Clause 42 - Equal pay: questionnaires
Employment Bill
9:30 am
Mr Alan Johnson (Minister of State (Employment and the Regions), Department of Trade and Industry; Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle, Labour)
The hon. Gentleman said that he does not consider this matter an important one of principle. However, when the former Department for Education and Employment consulted on it in December 2000, 90 per cent. of respondents, including many businesses, accepted the need to establish the same facilities for equal pay questionnaires as exist in other areas relating to discrimination.
Interestingly, the hon. Gentleman mentioned that the provision uses ''she''. That is indeed a small step forward for progressives. For years, legislation has been framed using male gender when it applied to both sexes. I confirm that the clause applies to both sexes, but ''she'' is used to mean both, as it is in sex discrimination legislation. The clause is one small step forward for womankind.
The amendment requires that all information provided in response to the questionnaire would be treated as confidential and could be used by the complainant only to take a case to tribunal. The hon. Gentleman said that his was a probing amendment, which is just as well, because it is technically deficient. If an individual wanted to take the case to a higher court—for instance, the European Court of Justice—he or she should not be prevented from relying on that information in such a court.
We know that the absence of transparency on pay information contributes to and perpetuates the gender pay gap. The purpose of introducing a questionnaire procedure is to formalise the drive to transparency by providing a route to obtaining information about relevant issues, such as details of pay schemes and job grading systems, and about the way in which skills and experience are reflected in the company's pay system.
We understand that there may be concerns about disclosing details of an individual's pay. The questionnaire will not alter any duty of confidence that all employers owe to their employees. The questionnaire may be simply a vexatious fishing expedition. At present such fishing expeditions take place in a full-blown employment tribunal. We want to head off employment tribunal cases by giving better and more transparent information at an early stage.