Healey hints at delay to youth minimum wage equality
Chancellor John Healey has suggested that workers aged 18 to 20 might not be paid the same minimum wage as older workers before the next election. The BBC reported his remarks on 31 October 2026.
The minimum wage is the legal lowest hourly pay for workers in the UK. In 2024, Labour pledged to remove "discriminatory age bands" and to end the gap between the adult rate and pay for 18 to 20-year-olds.
In the Budget on 28 October, the Chancellor announced a 3.9% increase to both the National Minimum Wage and the National Living Wage, the rate for workers aged 21 and over. Under the rises, pay for 18 to 20-year-olds will rise to £11.27 an hour in 2026, and the rate for over-20s will be £13.21 an hour. The increases are expected to benefit around 2.3 million workers.
Healey said younger workers would receive the same percentage increase as older workers, which leaves a cash gap between the two rates this year. Asked whether the rates would be equal by the next election, he said "We'll take one step at a time". He said Labour remains committed to the ambition of equalising youth and adult minimum wage rates.
Healey also hinted that the plan to equalise the rates might be delayed, partly to encourage businesses to employ younger workers. He said the timing involves trade-offs between jobs and wages. He described the one million young people without a prospect of being helped into work as a moral shame.
Healey indicated he was willing to make potentially large cuts to some areas of public spending to bring debt down. Budget documents set out real-terms reductions to some government departments in the years ahead. The Institute for Fiscal Studies, which analyses taxes and public spending, questioned whether the government would follow through on its spending plans.
Healey said the government had shown it was prepared to take hard decisions about priorities. He said the same approach would carry through to the government's 10-year plan and next year's spending review, the process that sets departments' budgets.
