A Bolton solicitors was named and shamed this week for a breach of the law on the minimum wage which saw 10 employees miss out on almost £12,000.

Lex Legal (UK) Ltd, or Lex Solicitors, was one of more than 200 businesses on a list published by the Department for Business and Trade on Wednesday.

The St Marks Street solicitors committed a breach of the law on the minimum wage which saw 10 employees miss out on £11,559.42 the department said.

It is understood Lex Solicitors and all of the other businesses on the list, which includes high street brands such as Marks & Spencer and WHSmith, paid their staff the sums and received penalties.

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Business Minister Kevin Hollinrake said: "Paying the minimum wage is non-negotiable and all businesses, whatever their size, should know better than to short-change their staff.

"Most businesses do the right thing and look after their staff, but we are sending a clear message to the minority who ignore the law – pay your staff properly," Mr Hollinrake added.

A lot of underpayments are unintentional and caused by issues such as problems with payments to apprentices.

It is understood this was the case at Lex Solicitors where apprentices from Bolton College continued to receive the relevant salary even after their apprenticeships came to an end.

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Ayub Patel, the founder of the firm, said: "We employed a number of apprentices through Bolton College. All our payroll is done externally. 

"The apprentices were being paid an apprentice wage. After the apprenticeship ended they carried on being paid the apprentice wage as we were not informed by the college the apprenticeship ended. 

"As soon as we were advised of the anomaly it was rectified immediately and the difference was paid to the employees. This was an error which was rectified as soon as it was brought to our attention.

"This matter arose in December 2018. Since then we have put checks in place to ensure there was not a repeat of the error."

This article was written by Jack Tooth. To contact him, email jack.tooth@newsquest.co.uk or follow @JTRTooth on Twitter.