Imran Hussain MP
Imran Hussain MP

Writing to the Secretary of State for Business, Imran has demanded the publication of the Government’s consultation into the ethnicity pay gap, which closed in January 2019

The Government consultation into whether to require employers to publish their ethnicity pay gap, similar to the requirement for employers with more than 250 staff to publish gender pay gaps, ran from October 2018 to January 2019. Yet despite concluding almost 18 months ago, the Government have yet to release the consultation responses or publish their own recommendations, prompting anger from Imran that the concerns of the BAME community and the challenges they face are not been taken seriously.

Whilst Government statistics show that those from BAME communities, particularly Black, Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities, earn less on average than those of other ethnicities to the tune of thousands of pounds each year, there are currently no official statistics on the pay gap between different ethnicities within individual businesses and organisations.

The Bank of England have however reported the existence of a strikingly persistent wage gap between those from BAME backgrounds and other ethnicities in comparable roles could be as high as 10%. Imran has, therefore, demanded that the Secretary of State for Business publish the findings and recommendations of this long-delayed consultation immediately, and has urged the Government to take substantial action to address the economic challenges faced by BAME communities.

Speaking on the delayed reporting of the consultation Imran said:

“The Government have been sitting on the responses to this important consultation for almost 18 months, yet they have yet to release either its findings or their own recommendations. It is clear that they are not taking the serious challenges faced by BAME communities seriously and that they have no intention to do so.

“Economic barriers such as the pay gap between different ethnicities, hiring prejudices and racism that is still present in many workplaces are just some of the barriers that those from BAME backgrounds face in our society, but they are some of the most damaging. Without stable employment, free from prejudice, BAME workers are denied many the opportunities available to those from other ethnicities that hold them and their families back in life.

“As those BAME communities rightly stand up against the years of discrimination and prejudice they have faced, the Government must publish the consultation’s findings immediately and address the huge challenges they face in our economy. Just as it is wrong to pay a man more than a woman for the same job, so too is it wrong to pay a BAME worker less than a White worker, and it is time the Government correct this wrong.”

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