More than 650 businesses, including B&Q, Five Guys and Serco, have been named by the government for failing to pay some of their employees the minimum wage. The 658 employers on the list have repaid a total of about £4m to more than 27,000 workers.

The Department for Business & Trade published the list on 3 September and said the repayments followed “robust” enforcement action. Ministers said penalties totalling £7m had been issued to employers found not to be paying the legal minimum.

Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, said: “Short-changing your staff isn’t a shortcut to success and we are determined to stamp it out.”

Kate Dearden, minister for the future of work, said: “Underpaying your staff is illegal, and we will not let workers foot the bill for their boss failing to follow the rules.”

The government said it was committed to publishing naming lists more regularly so that employers were swiftly held to account and made improvements as quickly as possible. A previous naming round covered 239 employers who underpaid 22,400 workers a total of £1.44m.

B&Q tops the list

B&Q, the DIY retailer, was at the top of the list after failing to pay 4,530 workers correctly, owing them a total of £456,934. The company said the shortfalls in payments were “unintentional” and “related to calculations involving geographical allowances which are paid in addition to minimum hourly rates”. The affected employees were paid in full in July 2025, the company said.

Elysium Healthcare Holdings 3 Limited was second on the government’s list, owing £330,048 to 1,095 workers. St George’s, Epsom and St Helier Hospital Group owed £123,331 to 75 workers, while Support Staff Services Limited owed £119,715 to 323 workers and Forest Holidays owed £100,308 to 598 workers.

Five Guys, the burger chain, was named for underpaying almost 3,700 of its workers a total of £54,642. “Following an HMRC review, technical differences in how payroll regulations were applied affected our national minimum wage calculations, resulting in a shortfall of approximately £55,000 across a payroll of more than £330 million,” the company said. It added that it had paid all current and former staff affected.

Serco underpaid 374 staff a total of £36,303. A spokesman for the outsourcer, which provides services to asylum hotels, defence programmes, hospitals, schools, offices and prisons, said the shortfall came from a technical error that affected one contract more than two years ago and related to salary sacrifice schemes. “It was quickly rectified once identified and all employees were reimbursed in full,” Serco said.

Whitbread, the owner of the Premier Inn hotel chain, appeared on the list after failing to pay 342 employees a total of £4,193. The FTSE 100 company said the shortfall was caused by an administrative error which has since been rectified.

Rates rose in April

The minimum wage, known as the national living wage for those aged 21 and over, was introduced more than 20 years ago. The rate for over-21s rose to £12.71 an hour on 1 April 2026, with the rate for 18 to 20-year-olds increasing to £10.85 and the rate for under-18s and apprentices set at £8.00. The rates change on 1 April every year, according to the government.

Amy Ingham

Amy Ingham is a reporter at Business Matters, covering UK business news with a focus on breaking news, business policy, late payments and insolvency. She joined the magazine in 2026 after completing the NCTJ Diploma in Journalism at Harlow College’s journalism school. Her recent reporting includes British Steel’s nationalisation and its impact on SME suppliers, the decline in late payments by large firms, and Insolvency Service director disqualifications. Reach her at aingham@cbmeg.co.uk.

Travis Kelce shared new details about his July wedding to Taylor Swift during the Season 5 premiere of his podcast, offering fans their most extensive look yet at the private, star-studded celebration and gushing over comedian Adam Sandler’s decision to officiate the ceremony.

Kelce, the Kansas City Chiefs tight end, discussed the wedding at length on the Sept. 2 episode of “New Heights,” the podcast he co-hosts with his older brother and retired NFL star, Jason Kelce. Swift and Kelce married on July 3 at Madison Square Garden in New York City in a ceremony attended by roughly 1,000 guests, following a wedding-planning process that had been kept largely under wraps despite intense public interest.

“It’s a night out we’ll never forget,” Travis said of the celebration.

Describing the event further, Travis called it “a magical, magical night,” reflecting on how quickly the evening seemed to pass despite the months of anticipation surrounding it.

“It was insane. It’s a night we’ll never forget,” Travis said. “Me and Taylor are so thankful for everyone that showed up, from the vows to just seeing everyone to how much fun we had throughout the entire evening and hearing that be relayed through everybody’s stories of the night. It was just so magical, man, and I wish that it could have lasted even longer than it did. It felt like it just happened in the blink of an eye.”

Much of Travis’s discussion centered on Sandler, who officiated the ceremony after getting ordained specifically for the occasion, a choice Travis said was something he and Swift had wanted from the outset.

“He has been just the f—ing best person on this planet,” Travis said of Sandler on the podcast.

Sandler’s role as officiant surprised many observers when it was first confirmed in a press release issued the night of the wedding, which noted that the couple did not have traditional bridesmaids or groomsmen. Instead, Swift’s brother, Austin Swift, served as her Man of Honor, while Jason Kelce served as Travis’s Best Man, with the ceremony officiated by the couple’s friend, Adam Sandler.

Sandler’s connection to the couple dates back several years. He worked directly with Travis on the set of “Happy Gilmore 2,” the Netflix sequel released last year, in which Travis had a cameo appearance as a waiter. Following the film’s release, Travis publicly thanked Sandler on Instagram, writing that the opportunity still felt surreal and expressing gratitude toward him. Sandler, for his part, has spoken warmly about Travis in multiple interviews since then, telling Entertainment Tonight that Travis reminded him of friends he grew up with and describing him as “a great actor and a great human.”

Sandler has also expressed admiration for Swift specifically. Appearing on “New Heights” in August 2024, Sandler told Kelce directly how much he admired Swift’s music and the broader impact of her career.

“She means so much to our house,” Sandler said at the time. “I love listening to her in the car. I love what she has to say, every message, every melody. The production. How cool she was. What she meant to young girls. What she means to women. What she means to guys doing the right thing in life.”

Sandler also described a moment of foreshadowing from months before the couple’s engagement, recalling a conversation about writing Travis into a role resembling family.

“I was thinking, we were talking about you playing my son while we were writing it literally like six months ago,” Sandler said. “We were like, ‘Imagine if Travis was my first baby, how funny that would be.’”

Kansas City Chiefs head coach Andy Reid, who attended the wedding as one of the roughly 1,000 guests, later offered his own account of Sandler’s performance as officiant in an interview with CNN, describing the speech as striking a careful balance between humor and sincerity.

“Adam Sandler did a phenomenal job with the ceremony,” Reid said, adding that Sandler brought “a little bit of humor and a bit of sensitivity to what was going on. There was a lot of people from different worlds, and he brought them all together.”

Reid also revealed some of the specific advice Sandler offered the newlyweds during the ceremony.

“Kiss every chance you have. Every day. Whether you’re going to bed or going to work. Whenever, go ahead and kiss her,” Sandler told the couple, according to Reid’s account.

The guest list for the wedding reportedly included a wide range of prominent figures from music, film and sports, including Selena Gomez, Lena Dunham, Zoë Kravitz, Karlie Kloss, Gigi Hadid, Ed Sheeran, the Haim sisters, country stars Brad Paisley and Miranda Lambert, along with numerous NFL figures connected to Travis’s football career.

Details about the wedding’s specific theme and catering have gradually emerged in the weeks since the ceremony, with reports indicating the celebration featured an enchanted-garden theme alongside arcade-style catering options for guests. Swift’s publicist previously confirmed that both Swift and Travis wore custom Christian Dior outfits for the occasion, paired with Christian Louboutin shoes and Cartier jewelry for Swift, though Swift herself has not yet publicly commented on the wedding or released official images from the event.

Travis had previously described the wedding as “the best night of my life” during an Aug. 12 Chiefs press conference, thanking everyone who attended and celebrated with the couple. His latest podcast comments build further on that sentiment, offering fans additional insight into both the emotional significance of the night and the close friendship between the newlyweds and Sandler that ultimately led to his role at the center of the ceremony.

Swift and Travis announced their engagement on Aug. 26 of the prior year, following roughly two years of dating that had drawn significant public and media attention, given Swift’s global music career and Travis’s prominence as a star tight end for the Chiefs. Their subsequent wedding, held nearly a year after the engagement announcement, capped what became one of the most closely followed celebrity relationships of recent years, culminating in a ceremony that combined figures from Swift’s music and entertainment circles with Travis’s football and broader sports world connections.