise national minimum wage rates by the time of the next election. A decision could come within months when the government sets its annual remit to the Low Pay Commission, which makes recommendations for rises in the national living wage. There’s an unsourced briefing or whatever in the Times this morning, that is not government policy. Government policy is as we set out in our manifesto. We’ve had many naysayers over the years about the national minimum wage. We’d be extremely unhappy about that. This is a manifesto promise. This has been our union’s policy for a long period of time. Younger workers are not less productive. Businesses hire on the basis of need. They don’t employ more young workers than they would older workers. Continue reading...

By Andrew Sparrow

Plans to equalise minimum wage for older and younger workers could be delayed

Minister insists government still committed to manifesto pledge

By Athena Stavrou

Mattarella calls for other institutions to respect top magistrates body CSM

(ANSA) - ROME, FEB 18 - President Sergio Mattarella called for other institutions to respect the Supreme Council of Magistrates, the CSM, on Wednesday as he took the unusual step of chairing an ordinary meeting of the judiciary's self-governing body. Although the head of State is also the nominal president of the CSM, it is a figurehead role and he is not usually involved in its day-to-day business. The judiciary is currently at the centre of the political debate ahead a referendum next month on the government's Constitutional reform that separates the career paths of judges and prosecutors so they can no longer swap between the roles, creates a high court to discipline members of the judiciary and changes the way CSM justices are elected, using a draw process. Magistrates union ANM and opposition parties are staunchly against the reform, saying it will weaken the judiciary and could be a step towards placing prosecutors under the executive's control. There have been several high-voltage clashes between Premier Giorgia Meloni's government and members of the judiciary in the run-up to the referendum. On Wednesday Mattarella highlighted "the constitutionally significant role of the CSM" and, "above all, the need and intention to reaffirm the respect that must be nurtured and demonstrated, particularly by other institutions, towards this institution". He also stressed that respect must work both ways. "As President of the Republic, I feel the need to firmly renew the call for mutual respect at any time, in any circumstance, in the interest of the Republic," he said. He added that he was aware that his presence as an ordinary CSM meeting was "unusual. "As far as I'm concerned, this has never happened in eleven years (as president)," he continued. "I was driven to this decision by the need and desire to underscore, once again, the value of the CSM's constitutionally significant role". (ANSA). Read article...

By ANSA