An inflation-busting rise in the minimum wage to £8.72 an hour for over-25s has drawn criticism from both bosses and trade unions.

Boris Johnson hailed the “biggest ever” increase in the official wage floor – a hike of 51p, or 6.2 per cent, from next April – saying: “For too long people haven't seen the pay rises they deserve.”

Younger workers on low pay will see it boosted by between 4.6 per cent and 6.5 per cent, depending on their age, with 21 to 24-year-olds receiving a 50p increase from £7.70 to £8.20 an hour.

But the British Chambers of Commerce said such a large increase would create problems for businesses “in a time of great economic uncertainty”.

“Raising wage floors by more than double the rate of inflation will pile further pressure on cashflow and eat into training and investment budgets,” said Hannah Essex, its co-executive director.

“For this policy to be sustainable, government must offset these costs by reducing others and impose a moratorium on any further upfront costs for business.”

The TUC, meanwhile, pointed out it would take another four years for the so-called “national living wage” to reach the £10 level promised by Labour at the general election.

Biggest lies told by Boris Johnson Show all 5 1 /5 Biggest lies told by Boris Johnson Biggest lies told by Boris Johnson Made-up quote for The Times Johnson was sacked from The Times newspaper in the late 1980s after he fabricated a quote from his godfather, the historian Colin Lucas, for a front-page article about the discovery of Edward II’s Rose Palace. “The trouble was that somewhere in my copy I managed to attribute to Colin the view that Edward II and Piers Gaveston would have been cavorting together in the Rose Palace,” he claimed. Alas, Gaveston was executed 13 years before the palace was built. “It was very nasty,” Mr Johnson added, before attempting to downplay it as nothing more than a schoolboy blunder. PA Biggest lies told by Boris Johnson Sacked from cabinet over cheating lie Michael Howard gave Boris Johnson two new jobs after becoming leader of the Conservatives in 2003 – party vice-chairman and shadow arts minister. He was sacked from both positions in November 2004 after assuring Mr Howard that tabloid reports of his affair with Spectator columnist Petronella Wyatt were false and an “inverted pyramid of piffle”. When the story was found to be true, he refused to resign. PA Biggest lies told by Boris Johnson Broken promise to boss In 1999 Johnson was offered editorship of The Spectator by owner Conrad Black on the condition that he would not stand as an MP while in the post. In 2001 he stood - and was elected - MP for Henley, though Black did allow him to continue as editor despite calling "ineffably duplicitous" PA Biggest lies told by Boris Johnson Misrepresenting the people of Liverpool As editor of The Spectator, he was forced to apologise for an article in the magazine which blamed drunken Liverpool fans for the 1989 Hillsborough disaster and suggested that the people of the city were wallowing in their victim status. “Anyone, journalist or politician, should say sorry to the people of Liverpool – as I do – for misrepresenting what happened at Hillsborough,” he said. PA Biggest lies told by Boris Johnson ‘I didn’t say anything about Turkey’ Johnson claimed in January, that he did not mention Turkey during the EU referendum campaign. In fact, he co-signed a letter stating that “the only way to avoid having common borders with Turkey is to vote Leave and take back control”. The Vote Leave campaign also produced a poster reading: “Turkey (population 76 million) is joining the EU”

Furthermore, earlier this month, the government watered down its pledge to raise the floor to £10.50 by 2024, saying it would only happen “provided economic conditions allow”.

Frances O’Grady, the TUC’s general secretary, said: “Workers are still not getting a fair share of the wealth they create. And in-work poverty is soaring as millions of families struggle to make ends meet.

“No more excuses, working families need a £10 minimum wage now, not in four years’ time.”

Katherine Chapman, director of the Living Wage Foundation, said the increase still did not take the minimum wage up to £9.30 – or £10.75 in London – which the charity calculates is the level needed to cover the cost of living.

She said: “There are still more than 5 million workers in the UK earning less than the real living wage.

“There is a still a gap between the government minimum and the real living wage, independently calculated based on what it costs to live."

Ministers said nearly 3 million workers would benefit from the increases, worth £930 a year for an over-25 full-time worker, and that the wage floor was “on track” to hit 60 per cent of median earnings by 2020.

Nye Cominetti, an economic analyst at the Resolution Foundation think tank, welcomed the increase but warned it was “not risk-free”.