What steps the Government are taking to close the gender pay gap in the public sector.

Action and policy interventions include Agenda for Change, which aims to bring fairer pay to over 1 million non-medical staff in the NHS, including women. The local government pay and work force strategy addresses the causes and effects of occupational segregation on the gender pay gap. I am also pleased to say that all Government departments and agencies have completed equal pay reviews.

The Equal Pay Act was introduced 30 years ago, yet we still have an 18 per cent. gender pay gap. I should have thought that the Government would take every opportunity to address that injustice, so can the Minister tell me why, in the forthcoming Equality Bill, public bodies will be required only to have a pay policy in place, without explicitly being required in the Bill to take action to close the pay gap?

The pay gap is an enormously important issue and it would be wrong to say that progress has not been made. Considerable progress has been made and the pay gap now is 17 per cent. on average, but down to 13 per cent. at the median. In the Equality Bill we are introducing a public sector duty to promote equality in various ways, including in pay. The work that will be done on pay will begin to make a difference, but it is only one aspect that we are considering. As I said, the local government pay and work force strategy addresses the causes and effects of occupational segregation, which we know is one of the main drivers of the gender pay gap.

Does my hon. Friend agree that the measures in the Equality Bill and the new commission for equality and human rights, with its main site to be based in Manchester, will help greatly in the work to close the pay gap for women in the public sector? Will she welcome the news that Salford council has just appointed a woman chief executive?

I certainly welcome the news that Salford council has just appointed a chief executive who is a woman. One of the key issues about the pay gap in the public sector is not that there are not many women working in the public sector—there are. The issue is the level of responsibility that they have and their position within the organisation. We are making progress on that, but we want to see much more progress made. The Equality Bill is one measure which will deal with that. We also have the Women and Work commission, which goes much wider than the public sector and will report next month on related issues. I hope that will take us a great deal further.

The Minister will be aware that one of the things the Government can do to ensure gender equality at the very top is to increase the number of women who occupy senior management posts in the civil service. The increase in the number of women in senior management posts over the past two years has been only 1.6 per cent., yet the Government have a target of increasing that number by 5 per cent. in the next three years. Can the Minister explain what measures she will use to achieve that target, and what the Prime Minister is doing to ensure that at Permanent Secretary level there is the representation of women that the country deserves?

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman shares my and my party's concern that we should have more women in top positions. We should celebrate the existence of tough targets rather than fearing them. Implementing a range of measures to reach those targets is enormously important, and we expect all Departments to consider the issue. Fast-stream measures have been implemented to help talented people of both genders to move through the system. I am sure that improvements will be made very quickly and hope that I can report such progress in the future.