To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform with reference to his Department’s press release of 18 November 2008, what the budget is for the It’s Your Call Road Show; when the road show will (a) commence and (b) conclude; which are the 28 towns and cities it will visit; and what were the criteria by which those locations were selected. (241639)

The budget for the ‘Its Your Call’ road show is £250,000. The road show was launched on 18 November and commenced in Cardiff on 19 November, it will conclude on 7 February 2009. During this time the road show is visiting; Cardiff, Bristol, Newport, Swansea, Stirling, Kilmarnock, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Huddersfield, Sheffield, Norwich, Peterborough, Leicester, Derby, Liverpool, Blackburn, Manchester, Coventry, Nottingham, Birmingham, Newcastle, Middlesbrough, Sunderland, London, Portsmouth and Plymouth. We have chosen locations which have a large number of low paid workers as we want to reach as many people as possible who could be affected by the minimum wage.