Nick Smith
Main Page: Nick Smith (Labour - Blaenau Gwent and Rhymney)Department Debates - View all Nick Smith's debates with the Attorney General
(8 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberAs my right hon. Friend will be aware, given her interest in this matter, not only are we taking steps to publish this information for companies with more than 250 people on the payroll, but for financial services—the sector I, as Economic Secretary, engage with most—which has the highest pay and the biggest pay gap, we have appointed Jayne-Anne Gadhia to review pay in the sector and see what further steps we can take. As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said last July:
“Transparency, skills, representation, affordable childcare—these things can end the gender pay gap in a generation.”
The WASPI—Women Against State Pension Inequality—campaigners are not going away, so will the Minister raise the issue of better transitional state pension arrangements with her Department for Work and Pensions counterpart? These women deserve fair play.
As a woman whose state pension age has gone up by six years during her working lifetime, I welcome the changes that will equalise the state pension age for men and women. That will end the discrimination of women in their late 50s, which has prevented far too many of them from reaching higher-paid roles in our society.