Call for evidence: New equality laws on the horizon?

At a glance

• The government is seeking evidence and views on areas of equality policy to help shape the measures included in the draft Equality (Race and Disability) Bill and the Employment Rights Bill.
• The government is exploring measures to address pay discrimination based on race, disability, and sex, including improving enforcement and transparency.
• There's a focus on ensuring that outsourcing cannot be used to avoid paying equal wages, with potential changes to allow comparisons between outsourced and in-house employees.
• The government is looking into strengthening protections against discrimination based on a combination of protected characteristics.
• Input is being sought on effective steps employers can take to reduce and prevent sexual harassment in the workplace.

The government is seeking evidence and views on areas of equality policy to help better understand how the law is working in practice and on areas of possible equality law reform. The call for evidence will help shape the measures included in the draft Equality (Race and Disability) Bill and the Employment Rights Bill.

The equality law call for evidence is looking for evidence and views on the following areas:

• The prevalence of pay discrimination on the basis of race and disability.
• Making the right to equal pay effective for ethnic minority and disabled people.
• Measures to ensure that outsourcing of services can no longer be used by employers to avoid paying equal pay.
• Improving the enforcement of equal pay rights by establishing an Equal Pay Regulatory and Enforcement Unit, with the involvement of trade unions.
• Improving pay transparency.
• Strengthening protections against combined discrimination.
• Ensuring the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) is met by all parties exercising public functions.
• Creating and maintaining workplaces and working conditions free from harassment
• Commencing the socio-economic duty.

Equal pay

The government is seeking evidence about the prevalence of pay discrimination on the basis of race, disability and sex, where these patterns and scenarios may differ in relation to pay discrimination on the basis of one of these protected characteristics as compared to another, and / or the effectiveness of existing measures in reducing pay discrimination.

The government is giving close consideration to whether the existing equal pay scheme provides the right model for expanding equal pay rights to race and disability, whether these should instead be given force by an amended version of the scheme, or whether a different approach may be best.

The existing requirements for comparators for equal pay claims prevent many outsourced workers from comparing their contractual terms with those of ‘in house’ employees because they are employed independently. The government is exploring how to ensure that such practices cannot lead to pay discrimination by removing the barriers and potentially enabling comparisons between outsourced workers and ‘in house’ employees in equal pay claims. The government is seeking evidence about where liability should lie for equal pay claims made by outsourced workers.

Finally, the government is also considering how enforcement of the equal pay scheme could be improved, including through the establishment of the Equal Pay Regulatory and Enforcement Unit with the involvement of trade unions.

Improving pay transparency

Measures to improve pay transparency can involve employers:

• Providing the specific salary or salary ranges of a job on the job advert or prior to interview.
• Not asking candidates their salary history.
• Publishing or providing employees with information on pay, pay structures and criteria for progression.
• Providing employees with information on their pay level and how their pay compares to those doing the same role or work of equal value.
• Identifying actions that they need to take to avoid equal pay breaches occurring or continuing.

Strengthening protection against combined discrimination

The government have committed to commencing section 14 of the Equality Act 2010, which prohibits direct discrimination because of a combination of two protected characteristics and is seeking evidence and views on the prevalence of discrimination because of a combination of protected characteristics.

Sexual harassment

The government wants input as to whether there is evidence of effective steps employers can take to reduce and / or prevent sexual harassment and where work to strengthen the evidence base should be prioritised.

The call for evidence is open for 12 weeks. The government is consulting separately on its commitment to introducing mandatory ethnicity and disability pay reporting for larger employers as we reported on 20 March.