MINISTERS must introduce a £10 an hour minimum wage, Britain’s largest union insisted yesterday, as new figures revealed that a quarter of workers outside London are stuck on poverty pay.

The Office for National Statistics reported that the proportion of jobs paying less than £7.85 an hour — the minimum set by the Living Wage Foundation — rose from 21 per cent to 23 per cent between April 2012 and April 2014. In London, where the living wage is set at £9.15 an hour, the proportion paying less soared by six points to 19 per cent.

Unite assistant general secretary Steve Turner said: “This is a double whammy. Not only are bosses failing to pay the living wage but these workers are the very people who will be hit by the savage cuts to working tax credits.