Equality Bill

Before the hon. Gentleman talks in any more detail about the costs of gender pay reporting, does he not accept that equal pay legislation has been in force since 1975? That is more than 30 years, yet employers have been breaking the law since then by paying men more than they pay women. If it was any other area of society, we would be talking about taking action against those people in the courts. Why does he think that it is legitimate to discriminate in that way and that the state should not insist that we take urgent action to ensure that those people stop breaking the law?