Asked by
To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans they have to speed up
progress on closing the gender pay gap.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for
Education () (Con)
My Lords, the gender pay gap has fallen by approximately a
quarter in the last decade. It was a Conservative Government who
introduced gender pay gap reporting, building on the robust equal
pay protections already in the Equality Act. This has motivated
employers to look at their pay data and improve workplace
equality. To accelerate progress we have supported legislation to
enhance flexible working, extend redundancy protection for those
on maternity leave and introduce carers’ leave.
(Lab)
I thank the Minister for that Answer and particularly welcome the
flexible working initiative. Given those endeavours, have the
Government made any assessment of how quickly we might bring
forward the expected date of 2044 for getting to equal pay? I
invite the Minister to support the Labour policy that we should
enshrine in law a full right to equal pay for black, Asian and
ethnic-minority people, and disabled people, phasing this in to
help employers. Does the Minister think that is a good idea?
(Con)
In response to the noble Baroness’s first question, as she
understands very well, a number of factors influence how quickly
the gender pay gap will decline. Obviously, there is so much
research now on the value of a diverse workforce and how that
improves profitability and competitiveness; we hope it will
accelerate. In relation to ethnicity pay gap reporting, the noble
Baroness will be aware that this gap is 2.3%, much smaller than
the gender pay gap. We are working on promoting our guidance on
how to address this through employer groups. In relation to
disability reporting, following the successful court action we
are reviewing our responses to the consultation.
(LD)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that the value of any employee
should be based on the contribution that they will make to the
organisation, not what they were earning before? Research by the
charity Fawcett found that 61% of job applicants asked about
previous salary history said that it damaged their confidence to
negotiate a better salary. Does she not agree that this
requirement bakes in gender, race and disability inequality and
prevents people on lower salaries ever making the salary strides
they need?
(Con)
Those were some of the questions we explored in our pay
transparency pilot, which looked at the impact of requiring
employers to put salary information into their job recruitment
advertisements and not asking about previous salaries. We plan to
publish the methodology for that so that employers can adopt it.
We will also do more work to look at the challenges of
implementation.
(Con)
Does my noble friend the Minister share my concern about the
gender pay gap in pensions, which just accumulates in historical
terms to create a very serious problem in the future?
(Con)
My noble friend is absolutely right. Last June, DWP published an
official measure of the gender pensions gap, which is currently
35% in private pensions. The reforms that we brought in will mean
that 3 million women will benefit by more than £550 per year by
2030 and that the gender pensions gap will equalise by the early
2040s—more than 10 years earlier than under previous
legislation.
(Lab)
My Lords, following the previous supplementary question, I think
the Minister was referring to achieving equality in state
pensions. The big problem—and what is leading to most of the
gender pension gap—is the difference in the caring
responsibilities, with most unpaid care undertaken by women. The
Minister is correct that the Government have identified the
problem; can she give a commitment to come up with a worthwhile
solution?
(Con)
As I have already said, the Government are working on a number of
different aspects of this. Obviously, a critical part in relation
to maternity leave—and the impact that, as the noble Lord rightly
says, one can see on the gender pay gap —is our huge commitment
to expanding the childcare offer, so that no women will be unable
to return to work for lack of childcare support.
(Lab)
My Lords, the Government have just produced a list of employers
that paid below the minimum wage, in some cases for many years.
Does this not show that we need stronger enforcement powers and
more people checking that employers are doing their duty and
paying their workers correctly?
(Con)
If I have understood correctly—forgive me if I have not—the noble
Lord is potentially conflating different things. Obviously, the
minimum wage is a legal requirement, and the equal pay
legislation addresses the same in relation to gender and other
aspects. What we are seeking to do, through enabling activities
around flexible working, for example, but also maximising
transparency and celebrating the success of employers that have a
truly diverse workforce, is to use multiple levers to get to the
same goal.
(Con)
My Lords, since we have made such progress in dealing with the
gender pay gap, might we also turn our attention to trying to
persuade employers of the importance of helping parents, most of
them women, who have taken time out from their careers to bring
up children, to get back into the workforce with the same status
at which they left it?
(Con)
My noble friend is absolutely right. Part of that is about the
time it takes for working parents to get back into the workforce.
Our commitments—starting this April and building up, so that
there will be 30 hours of free childcare for every family with a
child nine months old and above—will be crucial for achieving
that.
(Lab)
There is mandatory reporting —although there needs to be more—but
when are the Government going to get tougher about taking
proceedings against companies that do not report in their annual
report or ensure that the Equal Pay Act is committed to? No
companies are really being taken to court on this issue, so the
Government need to step up on this.
(Con)
I am more than happy to take that back to the department. The
mandatory reporting applies to companies with more than 250
employees. I was not aware of the cases that the noble Baroness
refers to, but I am happy to pick that up.
(LD)
My Lords, the right to request flexible working has made major
strides for women since it was introduced, but what if companies
of a certain size were also required to include possible flexible
working options in their recruitment when advertising for these
posts? The Minister may be aware that a recent trial in Zurich
led to a massive one-third more women being hired for senior
positions. Does the Minister agree that a similar trial in the UK
would be worth undertaking?
(Con)
A number of businesses offer flexible working from day one, and
obviously there is a legal duty to do so from 26 weeks’
employment. As all noble Lords will recognise, we have seen a
tremendous change in patterns of work following the pandemic,
particularly flexibility between the workplace and home, and
there is an increasing natural adoption of those approaches.
(Con)
My Lords, in relation to the gender pension deficit, is it the
case that, when women are getting divorced and may not have legal
advice, they are not taking the correct decisions—for example,
they assume that the former matrimonial home is the largest
asset—and not getting the pension split on divorce? Could we have
some data to illuminate that and better communication to women in
those situations?
(Con)
As ever, my noble friend makes a very good point. I would be
happy to meet her afterwards to explore how we could make that a
reality.
