Clause 72
Equality Bill
11:45 am
John Penrose (Shadow Minister, Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform; Weston-Super-Mare, Conservative)
The clause is important and I wish merely to put on the record my party’s support for it. As the explanatory note says, it is designed
“to protect people who discuss their pay with colleagues”
and to ensure that if any firm seeks to impose a pay secrecy clause, which might be a mechanism for covering up gender pay inequality, it does not work and cannot be applied. I state on the record my party’s thorough support for the clause. It will be particularly important when we come to discuss the wider issue of gender pay audits in clause 73. It is, in our view, a thoroughly sensible and proportionate way of attacking part of the problems of the gender pay gap. It is entirely reasonable and proportionate to the problem in hand. I just wanted to ensure that it was on the record that my party is thoroughly in favour of the clause and will support it.