Labour’s equal pay gap: women working for MPS are earning £800 less than men

LABOUR MPS are paying their male staff more than women, research has revealed, despite the party’s claim to support equal pay.

Research conducted into how much staff working in Parliament are paid found that Conservative MPS pay women more than men, around £2,600 on average.

The study included interns, secretaries, case workers and office managers, and found that Conservatives paid their female full and part-time staff £25,000 a year on average, while Labour pay women £22,400.

MPS vary the amount they pay their staff depending on where they are based, as some work in Westminster while others work around the country. But the research, conducted by The Sun, found that Labour MPS pay their male staff around £800 more than the women overall – with men earning £23,200 on average.

Staff working in Parliament are not paid by political parties but by each MP through the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA). Salaries are set according to a range set out by the watchdog.

Labour has consistently called out unfair pay and Jeremy Corbyn recently said the BBC needs to take a “very hard look at itself ” after it emerged the corporation pays its female presenters far less than their male counterparts.

A spokesman for the party said: “Labour has a strong record on gender equality. As part of our commitment to end the gender pay gap, we have pledged to introduce mandatory equal pay auditing for large employers.”

But they were not able to comment on whether Mr Corbyn intends to write to his MPS to demand they pay their male and female staff equally.

The Freedom of Information request data, released by IPSA, also shows fulltime staff across both Labour and the Conservative parties are paid £29,000 on average, but there are huge variations. Conservatives paid their fulltime women £31,400 on average, compared with £28,200 for Labour MPS, while overall, women working full-time in Parliament received £1,400 more than men.

Of the other parties, the Liberal Democrats and the Scottish National Party paid men and women roughly the same.