EU Court of Justice Ruling: Religious Signs

Debate between Baroness Williams of Trafford and Baroness Gale

Wednesday 15th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Gale (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her Statement. The court ruling, however, raises some real concerns about religious freedom in the workplace, including those of Muslim women who choose to wear the hijab. Although I think the Minister has been quite clear in her Statement, will she say positively that people can express their faith at the workplace, and in a professional manner, as they choose? Can she confirm that the Government believe that preventing women wearing the hijab, as exampled in this case, is simply and unconditionally wrong?

What advice and guidance will the Government give to employers on the court ruling, and will it reinforce the rights of employees in the UK to express their religious freedoms? Finally, will the Minister say what direct communication the Government have had with G4S, the employer in this case? G4S holds a number of government contracts. I hope that she can reinforce with G4S its employees’ rights to wear clothing necessary for their religious practices.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

As I said in my Statement, and will restate now, we will work with the ECHR to update guidance for employers for dealing with religion or belief in the workplace. As I also said before, and am happy to repeat, indirect discrimination can be lawful or unlawful. It is unlawful where it is neither legitimate nor proportionate. When an employer seeks to justify why it has banned religious symbols or certain items of clothing, it has to point out the legitimacy and proportionality of why it has done so. If that makes it far more difficult for one group of people to be employed, the discriminatory effect of their actions can be called into question.

Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties and Public Authorities) Regulations 2017

Debate between Baroness Williams of Trafford and Baroness Gale

Tuesday 28th February 2017 Grand Committee

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)]

My Lords, these regulations which are being introduced under powers in Section 153 of the Equality Act 2010 replace and amend the Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties) Regulations 2011. Under this power, Ministers can impose specific duties on public authorities to secure the better performance of the public sector equality duty. These regulations replicate the measures from the previous specific duties regulations, namely that public bodies must publish information every year to demonstrate their compliance with the equality duty and set equality objectives every four years.

Tackling the gender pay gap is an absolute priority for this Government. That is why we have used these powers to include new duties for the relevant public authorities, if they have 250 or more employees, to report on their gender pay differences. We have already delivered on our manifesto commitment to introduce mandatory gender pay gap reporting for large employers in the private and voluntary sectors. The Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations 2017 were approved by both Houses last month and signed by the Secretary of State on 6 February.

Of course, it is only right that public bodies, including government departments, are subject to the same reporting requirements. That is why we announced in October 2015 that we would be extending the manifesto commitment to the public sector. We want government to be a trail-blazer and lead by example. These regulations apply to specified public authorities in England, non-devolved organisations and certain cross-border authorities. Scottish and Welsh public bodies are subject to separate specific duties regulations. The devolved Administrations in Scotland and Wales have been consulted on the proposed changes. Both sets of regulations will require the same gender pay gap calculations and use the same methodology for calculating the data.

Public authorities that are subject to these regulations will need to publish the mean and median differences between the average hourly rate of pay for male and female employees. They will need to publish the mean and median differences between the average bonuses paid to male and female employees. They will also need to report on the proportions of men and women who receive bonuses, and the proportions in each quartile of their pay distribution.

All specified public bodies will need to publish their gender pay gap data on a website that is accessible to members of the public. Organisations will also need to upload data to a government-sponsored website, which will allow us to establish a database of compliant employers and closely monitor compliance. We have aligned the reporting timetables and obligations as closely as possible for employers in different sectors to achieve consistency and comparable sets of data. The two sets of regulations will provide unprecedented transparency on gender pay differences in all sectors and create the environment needed to drive change. I beg to move.

[Baroness Gale (Lab)]

My Lords, first, I thank the Minister for bringing these regulations before us tonight. We waited seven years for the Government to come forward, but I am very pleased that they have finally introduced mandatory pay audits for large companies in the private and voluntary sectors. It is a shame that it has taken this Government so long to bring into force the measures created by the last Labour Government, but at least now we are taking some steps forward, which is very good. I commend the Government for extending the mandatory pay gap reporting duties to public sector employers, as they promised to do in October 2015. This again is another step forward towards progress.

The regulations discussed today, under Section 153 of the Equality Act, mirror almost exactly the regulations under Section 78, although I have concerns that some of the new duties could have gone further. As with the duties on private and voluntary sector organisations, they apply only to public authorities with 250 employees or more. The maintenance of such a high employee threshold for application of these duties in the public sector was raised as a concern by a significant number of organisations and individuals responding to the Government’s consultation, but the Government have chosen not to set a lower threshold for public bodies.

It is understandable that the Government would want to create comparable data between the public sector and private and voluntary sectors but, clearly, limiting the application to public sector bodies with more than 250 employees will severely limit the number of public authorities caught under this regulation. The Government claim that of course a public authority of any size could choose to adopt mandatory reporting, but to what extent will a voluntary expectation create practice in reality? What communication does the Minister intend to have with all public bodies, regardless of their number of employees, to encourage them to publish their gender pay gap information? Have any indicated to her that they will take this voluntary action? In the consultation response, the Government promised to keep under review setting a lower employee threshold, but failed to give an assurance on a timescale. When will this be reviewed? What evidence will she require to persuade her that the figure of 250 employees is too high a threshold?

Istanbul Convention

Debate between Baroness Williams of Trafford and Baroness Gale

Thursday 24th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Gale]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government why they have not yet ratified the Council of Europe’s Istanbul Convention, and when they intend to do so.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government are absolutely committed to tackling violence against women and girls, and to ratifying the Istanbul convention. In most respects, measures already in place to protect women and girls from violence comply with or go further than what the convention requires. Before the convention is ratified, we need to take extraterritorial jurisdiction over a range of offences. We will seek to legislate when the approach to implementing ETJ is agreed and parliamentary time allows.

[Baroness Gale (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her reply, but I feel quite disappointed with it, bearing in mind that each year more than 2 million people in England and Wales, the majority being women, suffer some form of domestic violence. Although we have a raft of laws to protect people from domestic violence, this would be an additional safety net that means all our citizens could lead a life free from violence. I hope the Minister can go back and have another look at this. I am sure parliamentary time can be made available if the will is there. I hope the Minister will agree and urge whichever ministry is responsible for this to get a move on.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I hope I can give the noble Baroness some comfort on some of the offences for which we already exercise our extraterritorial jurisdiction: murder, FGM, forced marriage and offences against children. In addition, we have pledged to increase funding to £80 million for violence against women and girls between now and 2020.