New bill could grant employees right to colleagues’ pay information

The Equal Pay Information and Claims Bill 2020 was introduced to the House of Commons by Labour MP, Stella Creasy, last week (October 20) and would also make it mandatory for companies with 100 or more employees to report both their gender and ethnicity pay gaps.

Currently, only businesses with at least 250 employees are legally required to report on their gender pay gap, and there are no rules surrounding ethnicity pay gap reporting at present, although a consultation on the subject was published, but no response provided as yet.

At present, women do have the right to enquire about a colleague’s pay, but employers are under no obligation to provide these details. If women believe that they are not being paid fairly, their only option is to take employers to tribunal to force a disclosure.

Presenting the bill to MPs, Creasy said: “Pay discrimination becomes so prevalent because it is hard to get pay transparency. Unless a woman knows that a man who is doing equal work to her is being paid more, she cannot know if she is being paid equally.

“For nearly 200 years, women have been asking for parity and, with the pandemic bearing down on us, we cannot afford to wait any longer for action.”

The next stage for this bill is the second reading, which is scheduled to take place on 13 November 13 2020.

Pay gap reporting will be a topic discussed at the the Reward & Payroll Summit,taking place on December 10 and 11. Book now, before the price hike on Sunday.