Equal Pay

Dear constituent,

Thank you for contacting me about equal pay.

I agree with you that while the Equal Pay Act 1970 was an historic achievement, the rate of progress on this issue has been terribly slow. I want to see the Government take urgent action to close the gender pay gap and introduce ethnicity pay gap reporting.

As we know, COVID-19 compounded the inequality women face. At the start of the pandemic, more than 78% of those who lost their jobs were women and two-thirds were between the ages of 18 and 34. I am also aware the pandemic exacerbated the already unequal burden of unpaid care and domestic work done by women, which could force more women out of the workforce and reverse progress towards gender equality.

I firmly believe that we must do more to tackle this. It is vital that women are not left behind as a result of the pandemic and that the inequalities exacerbated by COVID-19 are not carried through into our post-lockdown world. We should modernise equal pay laws to give women the right to know what their male counterparts are being paid.

Disabled people experience additional costs in most areas of everyday life, including work. Research published in November shows the median hourly pay for disabled people was lower than for non-disabled people, with disabled women earning less than disabled men. We need a new deal for disabled people and a national strategy that focuses on real inclusion.

Last October it was revealed that just 13 of the FTSE 100 companies had reported their ethnicity pay gap. This is totally unacceptable. We need better data but most of all we need action. At the beginning of February 2022, the House of Commons Women and Equalities Select Committee published a report on the ethnicity pay gap and said there was no excuse for the lack of progress on ethnicity pay gap statistics. It further stated that, as companies who currently report gender pay gap figures already have the systems and structures in place to start reporting on the ethnicity pay gap, that the Government should mandate for it to be put in place by April 2023.

Thank you once again for contacting me about this issue.

Yours sincerely,

Peter Dowd MP