Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Caroline Dinenage and Simon Burns

Thursday 2nd February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Dinenage]

I am delighted to tell my hon. Friend that the gender pay gap in the Department for Education is only 5.9%. Although that is 5.9 percentage points too high, it shows enormous progress in the Department for Education. Across Government, the figure is just below 13%, and we will keep working until it has been eliminated altogether.

[Sir Simon Burns (Chelmsford) (Con)]

Given that it is now 42 years since Barbara Castle’s Equal Pay Act, why is there any gender pay gap, not only for 30 and 40-year-olds but for people in their teens, twenties, fifties and sixties?