Equality Bill

I agree. We know that in spheres of employment in which there is a high level of trade union organisation, the level of discrimination is far lower, not just on equal pay but on a whole raft of matters, most importantly health and safety. There are people ensuring that the laws passed in this place are implemented in the workplace. Unfortunately from our perspective, the public sector is now the sphere in which the trade unions are best organised, and over a lengthy period the level of trade union organisation in the private sector has diminished. Since 1997, the Government have attempted relatively successfully to address some of the problems in the public sector. Although Labour brought in the equal pay legislation in the 1970s, in many ways it was not implemented as it should have been because of the difficulty for individual women of taking equal pay cases. That problem was taken on board, and the attempts to bring in job evaluation and examine pay scales have succeeded in addressing many difficulties. However, one problem that has been mentioned is that insufficient funds have been provided to address historical discrimination, and bin men are being asked to take a salary cut so that a catering assistant or cleaner can get their salary increase. That is not the way to deal with discrimination. The only way to address the problem would have been to bring everybody up to the same level over a long period rather than level down, which would have required greater funding.