Employment Rights Bill

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 3rd June 2025 Lords Chamber

Debate on whether Clause 31 should stand part of the Bill

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I am proposing that we remove Clause 31 from the Bill. That would remove the power of the Secretary of State to require largely private sector employers with more than 250 staff to develop and publish equality action plans showing what steps they are taking in relation to the gender pay gap and supporting employees going through the menopause. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, who is, sadly, not in her place, and the noble Baroness, Lady Lawlor, who is in her place, for their support.

This is a probing amendment because I am not at all clear exactly why this clause is deemed necessary or indeed exactly what it entails. On the latter point, I note with some dismay that much of the detail is to be left to regulations in terms of the content of an action plan, the form of an action plan, what manner it will take and even its frequency. There is no detail at all on what sanctions employers face if they do not comply with the yet not detailed regulations. It is very difficult to scrutinise such vagaries, and I fear it reduces the issue to nothing more than a virtue-signalling clause to claim that something positive is being done—action is being taken. What action? We do not know.

What we do know is that here is another clause that requires workplaces to create more paperwork. I fear that the noble cause of women’s equality is being reduced to bureaucracy. I am a tad cynical because, since 2017, employers have been required to publish gender pay gap data annually. Now the demand is for actionable steps, yet what is the problem that we are trying to solve here?

The implication is that more needs to be done to crack down on gender discrimination in the workplace, but I am not convinced that that is such a major problem today as is inferred. Which actions would be deemed acceptable might help us understand what this clause is trying to do, but it is never considered. For example, we are frequently given a reference statistic that men earn roughly 20% more than women. But such figures are misleading, as this is an on-average figure reached through combining part-time and full-time earnings and takes no account of age or employment sector.

Are women continually disadvantaged in the workplace in 2025? When we compare how much women and men are paid for doing the same number of hours each week, there is virtually no pay gap. Of course, it would be illegal to pay men more than women. To illustrate the complexities of age, occupation and hours worked, it is worth noting that women in their 20s earn more than men of the same age—not just like-for-like but also on average. Even for all women under 40 working full-time, the pay gap is negligible. Indeed, it was acknowledged by the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, when she was a Government Minister bringing in the pay gap notices. She said then:

“We’ve virtually eliminated the gap for full-time workers under 40 and the gap for the over-40s is shrinking too”.

If we only look at these issues in a technocratic way, do we not we miss nuances?

You could say that a decline in jobs traditionally associated with men earning more is actually a decline in old industries, because there has been a decline since 1979, when 40% of GDP was those old industries in which men earned more. But I am not sure that is something to celebrate. In other words, if you only view equality through the gender pay gap, you could actually end up arguing for the suppression of men’s pay or celebrating its decrease.

More to the point, what are employers being asked to action here, when many of the changes are broad social and cultural shifts, rather than sexist employment practices? It is true that, in the past, the labour market was rigidly segregated according to sex. As a consequence, men and women in their 50s and older today entered a labour market in which women were often not treated fairly. There was a cultural situation where women were more likely to take considerable time out of work to raise a family. This alone explains pay differentials that are still being felt today. But, as I say, as young women are earning more, these things are less of a problem. If we end up thinking that the reason the pay gap exists is older women and those differentials, I am not keen that we end up dumping older female employees so that, on paper, the gap is narrowed. I am not suggesting that anyone is saying that, but I am saying that we should not deal with this in a technical fashion.

I now arrive at something in which I have more expertise: older women. We arrive at the menopause part of the new section to be inserted by this clause. My concern here is that the Bill may end up amplifying the problems caused by the menopause for female employees, unintentionally presenting menopausal women as victims unable to cope. This could re-stigmatise the menopause—the opposite of what is intended. We should remember that the menopause is a natural life stage that all women go through and experience, and they all experience it differently in its duration and symptoms.

I worry that some of this has led to awareness raising that can mystify the menopause and turn it into an imagined horror story. I remember talking to a group of young students some years ago. I made a quip about being menopausal and they all said, “Oh no—how awful. That’s grim. How are you coping? Are you feeling all right?” They seemed terrified at the prospect. The menopause suddenly appeared to be an insurmountable series of anguishes that they would never cope with. Inevitably, they had been on a well-being course that had given them awareness training on the menopause. Do we want such attitudes becoming embedded in attitudes to female staff in the workplace, along with the association that, if you are menopausal, you are a delicate flower who needs to be worked around?

What exactly will employers be required to do to make reasonable adjustments to accommodate the specific needs of menopausal women? I have read activist demands that include the widespread availability of cooling fans; menopause champions and ambassadors in every workplace and department to encourage anti-stigma dialogue across the workforce; therapist sessions, including the availability of therapy dogs; and training courses for HR and management to look at everything from thermostat levels to developing menopause-sensitive language codes. To be honest, lots of these ideas stray dangerously close to condescending women. It might well be that this is not what the Government have in mind at all, but we have no idea if that is true because there are no details in the Bill—in fact, the details are all deferred until after the Bill is passed.

Do not get me wrong—I have been a vocal supporter of improving access to HRT on the NHS and, as a woman of a certain age, I am rather too familiar with some of the debilitating symptoms. But we should be wary of the calls, for example, for menopause leave and time off, with no questions asked, when using the word “menopause” would be enough to mean that—without any evidence and based on lived experience—employers are just meant to accept that there is a problem. There is a danger of green-lighting a mission creep not dissimilar to the crisis of so many not in work citing mental health problems—and I am really pleased to see that the Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, has raised this. That is a new social problem, and I do not want the menopause to become another one.

Again, possibly none of this is what the Government intend, yet we are using legislation to demand that employers must take steps to support employees going through the menopause. That seems completely inappropriate and unjustified, and it is bound to lead to mission creep if this legislation is used to that end, with this clause in it.

I will make two quick points as a PS. Can the Government please be careful with their language? Usually, it is the Government lecturing people like me on the Back Bench about watching our words and what language we use, but, whether we like it or not, the word “gender” has been corrupted by ideology. The pay gap that the Government seek to tackle is between the two sexes—a fear that biological women may be discriminated against as women. I am not being pedantic or referencing the culture wars here; I have been at a number of official corporate events over recent years where businesses were patted on the back for helping women break through the glass ceiling and for their work on the pay gap only for the examples of success given to be trans women—that is, men who identify as women—on corporate boards. I want to avoid that con happening.

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I say to the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, and to my noble brother opposite, that we are taking a delegated power, mirroring the approach taken for gender pay gap reporting. The use of regulations in this way will enable us to share as much detail to employers as possible while maintaining flexibility, which is essential to good employment practices. We are aware that most employers think of equality and inclusion as a whole. That is why we are aiming to reflect how employers already work by proposing a single plan covering both the gender pay gap and the menopause. For these reasons, we believe that equality action plans will benefit women in the workplace and that this clause is vital to strengthening the opportunities available to women. I therefore beg to move that Clause 31 stands part of the Bill.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who spoke, some of whom were more sympathetic than others to what I was trying to raise.

The noble Lord, Lord Palmer of Childs Hill, made an important point when he talked about the importance of accurate data. I agree, but data and statistics are not flat lines; they are complicated. I tried to indicate, without boring your Lordships with lots of statistics, that the gender pay gap number in relation to statistics is to do with age, the past, the change in relation to young women, and so on, which nobody has come back on. In fact, there are books written, and I have papers, and I have read them all—I will not bore your Lordships now—but I suggest that this is not the key issue facing women at work today.

The noble Lord, Lord Collins, came back on a lot of the points in terms of the aspirations, and I agree with him. However, the Government are overcomplacent about the problems of delegated powers and legislative oversight, which I also raised as a substantial part of my complaint. There was no comeback. I supported the Government when they were in opposition. They constantly raised these issues, and I went along with them and supported them.

Despite what the noble Lord, Lord Watson of Invergowrie, suggested, I thought this was a modest proposal, but somehow I have managed to be accused of fuelling Donald Trump and Nigel Farage, and this was called an illustration of my political journey from far left to far right. I will not do a full critique of the attack on me, which was very personal and personalised, but I would like to point out something.

I was and am a member of the left, and the fact that the Labour Party and the left have moved in a different direction from mine does not necessarily mean that I am the one who has moved to the right. I spend a lot of time talking to ordinary working-class people—women and men—who are tearing their hair out at the attacks on the living standards that they are going through under this Government. Therefore, to be lectured about not understanding the fight against inequality, and the idea that anybody who stands up and challenges an orthodoxy on a potentially bureaucratic plan—by the way, I never mentioned employers and costs; I said it was an insult to women that we got reduced statistics and bits of paper, which was a different point. But anyway, it is crucial that we should challenge the orthodoxies of gender equality when they are presented in this way without being treated as though one is a far-right pariah. It is unworthy of the nature of this House, which is to debate and scrutinise, in my opinion. I simply try to do that.

I still want to push this—more so now than before—on Report, but for now I will not oppose this clause standing part of the Bill.

Clause 31 agreed.

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[Baroness Carberry of Muswell Hill (Lab)]

My Lords, my noble friends on this side of the House have commented on this amendment in far better terms than I could, but I will make a supplementary point. I was very surprised to see this amendment, because one of the perennial themes that we have heard throughout all stages of the Bill in this House has been a complaint about the alleged level of extra bureaucracy that it is supposed to impose on employers. Yet here we see a veritable feast of form-filling and requirements to report on those forms at regular intervals. I suggest that this amendment is not needed; it is surplus to requirements because it places unnecessary burdens on employers.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I will be very brief. It is very important that we do not suggest that giving a helping hand to those who have been politically deprived of equality equals equality. It can also equal tokenism. Working-class people, women and people from ethnic minorities have been promoted to positions in authority, and people basically point them out and say, “Look at them: they succeeded”. That is the opposite of equal treatment, and condescension is not a good look.

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, I can hardly follow my noble friend Lady O’Grady in being the TUC’s first woman general secretary, but I was the first woman leader of Newport City Council after decades and the first woman leader of the Welsh Local Government Association—and am still the only one.

I was also a public service employee for 35 years, when I taught in schools in London and south Wales, so I know about positive action. When I became a public service employer, as the leader of Newport, what I tried to do with positive action was to actively take a range of measures and initiatives to encourage people from communities that were underrepresented. We wanted them to bring their talents, experiences and expertise to our organisation, and we wanted them to join us.

Our selection process was no different: through the use of positive action, we did not seek to remove competition; rather, we wanted to allow everyone the same level of opportunity. That final selection for a post was always made on the merit of the applicant. We built our workforce so that it reflected the rich diversity and complexities of our community of Newport and we attracted the best talent from the widest pool of people.