Rishi Sunak to raise national living wage to £9.50

Chancellor Rishi Sunak will raise the national living wage to £9.50 as part of Wednesday's budget, giving British workers an extra £1,000 per year.

The national living wage, the national minimum wage for anybody over the age of 22-years-old, will increase from £8.91 per hour, while Britons aged 21-22 will see an increase to £9.18 an hour from £8.36 and apprentices 16 and over and not in full-time education will get a rise to £4.81 from £4.30 an hour.

Sunak said: "This is a government that is on the side of working people. This wage boost ensures we're making work pay and keeps us on track to meet our target to end low pay by the end of this parliament."

However, while the Living Wage Foundation welcomed the increases, it also said that the jump to £9.50 will simply bring wages in line with the actual living wage outside of London, adding that the living wage inside London was now £10.85 an hour and that there was still "a substantial gap" between the government-mandated minimum wage and its own calculations.

Labour shadow chief secretary to the Treasury Bridget Phillipson branded the rise as "underwhelming".

"This underwhelming offer works out at £1,000 a year less than Labour's existing plans for a minimum wage of at least £10 per hour for people working full-time," she said.

"Much of it will be swallowed up by the government's tax rises, universal credit cuts and failure to get a grip on energy bills."