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Session 2008 - 09 Publications on the internet General Committee Debates Equality Bill |
The Committee consisted of the following Members:Alan Sandall, Eliot Wilson,
Committee Clerks attended
the Committee Public Bill CommitteeTuesday 23 June 2009(Afternoon)[Ann Winterton in the Chair]Equality BillClause 73Gender
pay gap
information Amendment
proposed (this day): 14, in clause 73, page 55, line 19, at end
insert ( ) the Armed
Forces; ( ) the Security
Service, the Secret Intelligence Service or the Government
Communications Headquarters;.(John
Penrose.) 4
pm Question
again proposed, That the amendment be
made.
The
Chairman: I remind the Committee that with this we are
discussing the following: amendment 13, in
clause 73, page 55, line 20, leave
out paragraph
(b). Government
amendment
67
The
Solicitor-General (Vera Baird): Welcome back to the
Committee, Lady Winterton. I believe that I had dealt with the specific
technical points raised by amendments 13 and 14 and
explained Government amendment 67, but Conservative Members made it
clear that they intended to use their amendments to probe the bigger
point that relates to clause 73 and question why the clause does not
apply to the public
sector. The
Bills purpose is not to compare the private and public sectors,
like for like. The Governments approach to the public sector is
to impose an equality duty on it. One of the things that entails is for
public authorities to demonstrate their compliance by reporting on
their gender pay gap, though that has not been in the requirement. The
proper place for detailed public sector requirements is in secondary
legislation under clause 147, which we will debate in due course. That
gives us flexibility to amend the requirements, should experience
suggest that that is
necessary. The
reporting requirement should not be seen in isolation. It relates to a
number of things that public authorities should do to advance equality,
foster good relations and eliminate discrimination, which are the terms
of the duty. So we are not singling it out from the other specific
duties. In that way, the requirement to be transparent about gender pay
is firmly anchored in the wider requirements on the public
sector. To
single out that requirement by also subjecting the public sector to
clause 73 would introduce a sort of unwarranted double jeopardy
situation. Public authorities that do not comply with their duty
obligations will be subject to Equality and Human Rights Commission
compliance notices, which are enforceable in the civil courts. It would
be overkill to hit them with civil and criminal action under clause 73.
It would also not make much sense.
The intention
is that the duties will begin to operate from April 2011, which is two
years before the power under clause 73 might be used. The duty on the
public sector is more stringent. The equality duty requires it to have
due regard to the need to advance equality, eliminate discrimination
and foster good relations. As part of that, public authorities with
more than 150 employees will report their gender pay gaps and other
relevant metrics. As I have already explained, I would not want to
lower the 250-or-more employee threshold in clause 73 to
match that of the public sector.
If the
suggestion is to replace the duty and pull it out of the single
equality duty by putting public authorities under clause 73, it would
be a regressive step for public sector accountability. Our detailed
proposals for the specific duties are set out in the document,
Equality Bill: Making it work. Policy proposals for specific
duties, which we published on 11 June. That sets out specific
duties to enable public authorities to carry out the equality duty more
effectively. The closing date for that consultation is 30 September,
and we hope to receive contributions from members of the Committee. We
aim to publish our response before the end of the
year. I
hope that that satisfies Conservative Members that we have gone in the
right direction in putting the onus on gender pay reporting in the
equality duty, with all its other characteristics, and not involving
the public sector in clause
73. John
Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con): It is a pleasure to see
you in the Chair, Lady Winterton. Based on the Ministers
response, we are quite content. We were most concerned to ensure that
there would not be one law for the public sector and another for the
private sector. In fact, that may still be so, but there will be a
slightly tougher regime for the public sector. In that case, we have no
objections, and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the
amendment. Amendment,
by leave,
withdrawn. Amendment
made: 67, in
clause 73, page 55, line 20, at
end insert ( ) a
government department or part of the armed forces not specified in that
Schedule.. (The
Solicitor-General.) This amendment
would exclude the security and intelligence agencies and GCHQs
military helpers from the scope of Clause 73. As a result,
that clause would not apply to any government department or any part of
the armed
forces. Question
proposed, That the clause as amended stand part of the
Bill.
The
Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss new
clause 9Disability pay gap
information (1) A
Minister of the Crown may by regulations require employers to publish
information relating to the pay of employees for the purpose of showing
whether, by reference to factors of such description as is prescribed,
there are differences in the pay of employees who have a disability and
employees who do not have a
disability.
(2) This section does not apply
to (a) an employer who
has fewer than 250
employees; (b) a person
specified in Schedule 19. (3)
The regulations may
prescribe (a)
descriptions of employer; (b)
descriptions of employee; (c)
how to calculate the number of employees that an employer
has; (d) descriptions of
information; (e) the time at
which information is to be
published; (f) the form and
manner in which it is to be
published. (4) Regulations
under subsection (3)(e) may not require an employer, after the first
publication of information, to publish information more frequently than
at intervals of 12 months. (5)
The regulations may make provision for a failure to comply with the
regulations (a) to be
an offence punishable on summary conviction by a fine not exceeding
level 5 on the standard
scale; (b) to be enforced
otherwise than as an offence, by such means as is
prescribed. (6) The reference
to a failure to comply with the regulations includes a reference to a
failure by a person acting on behalf of an
employer..
John
Penrose: During our morning sitting, when we were
considering the earlier groups of amendments to the clause, we had a
reasonable debate on some of its principles. I shall try to be brief,
because we have given at least some of them a fair airing already.
However, I want to put a couple of additional points on the
record. When
I started investigating the history of the gender pay gap, I was
fascinated to discover that there is something of a success story to be
mentioned. That is not to say that the job is all
donefar from it, there is still a serious issue, and let no one
be under any illusion about its severity or importancebut it is
worth while pointing everyone here and the wider world outside to the
figures in The gender pay gap in the UK study, which
the Office for National Statistics published in April 2008.
Interestingly, figure 5 shows that the gender pay gap has declined from
not quite 30 per cent. in 1975the first year that the Equal Pay
Act 1970 came into effectto just under 13 per cent. in 2006. It
has pretty nearly halvedalbeit at a rather slow and steady,
almost stately paceover the intervening 31 years covered by the
study. It
is clearly true that we have made great progress as a country, under
successive Governments of different stripes, but also that there is a
great deal further to go. It is interesting, looking at figure 6 in the
same report, to see that the gender pay gap for full-time employees by
age has declined very dramatically for people under 33. In fact, for
employees under 33 the gender pay gap is now zeroor was in
2006compared to 1975, when it was significantly
higher. It
is therefore important for us all to realise that, contrary to what
some people have said in the evidence that we have received, it is not
fair to say that the current measures are not working. They clearly
have been working over an extended period. That does not mean that
there is not further to go and that progress has not been stately, as I
said earlier, but this country should be proud of its track record,
while none the less pointing out that an injustice remains to be dealt
with.
Dr.
Evan Harris (Oxford, West and Abingdon) (LD): The hon.
Gentleman will know that his figures are controversial in concentrating
only on the full-time aspect, but I understand that he wants to make a
point. Would he accept that, even given those figures, it might be
argued that the existing legislation and the existing framework have
done all that they can in those 30-plus years and that something more
is now needed to finish off the job? If the existing law was going to
work, it would probably have worked by
now.
John
Penrose: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention
for two reasons. First, I was about to allude to his point of always
having to be careful about using statistics. Anyone can make
mistakesthe Secretary of State herself was picked up by Sir
Michael Scholar, the head of the UK Statistics Authority, in a letter
reported in The Daily Telegraph on 12 June in which he enjoined
her to use the statistics rather more carefully than she had been
doing. The hon. Gentleman is right to point out that we must be careful
to define precisely to which statistics we are referring.
Secondly, on
whether the existing measures are effectively spent or have run out of
steam, we would need a significant period in which the steady decline
of over 31 years went into reverse or flattened out. Certainly,
until the end of 2006the figures that I am quotingthe
decline was pretty constant. One can look at the figures and say that
they are not flattening out but coming down steadily. There are more
recent figures[Interruption] Perhaps the
hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green will fill us
in. Lynne
Featherstone (Hornsey and Wood Green) (LD): EHRC
statistics show that only 17 per cent. of employers have completed an
equal pay audit, and the number of employers conducting audits has
increased by just 5 per cent. since 2005. Perhaps something about the
very small number of those exposing the information is the reason for
the slow-down.
John
Penrose: I might have misunderstood what the hon. Lady was
saying, but I was talking about the gender pay gap, not gender pay
audits. The gap is, obviously, the thing that we are all trying to
close; audits are one method by which people might try to close it. The
number of people doing gender pay audits might have gone up or down in
the past couple of years, but the important thing is whether the gap
has continued to decrease. Based on ONS figures, the decrease has been
relatively steady since 1978 or so. There was an initial dip and then a
surge back upwards in the first couple of years, since when it has
been, if not quite a straight line, as close to a straight line as
statistics will
come. I
do not want to overplay things. There is clearly more to do. There is
an injustice, and I hope and expect that Members from all parties are
determined to deal with it and close the gap, but it is none the less
worth while to put some boundaries and numbers on the size of the
problem that remains to be dealt with, because it is important. During
this mornings sitting, we discussed proportionality and whether
the measures proposed in clause 73 on gender pay audits are a
proportional way of achieving the benefit that we all want. It is
therefore important for us to quantify the size of the prize at which
we are all aiming.
We
alluded this morning to considering the different causes of the gender
pay gap, but I wanted to give more detail and colour to the underlying
reasons for the pay gap in this country, because it is clearly
important to understand the enemy in order to conquer it. The Equal
Opportunities Commission published Modelling gender pay
gaps in 2004, and its findings were that a number of different
factors underpin the pay gap. The document
says: Gender
differences in lifetime working patterns account for 36% of the pay
gap. If
the gap is currently 13 per cent., 36 per cent. of that is accounted
for by gender differences in lifetime working patterns, which the EOC
goes on to explain means that, on average, women work for fewer years
than men in full-time employment and have more interruptions to
employment for child care and other family care. That is understandable
and perfectly reasonable, and provided that such decisions are taken on
the basis of free will and individual choice, it is a facet of modern
life. However, if some of those decisions are taken under societal
pressures or because of an absence of adequate child care, for example,
there may be some unfair systemic disadvantage for women. That is
something that any Government of any stripe, I hope, would want to
address. It
is interesting to note in passing that the kinds of thing that any
Government would want to do to address such unfairness would revolve
not necessarily around discrimination law but around social policy
dealing with disadvantage. For example, the Government might try to
ensure that more affordable child care is available for working women
in particular, not just at the right price, but at the right times of
day or night for those in shift work and on the right days of the week
so that those whose jobs require them to work at weekends are not
closed out of them, and so on.
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©Parliamentary copyright 2009 | Prepared 24 June 2009 |