Cameron pledges to end gender pay gap

Posted By: James

Tuesday 14th July 2015

David Cameron has made a commitment to close the gender pay gap by requiring companies to publish average salaries for the men and women they employ. Writing in the Times, the PM says: “Overall, a woman still earns just 80p for every £1 earned by a man. That is a scandal.” He claims that the introduction of the national living wage — a higher minimum wage for the over-25s — will also close the gender pay gap and that going further with the introduction of gender pay audits is also important. “It’s part of a new British contract: we give businesses the lowest corporation tax in the G20, increase their national insurance allowance and cut their regulations; in return, they pay their staff properly, and fairly.” All companies with 250 or more staff will have to release salary information under the plans. The CBI offered a cautious welcome to the move, saying that although publishing pay gap data could be misleading it would work with the Government to “ensure that rules on what is published are flexible enough to be relevant to each company.” The government is also set to announce that it has met a target for women to hold at least a quarter of FTSE 100 board directorships. The target was set in 2011, when a government-commissioned report from Lord Davies said FTSE 100 boards should be at least 25% female by the end of 2015.

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