Race Equality Engagement Group

The race equality engagement group, chaired by the wonderful Baroness Lawrence, is determined to tackle race inequalities and barriers to opportunity. Strengthening the Government’s links with ethnic minority communities is crucial. The group has already convened roundtables of experts and those with lived experience of inequalities in entrepreneurship, policing and maternal health. We are meeting with relevant Ministers across Government to discuss its findings and to make sure that we tackle race inequalities wherever they persist.

I represent a hard-working, diverse community, yet the latest Office for National Statistics figures on the median-adjusted pay gap for UK-born black, African, Caribbean or black British employees show that they earn 5.6% less than UK-born white employees. That means that many of my hard-working constituents are not being paid fairly. The Government have committed to enshrine in law the right to equal pay for black and other ethnic minority people. Will the Government say when this welcome manifesto commitment will be met?

My hon. Friend is right to raise this issue. The race equality engagement group is engaging with minority communities across the country to tackle inequality. We are committed to our manifesto commitment and to making the right to equal pay effective for ethnic minority people. We are also introducing mandatory ethnicity pay gap reporting for large employers. Last year, we published a call for evidence on equality policy, which closed last summer. We are working to analyse the responses and will update the House on our plans soon.

It is 316 days since the Minister announced that consultation, and it is 560 days since the King’s Speech when the draft legislation was announced. The Minister has made it clear that she expects the draft Bill to be published during this Session. Please will she update us on whether that is still her promise and when we can expect to see that draft Bill to reduce and remove the ethnicity pay gap that people are struggling with?

As I have highlighted, we are continuing to move forward with our plans. We published the call for evidence and are analysing the responses. We will update the House on our plans soon.