Question

To ask the Minister for Women and Equalities, whether she has plans to introduce further auditing and fines for employers who cannot prove their gender equality practices.

Organisations with 250 or more employees are now required to publish specific gender pay gap data on an annual basis. We believe that this transparency is motivating employers to take action, but these regulations are new and we will be monitoring them closely.

We continue to urge employers to go beyond the reporting requirements by publishing an action plan, setting out the steps they are taking to improve gender equality, just under half of employers did this in the first year. I intend to write to all public sector employers urging them to develop a plan, and will meet influential business leaders to press them to take action in their sectors.