Low-paid workers are to receive a 10p an hour rise from October.

The minimum wage is to increase from �4.10 to �4.20 an hour. The rate for workers aged 18 to 21 will go up by the same amount to �3.60 an hour.

It is the second increase in the minimum wage in six months.

Last October, the minimum wage went up by 40p and the government promised then that it would rise by another 10p if economic conditions allowed it.

A Department of Trade and Industry spokesman said: "The minimum wage has dramatically boosted the pay of over a million low-paid workers, especially women.

'Crumbs'

"This will be the second increase since September last year, increasing the minimum wage by 50p or just over 13%."

But the director of the Low Pay Unit, Richard Towers, said the rise did not match those given to company executives.

"After another crop of increases in executive salaries, there are a few crumbs to be spared for those at the bottom of the earnings league," he told The Sunday Mirror.

"We have to ask ourselves, is this the best we can do to create the more equal, stakeholder society which is New Labour's dream?"

The wage was set at �3.60 when it was introduced in 1999.