Draft Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations 2017

Debate between Sarah Champion and Lord Coaker

Wednesday 25th January 2017 General Committees

[Sarah Champion]

I thank both my hon. Friends for their interventions. That is the problem—even if section 20 of the 2006 Act could be interpreted as extending to a breach of the regulations, it appears that the EHRC does not believe it can enforce that.

[Vernon Coaker (Gedling) (Lab)]

What my hon. Friend rightly says is compounded by the fact that although the Government have included a regulation allowing them to review the operation of the regulations and whether their objectives have been achieved, that review could be up to five years away. We need to encourage the Government to make that review quickly, to see whether the concerns we are raising have come to pass.

[Sarah Champion]

I thank my hon. Friend, and I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say on that specific point.

In the November 2015 autumn statement, the Government imposed a 25% cut to the EHRC’s budget. That followed a whopping—I am not sure whether that is a Parliamentary expression—69% funding cut since the beginning of the coalition Government, and has led to the budget being reduced from £70 million to £22 million. How does the Minister expect the EHRC to fulfil its enforcement duty? Do the Government plan to legislate to provide the EHRC with the powers it needs to enforce the regulations? Does she plan to provide the EHRC with extra, vital funding? If not, given what my hon. Friends have said, how will she ensure that the regulations are meaningfully enforced?

The Government have stated that they will run checks to assess non-compliance, but details on the Government website to which employers must upload their information have not yet been released. Can the Minister tell us today when those details will be released? Will the Government compile a public database of compliant employers? They have said that they will publish tables, by sector, of employers reporting gender pay gaps. Will they go further and publish an annual league table, ranking every company and public body by pay gap? Will they ensure that companies tackling or seeking to tackle the issue are rewarded with good publicity, for example?

The question of how the Government plan to use the data is key if we are to be assured that they have a strategy to address the chronic and pervasive factors that have led to the significant gender pay gap. Will they commit to bringing a report to Parliament annually rather than every five years, as has been recommended? That report should include broad data on responses, the EHRC analysis of those responses and—this is of fundamental importance—a Government action plan to narrow the gap in the following 12 months. Will the Government also publish their pay gap figures by Whitehall Department? I have not spoken to my Chief Whip about this, but perhaps the Minister will comment on whether political parties should publish their gender pay gaps.

Finally, will the Minister confirm that she has plans to publish a strategy to tackle the gender pay gap in small and medium-sized employers? How does she plan to assess that problem? The regulations will cover 10.47 million employees in the UK, so what she is doing today is hugely welcome, but those employees represent only 40% of employment.

The Government have been forced to implement the regulations, seven years later than required. They have watered them down to the extent that I have to question their commitment to tackling the gender pay gap, although I do not question the Minister’s commitment to that. Ahead of the spring statement, the Government should outline how they plan to tackle the wider issue of the economic inequality of women, rather than take away the teeth of the enforcement agency. They have refused, year after year, to conduct a cumulative gender impact analysis of their policies. Instead of bringing forward their own documentation, I am sorry to say that they chose to smear the research of the House of Commons Library and the women’s sector.

Almost every major piece of legislation that has improved the lives of working women has been introduced by a Labour Government, and all Opposition Members are proud of that. All the Government had to do on the mandatory reporting of the gender pay gap was bring the legislation into force and create a meaningful mechanism for tackling pay inequality. Unless the Minister can give us assurances today, I am sad to say that they might have failed on that.