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2024.11.12
3.5 Deputy M.B. Andrews of St Helier North of the Minister for Social Security regarding a trainee minimum wage rate: (OQ.203/2024)
Following the integration of trainee minimum wage rates into a single baseline minimum wage from 1st January 2024, will the Assistant Minister advise what consideration, if any, has been given to the reintroduction of a trainee minimum wage rate or a youth rate?
Deputy S.Y. Mézec of St. Helier South (Assistant Minister for Social Security - rapporteur):
The short answer is that there has not been active consideration of reintroducing either a trainee minimum wage rate or a youth rate. Both of those things would go against States Assembly decisions, one of which was very recent. There was the decision made when Deputy Andrews himself brought a proposition to harmonise the trainee minimum wage rates that was adopted by this Assembly. It was adopted with an amendment asking the Minister to do that by order rather than by legislation. So theoretically the door could still be open in the future to reconsidering a trainee rate if economic circumstances at the time suggested so. But it is probably too soon since that harmonisation to be able to assess any economic impact from that. In regards to a youth rate, that would have to be changed in legislation. This legislation does not allow for different rates to be set based on age and that is down to an amendment to legislation that tried to introduce a youth rate that was brought in 2016. It happened to be me as a backbencher who brought that amendment to stop that from happening and that amendment was successful so we do not have a legal basis for setting a youth rate at this point.