The Diocese of Llandaff has announced it’s now one of over 11,000 employers paying the real living wage across the UK.

The real living wage is the only UK wage rate independently calculated to be enough for employees and their families to live on. The rate is established every year and has increased by a pound from 2021 to 2022.

Diocesan Secretary James Laing said: “It’s implicit and self-evident. The Bible calls us to treat everyone with justice. The least we can do, as a Church, is to pay the people we employ a reasonable wage – and then call on others to do so.”

So far, 17,518 workers in Wales have seen a rise due to the real living wage which is now £10.90 per hour. The difference earning a real living wage makes compared to the government’s national living wage amounts to £2730 a year across the UK.

Laing said this is a significant difference for households trying to keep up with rising living costs and is a lifeline in some cases.

He told Premier: “As a charity, as a Church, we're called upon to treat people well,  to treat people as we would want to be treated. Jesus told many parables about doing the right thing by employees. It's unconscionable to pay people something which they cannot live upon”.

He added: “We have always been paying a respectable wage… but it really came to the point that this is a time when it's going to be tough for many of our people, for our staff, or our clergy, for our church members, so anything we can do to help is going to be valuable.

The Church of Wales and other dioceses have approved to pay the real living wage to staff and are waiting accreditation to put it into action.

Listen to Premier's interview with James Laing here: