The National Minimum Wage Regulations 1999 (Amendment) Regulations 2001

Explanatory Note

(This note is not part of the Regulations)

These Regulations, which amend the National Minimum Wage Regulations 1999 and come into force on 1st May 2001, ensure that all trainees on the Government training schemes to which the Regulations relate are excluded from entitlement to the national minimum wage during the first 12 months of their engagement under a scheme or if they are under 19. They do this by providing for the exclusion to apply not only, as under the National Minimum Wage Regulations 1999 (Amendment) Regulations 2000, where the trainees are workers within the meaning given by section 54(3) of the National Minimum Wage Act 1998 but also where they are to be regarded as workers by virtue of the additions to that definition contained in regulation 2(1) of the 1999 Regulations. The additions relate to agency workers and home workers who are outside the definition of “worker” in section 54(3).

The Regulations contain a transitional provision.

A Regulatory Impact Assessment of the estimated costs and benefits of these Regulations is not required since they do not alter the intended effect of the Regulations which came into force on 1 October 2000, but rather correct a potential anomaly in the previous wording. The intention to make this correction was signalled by the Government during the passage of the previous Regulations through Parliament (ref. Hansard: National Minimum Wage Regulations 1999 (Amendment) Regulations 2000 debate, House of Lords, 14 July 2000, col. 524.) A Regulatory Impact Assessment of the costs and benefits of the previous Regulations, which took effect in October 2000, was placed in the Libraries of both Houses of Parliament and is available on the DTI website at www.dti.gov.uk. Assessments of the impact of the original 1999 Regulations and the amendments in 2000 are also available from Employment Relations 5(c), Department of Trade and Industry, 1 Victoria Street, London SW1H 0ET.