Poverty pay employers face being named and shamed under plans proposed by Labour MP Heidi Alexander yesterday.

Her Bill would force every British company to come clean over the percentage of their staff earning less than the living wage.

She said it would “end the silence on poverty pay that allows many of our biggest companies to inflate their profit margins at the expense of their staff and of every taxpayer.”

The plan comes amid a rise under the Con-Dem government in the number of workers earning less than the living wage.

“Many of the UK’s largest, most well-known companies pay wages which people can’t afford to live on,” said Ms Alexander.

“Millions of shop-workers, care assistants, cleaners and catering staff are paid so little that the only way they can make ends meet is with the help of tax credits and in-work housing benefit.”

Shadow work and pensions secretary Rachel Reeves will address the issue in a speech today on Labour’s plan to make work pay and the Tory failure on wages.

Prime Minister David Cameron described the living wage as “an idea whose time has come” when he arrived in Downing Street in 2010.

But 1.4 million have been condemned to poverty pay over the five years since his Tory-led coalition took power.

Now a massive 4.9 million British workers — one in five — survive on less than the living wages of £9.15 in London and £7.85 per hour elsewhere.

Introducing her 10-minute rule Bill, Ms Alexander told MPs: “Put simply, the state is supplementing the incomes of the low paid while subsidising the wage bill of their employers.”

But the MP singled out for praise south London’s Jane Jefferson cleaners, who are the only domestic cleaning company recognised by the Living Wage Foundation.

Boss Jennifer O’Donnell told the Star why the company’s slogan is “The Only Way is Ethics.”

“There’s a mindset in the UK that people think it’s OK to pay their cleaners cash in hand or put them on this grey market of self employment,” she said.

“But I’m passionate about people being looked after so I’m giving them rights and giving them a fair wage.”