May attacks ‘injustice’ of pay gap

Women’s fight for equality at work is akin to struggle for the vote, says PM, as she calls on businesses to act

THE gender pay gap is a “burning injustice” that must be tackled, as the whole of society is “poorer” if outdated employment practices remain unchallenged, Theresa May warns today.

In an article for The Daily Telegraph, the Prime Minister admits that the gender pay figures make “uncomfortable reading” for many businesses as she compares today’s battle for workplace equality to the struggle for universal suffrage a century ago.

Today is the deadline for larger firms to disclose the average pay gap between male and female workers.

On average, the median gap in pay per hour is 18 per cent, although some firms, including Ryanair and Phase Eight, the clothing retailer, have disclosed figures of more than 50 per cent.

Only a handful of companies, including Unilever and Evans Cycles, have gender pay gaps which favour women.

The public sector has also published figures. In local government, North Hertfordshire district council has the worst median gender pay gap, paying women 34 per cent less than men on average, although 25 councils have no gap. Many business groups have attacked the publication of gender pay figures as being too crude a measure, but Mrs May insists that important changes in workplace culture should result from the discussions sparked by the statistics.

“A hundred years ago, some women first won the right to vote,” the Prime Minister writes. “But for all the welcome progress in the decades since, major injustices still hold too many women back. When I became Prime Minister, I committed myself to tackling the burning injustices which mar our society. One such is the gender pay gap.

“The difference in the median hourly wages earned by men and women in Britain currently stands at 18 per cent. This is a historic low, but progress in shrinking it remains far too slow. We need to act if we are to close the gap for good within a generation.

“It is essential that we do so. Most importantly, because equality for women is a right, and our whole society is the poorer as long as it remains unrealised.”

Mrs May says there is a “clear economic imperative” in closing the gender pay gap. She says that if women and men enjoyed parity in their hours, pay and seniority, “we could see up to £150 billion added to our GDP”.

She defended the requirement to publish the information, saying that “organisations will no longer have anywhere to hide” and will have to account for any deterioration in the figures to shareholders and customers.

Last night, almost all of the 9,000 businesses and public sector bodies required to report their pay gap had done so, as the Equality and Human Rights Commission said that it would write to employers that failed to do so by April 9, before it began an investigation. Of the 8,330 businesses that have so far reported, more than three quarters have a gender pay gap in favour of men.

The Prime Minister also calls for society to “rid ourselves of outdated gender stereotypes” and act in the national interest to make work fair for women – for example, by encouraging more men to take on caring responsibilities for children or elderly relations.

The nation should “accept that everyone brings his or her own experiences to bear in the workplace”, she writes. “While that might sometimes mean different approaches, we should accept that these are equally valid.” Mrs

‘A hundred years ago, some women first won the right to vote ... but major injustices still hold women back’

May praises Virgin Money, which reported a larger than average pay gap but has promised to ensure equality between the sexes by 2020, and Aviva, the insurer, which gives all new parents 26 weeks’ leave on full basic pay.

She also highlights The Telegraph, which has an above average pay gap, but has pledged to eradicate it altogether by 2025.

Yesterday, Baroness Brady, David Cameron’s former small business tsar and vice-chairman of West Ham United football club, said that childcare was one of the biggest reasons for the gender pay gap and called on women to “rock the boat”.

She said: “When you have a child you have to come out of the workplace. In finance, women are paid 40 per cent less than men because of these career gaps they have to take.

“And the biggest barrier to women who have children and want a career is high quality, affordable childcare. And that is a real problem we have to solve in this country so women can get back into the careers that they want.”

She added: “I think there’s an issue that women have this fear factor where they don’t have the confidence to ask, and they are sort of grateful for the job and do not want to rock the boat.

“But we need to get more women rocking that boat.”

In today’s article, the Prime Minister, also acknowledges that the gender pay gap is “only one symptom of the much wider problem of under-representation of women in business”.

This newspaper has launched a Women Mean Business campaign which highlights the problems faced by female entrepreneurs seeking funding.

In the wake of the campaign, the Government has launched a review of the “wasted potential” and the Prime Minister says “it must be the catalyst for a fundamental shift in favour of a level playing field for investment”.