§ 21. Mr. John Bercow (Buckingham)If she will make a statement on the incidence in the last three years of cases successfully brought against employers for paying women lower wages than those paid to men for doing similar work. [91058]
§ The Minister for Women (Ms Patricia Hewitt)In the three financial years up to 2002 for which we have figures, 163 equal pay claims were successful at tribunal. Many more, of course, were settled and withdrawn before they came to a tribunal hearing.
§ Mr. BercowIt is disgraceful that such claims should need to be made at all. Does the Minister for Women agree that economic efficiency and social justice alike demand that there should always be equal pay for work of equal value? Given that there are continuing and unjustified disparities, does she agree that it is urgently necessary that the message should go out from representatives of all major political parties that skinflint employers who seek to break the law with impunity in 2003 will be subject to zero tolerance?
§ Ms HewittI am delighted to hear the hon. Gentleman reciting the central mantra of new Labour that economic efficiency and social justice go together. Of course he is right to say that unequal pay for work of equal value is absolutely unacceptable. That is why we have strengthened the law with the new equal pay questionnaire. We do not want cases going to tribunals if we can possibly avoid it; we would rather settle them inside the workplace. That is also why we have established equal pay audits in the public sector, all of which will be completed by April, and why we are putting in place proper plans to re-organise the pay structure and job classifications, as we have done at ACAS and as we are doing in the national health service, to ensure that there is indeed equal pay for work of equal value.