Equality Bill

No, I did say that I was going to make some progress, and I am aware that many Members wish to speak. Moreover, the Leader of the House and Minister for Women and Equality said that her speech would be long—and, indeed, it was. Equality of opportunity in the workplace is something on which I have campaigned for some time, particularly the gender pay gap. The Conservative party put forward proposals to tackle that gender pay gap more than a year ago, and my colleague in the other place, Baroness Morris of Bolton, has a private Member's Bill in progress now. After the comments made in the other place when that Bill was debated, I was hopeful that this Equality Bill would include our proposals to address the gender pay gap, which would mean that we could work with the Government. Sadly, however, the proposals in this Bill are clumsy and ill judged. In four years' time, the Government will have the power to demand that every private sector company with more than 250 employees carry out a compulsory pay audit, regardless of whether or not it has a record of discrimination. By the way, there is clearly one law for the public sector and another for the private sector. There are no provisions in the Bill that would have a similar effect on public sector bodies, even though the pay gap in the public sector is far from satisfactory. Our own policy, the Conservative party policy, would compel only companies found guilty of discrimination by an employment tribunal to carry out a pay audit—a punishment for those that have offended and a deterrent for those that might. Our proposal is fair and measured; the Government's is heavy handed and obstinate. The Leader of the House and Minister for Women said last week:""Fair employers have nothing to fear but unfair employers have nowhere to hide."" I have to say to her that it seems she does not understand her own policy, because her proposals would do exactly the reverse of what she said—fair employers will have to bear just as much cost and inconvenience as unfair employers, and the result will be a bureaucratic nightmare that will set back the equal pay campaign. I think that this proposal shows the Minister's complete lack of empathy for the situation in which many businesses find themselves. Adding another burden that will be costly and time consuming when many are struggling to stay afloat and keep people in jobs at all is completely insensitive. Even the Business Minister, the noble Baroness Vadera, has warned businesses not to be distracted by the Equality Bill, so I suggest that she, too, does not feel entirely comfortable with its proposals.