Question

To ask the Minister for Women and Equalities, what assessment the Government has made of the operation of the Gender Pay Gap Regulations in each of the last five years; which Department has been responsible for that assessment; and what budget the Government has allocated to that assessment in that period.

This Government is committed to the empowerment of women in the workplace. Over the last decade our work has seen the gender pay gap fall considerably with the reporting regulations helping to motivate employers to improve equality in the workplace and strong growth in the number of women in full-time work.

To drive forward this progress we have recently announced a groundbreaking pay transparency pilot, a new STEM returners programme and a Taskforce on Women-Led High-Growth Enterprises.

We are required to carry out a review of the regulations after they’ve been in force for five years; as is the case for many other business regulations. This is being prepared by the Equality Hub. It is important that we take time to properly consider the evidence we have from the last five years, especially factoring in the effects of the pandemic, so that the review accurately reflects the implementation and impact of reporting. It will be published in due course.