Union chiefs have pressed the government to introduce a minimum wage for teenage workers.

A report to the TUC Young Members Forum in Lincolnshire said that a "modest" rate of £3 an hour would increase the pay of 65,000 workers aged 16 or 17.

Forum Response: National Youth Agency

Tom Wylie, chief executive of the National Youth Agency, told ePolitix.com: "The National Youth Agency agrees with the TUC. The principle should be equal pay for equal work. There is an understandable tension with not pricing young people out of a start in the labour market but some of the rates are exploitative."

Forum Response: USDAW

Bill Connor, general secretary at Usdaw, told ePolitix.com: "Usdaw have always upheld that 16 and 17 year olds need protection to prevent them from being exploited and to prevent unscrupulous employers from using teenagers as cheap labour to undercut more responsible companies."

"The lack of a minimum wage for 16 and 17 year olds defeats the objects of the minimum wage in preventing exploitation and wage undercutting in many sectors, particularly where there are no recognized trade unions.

"The government need to act to stop this bad practice and to protect teenagers at work as soon as possible."

Forum Response: Federation of Small Businesses

A spokesman for the FSB told ePolitix.com: "The TUC proposal will hinder the very people it is seeking to help. By introducing a £3 minimum wage for young workers, jobs that offer training for school leavers will be put under threat. At this difficult time for businesses, we need to be increasing flexibility in the labour market, not reducing it."

Forum Response: Institute of Directors

A spokesman for the IoD told ePolitix.com: "Whilst we agree that young people must be paid a decent living wage it is nevertheless likely that in an economic downturn smaller companies will not be able to absorb this additional increase in wage costs, resulting in less young people being employed."

Forum Response: Centrepoint

A spokesman for Centrepoint told ePolitix.com: "Centrepoint recently conducted focus groups on the National Minimum Wage in our projects for homeless young people between the ages of 16 and 25.

"Very few of our residents were aware that there was a National Minimum Wage and even more were surprised to discover that there were two separate rates.

"Centrepoint believes that it would be more equitable to set one standard rate rather than separate youth and adult rates, and agrees with the TUC in that 16 and 17 year olds should be covered too."