Equality Bill

I wish to move government Amendment 80B, speak to government Amendments 81A, 81B, 82A, and refer to Amendments 81 to 86, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lester, which are similar in purpose. The Committee will note that my noble friend the Leader of the House has added her name to Amendment 86, which is necessary to complete the effect of the government amendments. These amendments are to Clause 77, which is intended to ensure that contractual clauses which seek to prevent employees disclosing details about their pay to one another cannot be used to prevent such disclosures, and so to conceal disparities in pay which are discriminatory on grounds of sex, or indeed on any of the other protected characteristics. The clause has been widely welcomed, and was welcomed by all parties in Committee in the other place. Generally speaking, it seems likely that disclosures of this kind will be made to fellow employees, which may include trade union representatives, but may also include advisers not within the same organisation. Our intention is that all disclosures of information about pay that are directed towards finding out whether differences exist and which are related to a protected characteristic can be made freely and without sanction by the employer. This will encourage greater transparency, enabling challenges to employers that discriminate in relation to pay. The clause already provides protection where a discussion about pay is between individuals—colleagues—who are in the same employment. However, concern was raised in the other place and by the Joint Committee on Human Rights that we may not have allowed sufficient protection, for example, by allowing disclosures about pay details to be made to trade union representatives. Although that was our intention, we have accepted that the Bill should put this beyond doubt, and so we brought forward these amendments to ensure that the clause is wide enough to protect that situation as well. The amendments change the clause so that it no longer applies only to discussions about pay with a colleague; it applies to any disclosure of information about pay which the employee can show had the necessary purpose—that of finding out whether or to what extent there is a connection between pay and possession of a protected characteristic. As a result, if the employee approaches a trade union representative who is not also a colleague, any disclosures made in the context of that conversation will be protected. The right to disclose your pay is of limited use, however, if you do not also have the right to ask colleagues about theirs, so the amendments also make clear that a secrecy clause which purports to prevent an employee simply asking a colleague about their own pay also cannot have effect. In particular, if a trade union representative who was in the same employment could not ask colleagues if they were willing to tell him or her what they were paid, in order to look into the question, the task would likely be fruitless. This amendment makes it clear that he or she can do so. The amendments also make clear that making or seeking to disclose information about pay, receiving such information and seeking the disclosure of such information from a colleague are all protected acts for the purposes of the prohibition on victimisation in Clause 27, so that if action is taken against the employee for doing any of those things, they have a remedy through that clause. The protection extended by these amendments is not all-encompassing. It is not intended, for example, to protect disclosures to competitors aimed at obtaining a better offer. The important effect of the clause is to focus the protection on disclosure of information about pay aimed at uncovering any pay discrimination to help expose pay inequality affecting individuals. We have taken seriously the concerns that have been expressed about this clause, and I hope that the Committee will agree that the wording of the clause, as amended, better expresses our intent, so I ask the noble Lord to not move his amendment, and agree to ours. I beg to move.