by Peter Lazenby and
Zoe Streatfield

HUNDREDS of companies are ignoring the government’s “living wage” of a paltry £7.20 an hour and are paying staff the real living wage of £7.85 and £9.15 an hour in London.

In his last Budget, Chancellor George Osborne boasted that the government would introduce its own £7.20 an hour rate, but only for workers over 25 and not until April next year.

However, according to the independent Living Wage Foundation, which sets the rate for the true living wage, there are 1,800 employers accredited as paying that minimum, including almost 200 that have signed up recently.

The firms include giants such as supermarket chains Lidl and Morrisons, furniture retailer IKEA, energy suppliers British Gas, National Grid, Centrica, Good Energy and SSE and banks RBS, HSBC, Barclays, Santander and Nationwide.

Living Wage Foundation director Rhys Moore said: “We call on responsible businesses to pay the UK living wage.”

The news coincided with the Scottish government criticising Mr Osborne’s higher national minimum wage for “disgracefully discriminating” against young workers.

Scottish Fair Work Secretary Roseanna Cunningham said the Chancellor’s offer was “not a living wage and should not be referred to as such.”

Labour MSP Neil Findlay also rejected Mr Osborne’s “attempt to con people” but hit back at Ms Cunningham’s claims about the Scottish government’s record on low pay.

He said that First Minister Nicola Sturgeon had instructed her SNP MSPs to reject Labour’s amendments to the public procurement Bill that would have meant that workers employed on public-sector contracts would have received a living wage.

Mr Findlay told the Star that “companies who fail to pay a fair wage should not receive public contracts.”