The National Minimum Wage Regulations 1999

Explanatory Note

(This note is not part of the Regulations)

These Regulations come into force on 1st April 1999. They set the hourly rate of the national minimum wage at £3.60; prescribe the working hours in respect of which workers must be paid at least the national minimum wage; provide for what payments by employers to workers are to be taken into account in determining whether the national minimum wage has been paid for those hours; and require employers to keep records sufficient to establish that they are paying their workers at least the rate of the national minimum wage and any applicable agricultural minimum rate.

Regulations 2 to 10 contain interpretative provisions. In particular, they define the different descriptions of work that may be done by workers as being “time work”, “salaried hours work”, “output work” and “unmeasured work”, and define “the pay reference period” and provide that the work done by certain workers in specified circumstances does not count as work.

Regulation 11 sets the hourly rate of the national minimum wage. Regulation 12 provides that certain categories of workers are not entitled to the national minimum wage: they are workers under 18, apprentices (including those on “Modern Apprenticeships”) who are under 19 or in their first year of apprenticeship and under 26, and workers on certain Government schemes providing them with training, work experience or temporary work, or assisting them to obtain work. Regulation 13 provides for certain workers to be entitled to the national minimum wage at a lower rate: the hourly rate is £3 for workers aged 18 or more but less than 22, and £3.20 during the first six months of employment for older workers who agree to undergo a specified amount of “accredited training” during those six months. Regulation 14 prescribes the method of determining whether at least the rate of the national minimum wage has been paid.

Regulations 15 to 29 establish, for each description of work that may be done by a worker, the hours for which the worker must be paid the national minimum wage and say how the total number of those hours in a pay reference period is to be determined.

Regulations 30 to 37 prescribe what payments made by the employer to a worker are to be taken into account in ascertaining whether he has been paid at least the national minimum wage for the total number of hours in a pay reference period determined in accordance with regulations 15 to 29.

Regulation 38 requires employers to keep records sufficient to show that they have paid their workers at least the rate of the national minimum wage and any applicable agricultural minimum rate.