Minister pledges new Equality Bill

Louise Nousratpour
Thursday February 7, 2008
The Morning Star

WOMEN'S campaigners renewed calls for robust action on the yawning pay gap on Thursday after the government pledged to include an Equality Bill in the next parliamentary session.

Women and Equality Minister Harriet Harman promised "radical and effective" measures to push ahead on the issue of equal pay.

And she accused Tory women MPs of "siding" with their male Conservative counterparts against the struggle for equality.

At the current rate of change, it would take an estimated 140 years until women are paid equally in Britain and 200 years before they achieve equal representation in Parliament, research has suggested.

Fewer than 20 per cent of MPs are women, compared with 50 per cent in Spain and more than 52 per cent in Sweden.

Labour MP Lynda Waltho asked Ms Harman: "What more can we do to ensure that we get close to 50-50 representation in my lifetime - not in the lifetime of my great grand-daughters?"

Campaigners told the government to stop tinkering at the edges in tackling the yawning pay gap, currently at 17 per cent.

They want the Bill to ensure powers to take representative action, where one woman's legal victory for equal pay can bring change for many.

Other key demands included extending mandatory pay audits to the private sector and banning the dismissal of women who are pregnant, on maternity leave or within six months of returning from maternity leave.

A spokeswoman for Equality and Human Rights Commission said: "We look forward to finding out what those 'radical and effective' measures might be.

"What we are keen to see included in the Bill is the power to take representative actions so vulnerable individuals will not have to stand alone in the courts."

The commission's deputy chairwoman Baroness Margaret Prosser added: "Women who work full time are cheated of around £330,000 over the course of their lifetime.

"Nationwide, women are less able to save for a pension, leaving them poverty-stricken in old age."

The government published its Discrimination Law Review green paper last June, outlining some of the proposals contained in the Equality Bill.

Women's group the Fawcett Society criticised the paper at the time, saying that it had failed to address deep-rooted problems of gender equality.

It argued that, by focusing on equal access to traditionally male golf clubs and other private members' establishments, ministers had "distracted" the debate from serious issues such as the pay gap.