Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of the introduction of a salary history ban preventing employers from asking about previous salaries during recruitment processes.

Answered by Kate Dearden - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)

The government is committed to strengthening equal pay and ending pay discrimination.

As part of the 2025 Equality law call for evidence, the Office for Equality and Opportunity sought information about best practices already used by some employers, research from academics and the experience of other countries when it comes to pay transparency measures. Responses to the call for evidence will help us to understand how increased pay transparency may impact women, ethnic minorities, disabled people, and other groups in the workplace.

Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of requiring employers to show salaries on job adverts.

Answered by Kate Dearden - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)

The government is committed to strengthening equal pay and ending pay discrimination.

As part of the 2025 Equality law call for evidence, the Office for Equality and Opportunity sought information about best practices already used by some employers, research from academics and the experience of other countries when it comes to pay transparency measures. Responses to the call for evidence will help us to understand how increased pay transparency may impact women, ethnic minorities, disabled people, and other groups in the workplace.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to meet the target of two-thirds of young people participating in higher-level learning.

Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)

We have set an ambition to have two-thirds (66.7%) of young people participating in higher-level learning, academic, technical, or an apprenticeship, by age 25.

The Post-16 Education and Skills White Paper sets out our path to meeting that ambition, by raising the status of further education, strengthening our world-leading higher education sector, and introducing more support and flexibility for learners.

We are delivering these reforms at pace, with rapid progress across funding, policy development and key launches that are already impacting providers and learners:

• We are cracking down on rogue university franchising and in November we published our response to the consultation on Franchising in Higher Education.
• We are delivering on our commitment to expand the TEC programme. In December, we launched applications to become a Wave 2 TEC, and announced CTECs allocations. The national bidding round for Post‑16 and Construction Skills Capacity Funding in non‑devolved areas opened in February.
• In January, we launched the tender for technical and vocational subject teaching professional development, laid regulations for Initial Teacher Education reform, and refreshed the Teach in FE campaign.
• We have consulted on Post-16 Level 3 and Below Pathways.
• At Autumn Budget 2025, we announced over £1.5 billion of funding is being made available across the spending review period into the Youth Guarantee and the Growth and Skills Levy. This funds £820 million for the Youth Guarantee, ensuring all young people aged 16-24 years old have access to the support they need to earn and learn.

Question

To ask the Minister for Women and Equalities, what steps she is taking to help ensure that young women are aware of rights on equal pay.

Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)

The government is committed to strengthening equal pay and ending pay discrimination.

We have already introduced legislation, through the Employment Rights Act 2025, which will require employers to publish the actions they are taking to close the gender pay gap.

Through planned legislation, we will make the right to equal pay effective for ethnic minority and disabled people. We will also put in place measures to ensure that the outsourcing of services can no longer be used by employers to avoid paying equal pay, and we will implement a regulatory and enforcement unit for equal pay.

Last year, we launched a public call for evidence on a number of areas of equality policy, including these commitments. We are currently analysing the responses to the call for evidence, which closed at the end of June 2025. We will consider the views from the call for evidence to ensure that the legislation works for everyone.

On implementing these measures, up-to-date, clear guidance will be made available so that everyone understands their rights under the law.

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