LIVE-IN nannies are celebrating a historic victory after ministers scrapped an exemption to the minimum wage rule which saw some workers paid as little as £1 an hour.

Under the “family worker exemption” introduced in 1999, employers did not have to pay workers the minimum wage providing they lived in their house and were treated as part of the family. 

Grassroots group the Nanny Solidarity Network, which has been campaigning to scrap the loophole, said it had created “an invisible, exploited group of migrant women, unable to report abuse and entirely dependent on their host family.”