BBC: Unfair Pay

Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts

Tuesday 9th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I stress that the Government absolutely support urgent action on this. Of course, it was this Government who brought in the requirement for the BBC to publish salaries over £150,000, which is one of the reasons why we are talking about this issue today. The Statement makes it quite clear that the Government expect the BBC to act in accordance with what we have expected it to do as regards the gender pay gap. We understand that when you have a deep-seated and probably long-established problem, it takes some time to deal with and it is a difficult management issue. But let us be under no illusions—the Government expect the director-general and the new unitary board to deal with that. They are the people who have responsibility for that. We are pleased that the EHRC will look at this. For individuals, it has been illegal to pay people unequally because of their gender for over 40 years, and we expect all companies—not only the BBC but especially the BBC, which is a public institution —to obey the law.

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister says that it has been illegal to pay women less than men for 40years. However, is not the crux of the matter that many employers, even those as publicly exposed as the BBC, will pay as little as they think they can get away with, and they think they can get away with paying women less than men? The BBC is in a pickle and it needs to sort itself out, otherwise it will be sorted out by the EHRC. Any employer worth his or her salt appreciates that women are often more hard-working and conscientious—indeed, better employees —than men. However, men know how to demand, and we are conditioned to believe that demanding things, especially money, is strident and inappropriate. But when men do it, that is assertive and appropriate. Enough already—let us have full transparency over pay for everyone. What can the Minister do to ensure that that happens at the BBC and other public bodies?

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I agree with some of what the noble Baroness has said but I do not agree with the general statement that sometimes women work harder or are better at their jobs than men. We are talking about equality here. People should be paid the same for doing the same job and should be treated equally and given the same opportunities. As far as the BBC is concerned, this Government have made transparency available—both by introducing transparency regulations on the gender pay gap for all organisations with more than 250 employees and by making the BBC publish the details of employees earning over £150,000—so that we can look at this situation. We can get all organisations to do what they should be doing, which we all support, by making it transparent when they do not do so, so that their customers, employees and all the stakeholders that deal with them know the sort of organisations they are.