labour wouldn't have brought in the £18k6 minimum, supposedly the tories wanted to put the figure to over £25k a year but the libs wouldn't support the gov unless they used the lower figure of £18k6.
the Tories brought in a nasty law in the past The Primary Purpose rule and its one of the first things labour scrapped.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/special/po...05/straw.shtml