Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what equality impact assessment his Department has undertaken on the effect of the public sector pay cap.

In line with their duties under equalities legislation, Ministers fully consider equalities impacts and implications when setting the Government’s pay policy. It is for Departments to consider the equalities impacts of their proposals on workforce strategy and pay. The remit of the Pay Review Bodies continues to be to provide evidence based advice on pay. We will consider their recommendations when they report from Spring 2018. Our assessment of public sector pay shows that wages in the public sector are roughly equivalent to those in the private sector, and, in addition, public sector workers benefit from more generous pensions.