Draft Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties and public authorities) regulations 2017

Angela Crawley Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd February 2017 General Committees

[Caroline Dinenage]

The hon. Lady knows that I am passionate about this and will not let it drag on forever. I will keep it under constant review. She knows, as well as I do, that I am not in the business of spending taxpayers’ money before knowing that that money is going to be well spent and will make a real and positive difference to working women—and men and employers—up and down the UK.

[Angela Crawley (Lanark and Hamilton East) (SNP)]

The Minister mentioned earlier the work of the Women and Equalities Committee inquiry. A number of witnesses to that inquiry outlined that the European Commission recommends a threshold of 50 employees. Does the Minister accept that a more ambitious target would bring forward the kind of changes that we want a bit earlier?

[Caroline Dinenage]

That is in terms of the number of employees one would have to have. As I said at the outset, we wanted to do this hand in hand with business. One concern articulated by business right at the beginning was that, if businesses did not feel that they had bought into this and could not see the advantages, the more unscrupulous ones might subcontract all their lower paid jobs to microbusinesses or very small companies to get round the gender pay gap reporting. We do not want to be in that position. We want to be in a position where businesses, authorities and public bodies all see that there is a genuine benefit in maximising the potential of every single member of their talented workforce, bringing them through the pipeline and making sure they reach the absolute pinnacle of what their skills allow them to do—and that they look at all the different resources available to them such as flexible working and shared parental leave.

It is important to note that we may not have such a low threshold of staff as other European countries, but the way we want to report is much more onerous. We cover bonus pay gaps as well. We know that the bonus pay gap is significantly larger than the gender pay gap on average. Men get paid significantly more and that is why we are asking for a median and mean average for bonus pay gaps. Our requirements are a little bit more arduous, but we think that they are the way we are going to get to the nub of this problem and really begin to tackle it.

The right hon. Member for Slough spoke about older workers and older women in particular. I am really dedicated to looking at ways to tackle the challenges facing older women in work. We are really committed to unlocking the skills, talents and experience of all women and supporting them to reach their economic potential. We will shortly publish “Fuller Working Lives: a partnership approach”, which sets out how working longer can benefit businesses, individuals and the economy, and the key actions that Government are taking. In the meantime the Women’s Business Council, which this Government established, has set up its own action group on staying on. It specifically looks at what businesses can do to support older workers, such as encouraging greater use of flexible working and providing practical support.

I am really pleased that the Committee broadly welcomes the regulations and that we agree on the underlying policy intention to accelerate action to close the gender pay gap. On that basis, I hope that hon. Members will support the regulations, which I commend to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.