Kirsten Oswald
Main Page: Kirsten Oswald (Scottish National Party - East Renfrewshire)Department Debates - View all Kirsten Oswald's debates with the Cabinet Office
(1 year ago)
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Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)
According to the Fawcett Society, the UK Government lag behind other European countries in making companies act to close the gender pay gap and they have failed to introduce mandatory reporting of pay differences based on ethnicity. If the UK Government are serious about driving down pay inequality, why will they not require employers to set out action plans to improve gender equality and why will they not mandate intersectional ethnicity pay gap reporting? If they are not serious and they continue to refuse to act, will they devolve employment law to Scotland so that we can do it ourselves?
Kemi Badenoch
As I have said in almost every discussion about equality—and I am prepared to say again—mandatory ethnicity reporting is not the appropriate tool. Ethnicity pay gap reporting cannot be compared to gender pay gap reporting. Gender pay gap reporting is binary; ethnicity pay gap reporting goes across at least 19 groups. It is dependent on geography, among other things, as well as representation within the workforce.
We need to do what we can to make sure that employers do the right thing, but the sorts of interventionist policies that the hon. Lady raises are not helpful and they make things worse. They obscure the data and do absolutely nothing to address the issues around ethnicity pay gap reporting that she describes.