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

Neil Gray Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd February 2017 General Committees

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equalities (Caroline Dinenage)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties and Public Authorities) Regulations 2017.

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Nuttall. The regulations, which are being introduced under powers in section 153 of the Equality Act 2010, replace and amend the Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties) Regulations 2011. They replicate the measures from the previous specific duties regulations—namely, that public bodies must publish information every year to demonstrate their compliance with the equality duty and must set equality objectives every four years.

Tackling the gender pay gap is a priority for this Government, which is why we have used these powers to include new duties for the relevant public authorities, if they have 250 or more employees, to report on their gender pay differences. We have already delivered on our manifesto commitment to introduce mandatory gender pay gap reporting for large employers in the private and voluntary sectors, and the Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations 2017 were approved by both Houses last month and signed by the Secretary of State on 6 February.

It is only right that public bodies, including Government Departments, are subject to the same reporting requirements. That is why we announced that we would extend the manifesto commitment to the public sector in October 2015. My Department’s gender pay gap is much lower than the average, at only 5.9%, but I want the Government to be a trailblazer and to lead by example.

The regulations apply to specified public authorities in England, to non-devolved organisations and to certain cross-border organisations and authorities. Scottish and Welsh public bodies are subject to separate specific duties regulations. The devolved Administrations in Scotland and Wales have been kept informed of the proposed changes. Both sets of regulations will require the same gender pay gap calculations and use the same methodology for calculating the data.

[Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)]

Will the Minister advise us on what measure was taken to fall upon the figure of 250 employees? She mentioned Scotland. We in Scotland are further ahead on that, as are other nations in Europe. Why not fewer than 250?

[Caroline Dinenage]

That is a good question. The reason is that we were fundamentally keen that this manifesto commitment was delivered hand in hand with business and that we were with business every step of the way. We are really serious about this and want businesses to be 100% committed to it. Business felt that this number was manageable. I know that the Scottish Government have imposed a lower threshold in Scotland, but it should be noted that the requirements there are less specific and do not include the full range of calculations that will apply to public bodies in England. We want businesses to see this as being in their interests. They want to be able to identify and promote the skills of every single one of their workforce, and we do not want to make this too burdensome. We want to bring them with us every step of the way, hence the number we have settled on.

All specified public bodies will need to publish their gender pay gap data on a website that is accessible to members of the public. Organisations will also need to upload data to a Government-sponsored website, which will also allow us to establish a database of compliant employers and to monitor compliance closely. We have aligned the reporting timetables and obligations as closely as possible, for employers in different sectors to achieve consistency and comparable sets of data.

I firmly believe that the two sets of regulations will provide unprecedented transparency on gender pay differences in all sectors and create the environment we need to drive change.