Ethnicity Pay Gap

Marina Ahmad AM moved, and Unmesh Desai AM seconded the following motion:

“This Assembly notes a survey of GMB members in London and the East of England which found evidence of disparity of pay, terms and conditions across Black Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) workers, with a high proportion of members reporting favouritism and management bias across companies and workplaces. According to a 2019 survey covering London public sector employees, BAME staff take home on average 37% less than white colleagues and in 2018 analysis by the Resolution Foundation showed that BAME workers lose £3.2bn a year in wages compared to white workers. With a cost-of-living crisis hitting households hard, the diminishing earnings of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic workers will disproportionately push many of such workers further into poverty.

Research shows that closing the ethnicity pay gap makes business and economic sense. Ethnically and culturally diverse businesses are more profitable and addressing race inequalities in the labour market could boost the UK economy by £24 billion a year.

The House of Commons’ Women and Equalities Committee found in 2022 that the number of employers publishing their ethnicity pay gaps had increased from 11% in 2018 to 19% in 2021. The Committee recommended that the Government should introduce mandatory ethnicity pay gap reporting by April 2023 for all organisations that currently report for gender. In 2018, the Government had acknowledged that ethnicity pay gap reporting should be mandatory. This Assembly is disappointed that the Government has now ruled this out.

This Assembly welcomes the leadership that the Mayor has shown in this area. The GLA first published a gender pay gap report in 2016 ahead of any legislative requirement to do so. In March 2018 the GLA was one of the first organisations to publish its ethnicity pay gap report. Last year, the GLA published its disability pay gap report for the first time. This Assembly calls on the Mayor to:

• encourage London’s employers to annually report on the Ethnicity Pay Gap within their own organisations;
• encourage London’s employers to undertake regular analyses of their strengths and weakness based on the GLA’s own reporting. This should include the devising and
• implementing of annual plans, to ensure there are no barriers to recruitment training, salary levels or promotion.

This Assembly calls on the Government to introduce mandatory reporting of the Ethnicity Pay Gap for all employers with 250 or more staff members.”

Following debate and upon being put to a vote, the motion was agreed unanimously.