Clause 42 - Equal pay: questionnaires
Employment Bill
9:45 am
Mr Philip Hammond (Runnymede and Weybridge, Conservative)
This is not the most pressing issue before us, but I am not entirely satisfied with the Minister's reply. I am surprised to hear a Minister who is invited to include specific provisions in a Bill, or in regulations, say that good old common law may do the job instead. That is not, in my experience, the usual approach taken by Ministers. They usually want the law to be codified in secondary rather than primary legislation.
I freely acknowledge the Minister's criticism of the drafting of the amendment. I included employment appeals tribunals, but erroneously did not include higher courts. The Minister drew attention to the fact that information disclosed in response to a questionnaire will contain much that is not confidential, so I must also confess to having failed to include a public domain exclusion from the scope of the confidentiality that I seek. An effective amendment would allow its use throughout the judicial process and would exclude information already in the public domain other than by the recipient's breach of confidentiality.
I do not accept entirely the Minister's assurances. I am sure that he is right that in the vast majority of cases and most of those in which sex discrimination matters are likely to arise, the information will concern grading and disclosed semi-public information that is generic rather than specific. I am, however, worried about the sort of workplace that I described in which contracts are genuinely negotiated individually, which is probably the norm rather than the exception in small, white-collar businesses.
I accept that the amendment is defective and would not achieve what I seek. I give notice that I shall table a more effective amendment on Report, perhaps tailored more specifically to the sort of cases that I have in mind, because I want to press the Minister further. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 42 ordered to stand part of the Bill.