Finance (No. 2) Act 2015

4 Personal allowance and national minimum wage: Chancellor’s duties

(1) This section applies where the personal allowance for income tax for the time being specified in section 35(1) of ITA 2007 is less than £12,500.

(2) Before the Chancellor of the Exchequer announces a proposal to increase that allowance to an amount which is less than £12,500, he or she must consider the financial effect of the proposal on a person paid the relevant national minimum wage.

(3) If such a proposal is announced, the Chancellor of the Exchequer must make a statement as to what he or she considers that that financial effect would be.

(4) In this section—

• “person paid the relevant national minimum wage” means a person who works for 30 hours a week for a year at the relevant national minimum wage;

• “relevant national minimum wage” means—

  (a)

  the hourly rate prescribed under section 3(2)(b) of the National Minimum Wage Act 1998 in relation to persons aged 21, or

  (b)

  if no hourly rate is so prescribed in relation to such persons, the single hourly rate prescribed under section 1(3) of that Act.

(5) This section ceases to have effect when the allowance referred to in subsection (1) becomes an amount of £12,500 or more.