'No Respect For The Young': Burnham Slammed Amid Reports Over National Minimum Wage

Labour has been accused of breaking a manifesto promise and having "no respect for young people" amid reports the government will slow down plans to increase the minimum wage.

According to The Times, chancellor John Healey intends to pause the process of equalising the lower national minimum wage – paid to workers aged 18 to 21 – with the larger national living wage for those over 21.

The BBC reports similar ahead of the Budget where Healey has pledged to give families "breathing space" to help with the. cost of living.

It follows warnings from businesses that it is becoming too expensive to hire those under 21.

It is a change from Labour's last two Budgets, when the government took significant steps to level the wages, increasing the minimum hourly rate for younger people by 26% since 2024.

Both salaries will still rise by around 3.9% in Healey's first Budget, but he will not try to close the gap between them.

The national living wage will go up from £12.71 to around £13.20, while the national minimum wage will rise from £10.85 to around £11.27.

However, in its 2024 manifesto, Labour promised to equalise the two wages, "so all adults are entitled to the same minimum wage, delivering a pay rise to hundreds of thousands of workers across the UK".

Mothin Ali, the Greens' co-deputy leader, said: "Workers rights are universal or they are nothing. 

"Anyone doing a day's work, needs to be paid the same rate for the same job. A young person's rent and food bill is no less because they are young, so they need to receive the same wage.

"The Greens will introduce a £15 minimum wage for all ages and a proper Youth Jobs Guarantee, which pays and trains young people in real jobs, unlike Labour's retro 1980s YTS version. 

"Healey and Burnham are now breaking a manifesto pledge to young people that even Starmer managed to keep. Labour have no respect for young people, who appear to just be there for cheap labour for the wealthy and their corporate donors. 

"Of course big corporations want to pay their workers less, they made the same nonsense arguments when the minimum wage was introduced and it had no impact at all on jobs, it just made life better and fairer for workers. Labour is now looking like turning its back on its own achievement."

The general secretary of the union Unison, Andrea Egan, also said it would be "deeply unfair" to keep paying different rates for the same role based on age.

"Twenty year-old care workers, teaching assistants and security guards do the same work as their older colleagues.

"They don't pay less in the supermarket or at the petrol pump. They must be paid equally," she said. 

Britain's Prime Minister Andy Burnham speaks as he hosts a "Rough Sleeping Summit" in Downing Street in central London, Monday, Oct. 26, 2026. via Associated Press

Business secretary Jonathan Reynolds told BBC Radio 4's Today programme any hikes would be announced in the Budget tomorrow.

However, he added: "The manifesto pledge on equalisation still applies, but it was always clear it would happen over time and we would take into account, as the minimum wage uprating each year always does, the relative strength of the labour market and other pressures...

"Of course, you want not just good wages, but good work.

"And the way this has always been done – it is a balance of making sure the pressures on the labour market are taken into account. That is the approach you will see confirmed [in the Budget]."

The government has already announced a few measures ahead of the Budget, including removing import taxes on some food and allowing cares to earn more than an existing earnings limit with losing their entire allowance.

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