Labour MP Stella Creasy has presented a Private Members Bill to Parliament to make provision for a right for employees to obtain information relating to the pay of a comparator.
The Equal Pay Information and Claims Bill (EPIC) 2020 - which was submitted to the House of Commons - has cross-party support and the backing of former Home Office Minister and Tory Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, Caroline Nokes.
If passed, the bill would give employees the right to know what their comparators earn and will also require companies with at least 100 employees to report their gender and ethnicity pay gaps. Since 2017, companies have had to publish and report figures regarding their gender pay gap – which is the difference between the average earnings of men and women – but only if they employ 250 or more staff.
Additionally, as it stands women have the right to ask about a colleague's pay but employers are not required to provide details. This new bill would allow women to request pay data relating to a male colleague if they suspected there was a gap and provides a right to equal pay where even a single source can rectify unequal pay. Stella Creasy pointed out that 9 out of 10 women in the UK were working for firms where women were, on average, paid less than men and figures released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed in the year to April 2019, the gender pay gap for full-time workers rose to 8.9%
Creasy stated:
"Pay discrimination becomes so prevalent because it is hard to get pay transparency,”
She added:
"Unless a woman knows that a man who is doing equal work to her is being paid more she cannot know if she is being paid equally.”
The Fawcett Society also conducted a poll which was released to coincide with the Bill’s submission. This found that only 31% of women thought their employer would tell them if their male colleagues doing the same work, earned more.
Charles Cotton, Senior Reward and Performance Adviser at the CIPD said:
"Having fair recruitment, reward and promotion processes in place – and being open about these as well as the outcomes – should avoid the need for employees to ask their colleagues what they're earning.”
The Bill is unlikely however to become law, unless it is supported by the government.
