{"id":141634,"date":"2025-05-29T14:41:08","date_gmt":"2025-05-29T14:41:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/141634\/"},"modified":"2025-05-29T14:41:08","modified_gmt":"2025-05-29T14:41:08","slug":"the-kent-businesses-named-and-shamed-by-the-government-for-underpaying-staff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/141634\/","title":{"rendered":"The Kent businesses named and shamed by the government for underpaying staff"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Restaurants, a farm and a supercar garage are among the Kent businesses today named and shamed by the government for underpaying staff.<\/p>\n

Fourteen firms in the county were found to have been in breach of the National Minimum Wage law.<\/p>\n

\"ClockClock House Farm in Coxheath previously featured in a four-part series of adverts for M&S showcasing its Victoria blackberries. Picture: KM<\/p>\n

They include Maidstone-based Clock House Farm, which supplies fruit for M&S<\/a>, and the Lanna Thai restaurant in Canterbury.<\/p>\n

It follows investigations by HMRC which concluded between 2015-2022.<\/p>\n

The businesses, which faced financial penalties of up to 200% of their underpayment, have since handed over the cash they owed staff.<\/p>\n

In total in Kent, 1,298 employees were affected and \u00a373,920 was repaid.<\/p>\n

Minister for Employment Rights Justin Madders said: \u201cThere is no excuse for employers to undercut their workers, and we will continue to name companies who break the law and don\u2019t pay their employees what they are owed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"LannaLanna Thai in Dover Street, Canterbury. Picture: Google<\/p>\n

Another firm named by the government today is Medway-based Premier Work Support Limited which left 428 people out of pocket between 2015 and 2021. It was forced to stump up \u00a35,272.92, amounting to \u00a312.32 per person.<\/p>\n

At the other end of the scale, a single employee from Supercar Italia, a luxury car garage in Biggin Hill, received \u00a34,997.94 after HMRC found it had failed to properly compensate them for 12 months in 2018 and 2019.<\/p>\n

Clock House Farm owed 69 workers \u00a3136 each on average, with the arrears period between 2017 and 2020.<\/p>\n

Two employees at Lanna Thai were repaid \u00a3280.<\/p>\n

The others on the list are: Kazoku Restaurant Group, Network Tyre & Auto Limited, Total Cleaning South Limited, Temple Farm Limited (trading as Shell), St John’s Road Garage Limited, Hi-Spec Facilities Services Ltd, Vapour C Co Ltd (trading as Vapour Cigarette Company), Viv Designs Ltd and Eastchurch Holiday Centre Limited.<\/p>\n

The Department for Business and Trade says a \u201cstrong economy can only be built when people have financial security whilst in work and robust enforcement action will be taken against employers who do not pay their staff correctly\u201d.<\/p>\n

Across the UK, 518 businesses were found to have failed to pay their workers more than \u00a37.4 million in a breach of the National Minimum Wage law, leaving almost 60,000 people out of pocket.<\/p>\n

\"EastchurchEastchurch Holiday Centre on the Isle of Sheppey. Picture: John Nurden<\/p>\n

Mr Madders added: \u201cEnsuring workers have the support they need and making sure they receive a fair day\u2019s pay for a fair day\u2019s work is a key commitment in our Plan for Change.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis will put more money in working people\u2019s pockets, helping to boost productivity, and ending low pay.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Restaurants, a farm and a supercar garage are among the Kent businesses today named and shamed by the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":141635,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[51,495,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-141634","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-kent","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114591648135801524","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141634\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/141635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}