Gender Pay Gap

Baroness Hussein-Ece Excerpts

Monday 9th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook]

I thank the noble Baroness for her question, but we are 100% compliant with what we are asking employers to do. If we go further and make it a mandatory return, this can become a tick-box exercise, which we do not want. We want employers to actively use their data to tackle the barriers that women face in their businesses.

[Baroness Hussein-Ece (LD)]

My Lords, in October 2018 the then Prime Minister launched a series of measures to tackle the barriers facing ethnic minorities, including ethnic-minority women, in the workplace: in effect, the ethnicity pay gap. The Race at Work Charter, which built on the work of the 2017 review, Race in the Workplace, found that people from black, Asian and minority-ethnic backgrounds were underemployed, underpromoted and under-represented at senior levels. That review concluded that the time for talking is over and the time to act is now. What has happened to the ethnicity pay gap recommendations in the review, and when we can expect to see them?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook]

The Government ran a consultation from October 2018 to January 2019 on ethnicity pay reporting and received more than 300 detailed responses. They have since met with businesses and organisation representatives to understand the barriers to reporting and what information they could still publish to allow for meaningful action to be taken on the findings of that consultation. The Government have also run voluntary methodology testing with a broad range of businesses, using real payroll data better to understand the complexities outlined in the consultation. We will share the next steps on this in due course.