Calls to close loophole that puts UK domestic workers at risk of ‘slavery’
Campaigners are calling on the government to close a minimum wage loophole, two years after the independent Low Pay Commission warned that it allowed vulnerable migrant workers in private homes to be exploited.
The commission (LPC) was asked by the government to examine the family worker exemption, which permits employers to pay domestic staff less than the national minimum wage if they live-in and are treated like a member of the family.
The LPC urged the government to scrap the loophole after hearing directly from domestic workers about their pay and conditions, including not being allowed to leave the house, and in one case being forced to sleep with the family dog.
The then business minister Paul Scully told the House of Commons in March last year that the government would accept the LPC’s recommendation and bring forward legislation to remove the family worker exemption. But no such legislation has been forthcoming.
Marissa Begonia, the director of the pressure group the Voice of Domestic Workers, said: “Many migrant domestic workers find themselves on 24-hour duty in childcare and elderly care in addition to neverending household chores cleaning, laundry, ironing, and cooking.”
She called for the recommendation to scrap the exemption to be “implemented and enforced, so migrant domestic workers can be released from slavery work conditions”.
Asked about it this week, two years after the recommendation was made, a Department for Business and Trade (DBT) spokesperson said: “The next steps on the commission’s recommendations will be announced in due course.”
Bryan Sanderson, the chair of the LPC, renewed the call for change. “At the end of our review we made a clear recommendation to the government to remove the exemption. We
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