Make UK employers report ethnicity pay gap, MPs tell ministers

theguardian.com:

MPs have urged the government to introduce mandatory reporting of the pay gap between staff of different ethnicities, saying there is no excuse for failing to tackle racial inequality in UK workplaces.

Large companies should be required by law to publish data on employee salaries, following the framework already in place for gender, the House of Commons women and equalities committee (WEC) said in a report published on Tuesday.

The cross-party group of MPs said it is the “first step” to addressing pay disparities between employees from different ethnic backgrounds and cited research showing such efforts to address racial inequality could boost the UK economy by £24bn a year. The report recommends imposing the law from April 2023.

Caroline Nokes, the Conservative MP who chairs the committee, said: “The government’s failure to move forwards on ethnicity pay gap reporting is perplexing. We already have the systems in place to start reporting on the ethnicity pay gap, as well as a clear impetus: tackling inequality benefits not only marginalised groups, but the whole economy.

“The government has no excuse. All that is lacking, it seems, is the will and attention of the current administration.”

A Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) consultation on introducing mandatory pay gap reporting ended in January 2019 but the government is yet to publish any proposals. A petition with 130,000 signatories was debated in parliament, but no government response followed.

Wilf Sullivan, race equality officer at the Trades Union Congress, said: “The government is dragging its feet. Mandatory ethnicity pay gap reporting is one of those rare areas where there is universal agreement across trade unions and businesses.

“But