Ethnicity Pay Gap

Debate between Lord Boateng and Baroness Barran

Thursday 25th April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I am more than happy to take this back to the department and share my noble friend’s reflections, but I remind the House that there is no ethnicity pay gap for people born in this country from roughly half the ethnic-minority groups. In fact, in a number of cases there is a pay gap in the other direction. The issue is much greater for those not born in the UK, and there we need to understand to what extent that reflects level of qualification, level of language, age and a number of other factors.

[Lord Boateng (Lab)]

My Lords, when the TUC and the CBI are both in agreement that this is a policy that should be introduced and mandated—and the Government spend a great deal of time and effort recruiting workers from overseas to fill gaps in our own labour market—why do the Government not accept the wisdom of the TUC and the CBI? They surely know more about the operation of markets than any Government do.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

As I said, the Government have done extensive work engaging with employers in this area. We have the important work of the Inclusive Britain report. An employer of, say, 250 employees would typically have 25 ethnic-minority employees, if it was in line with the national average. With 18 separate ethnicities, the noble Lord can do the maths on the sample size.

Initial Teacher Training Providers

Debate between Lord Boateng and Baroness Barran

Monday 5th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I obviously cannot comment on those providers that are currently appealing if they did not receive reaccreditation. There are some very strong providers among the new ones—the National Institute of Teaching and the Ambition Institute, among others—but as I mentioned in reply to an earlier question, we are focusing very much on building partnerships with those that have received accreditation and those that were unsuccessful.

[Lord Boateng (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as chancellor of the University of Greenwich. Does the Minister recognise that there are very many real concerns among universities that have been teaching and training teachers for many years about this whole process and its inadequacies? When the appeal process is completed, will she meet with a delegation of vice-chancellors and chancellors to discuss the learnings from this exercise?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I hear the noble Lord’s concerns. We believe that the accreditation process was thorough and fair, but I would be delighted to meet the group, as he suggests.