To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of the Prime Minister's party conference speech, when and how they will provide details of policies and programmes aimed at achieving the elimination of inequalities in the United Kingdom.
Answered on
2 November 2015
This government is determined to extend opportunity to everyone. We have announced a number of new initiatives that will help achieve equality of opportunity in the UK.
On 25th October, the Prime Minister and the Minister for Women and Equalities announced new measures to eradicate gender pay inequality. The government now requires larger employers to publish information about their bonuses for men and women. We are also extending our plans for gender pay gap reporting to the public sector.
On 26th October, the Prime Minister launched a public and private sector initiative to tackle discrimination in recruitment. A number of organisations, including KPMG, HSBC and Deloitte, together with the Civil Service and local government, have committed to using name-blind applications for all graduate and apprenticeship level roles.
In addition, on 22nd October, the Home Secretary published diversity profiles on all police forces in England and Wales. These profiles showed that no force had a black and minority ethnic (BME) contingent equivalent to that of the local demographic. She has asked chief constables to use this information to help improve their recruitment, retention, and promotion of police officers from BME backgrounds.