In a Parliamentary committee meeting this week I scrutinised legislation that will require companies to publish the difference between men’s and women’s salaries. 

While the gender pay gap has declined over the past decade, it’s a disgrace that women still earn 18% less than men on average.

That’s why I welcome the introduction of legislation requiring companies to publish the difference between both hourly pay and bonuses for male and female employees.

The changes will come into force in April and will apply to companies with more than 250 employees.

I’m really concerned that the legislation doesn’t contain any enforcement mechanisms to make sure that companies comply with these new regulations, so I used this opportunity to call for tough penalties for companies who fail to publish this information.

It’s also absolutely essential that the Government and businesses take proper action address any issues that this new transparency brings up. We need more than statistics on a bit of paper if we’re going to properly tackle the gender pay gap.