Peer’s bill would force big firms to reveal their disability pay gap

A TORY peer is calling on the Government to force businesses with more than 250 employees to publish their disability pay gap.

Lord Shinkwin has drafted a Private Member’s Bill calling for large businesses to report their disability equality practices in order to promote “equality of opportunity”.

In 2017 the Government introduced mandatory reporting on gender pay for firms with more than 250 employees and has consulted on ethnicity pay gap reporting.

Lord Shinkwin said his proposed Workplace Information Bill 2019 is the next “logical step” in extending the same principles to other protected characteristics.

The peer told the Standard: “In 2019 how can we have equality if we don’t have equality of opportunity?

“We’ve now got mandatory data reporting for gender. We need to have equality of opportunity for race and disability and other protected characteristics as well.”

The bill would also require employers with more than 250 staff to publish annual information on recruitment, progression of employees and a breakdown of board-level leadership.