Labour ‘to extend equal pay rights to ethnic minorities’ in draft Race Equality Act

Sir Keir Starmer’s party expected to unveil updated plans for Race Equality Act on Monday

Changes to Race Equality Act could extend women’s equal pay protections to ethnic minority workers (Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire)

Labour will reportedly extend the full right to equal pay that exists for women to ethnic minority workers for the first time if Sir Keir Starmer’s party wins the general election, under new plans for a draft Race Equality Act.

In plans Labour hopes could help to address the rise in inequality over the past decade, equal pay claims on the basis of ethnicity and disability would reportedly be treated in the same way as those made on the basis of gender.

The proposals, which Sir Keir’s party is expected to unveil on Monday, would also enact protections against “dual discrimination”, in which people face prejudice due to a combination of protected characteristics, according to plans seen by The Guardian.

This would mean that those discriminated against on multiple fronts would be able to bring one single discrimination claim, as opposed to one for each protected characteristic, which Labour said would help to ease backlogs in the tribunals system.

Labour first committed to introducing a new Race Equality Act back in October 2020, after a review by Baroness Doreen Lawrence into the disproportionate impact of Covid on ethnic minorities found the virus had “thrived on” a situation created by decades of structural discrimination by the British state and society.

The party has also established a race equality taskforce, led by Baroness Lawrence and co-chaired by shadow equalities secretary Anneliese Dodds.

“It has never been more important to deliver race equality,” Ms Dodds told The Guardian on Sunday. “Inequality has soared under the Tories and too many black, Asian and ethnic minority families are working harder and harder for less and less. This is holding back their families and holding back the economy.

“We are proud of our achievements in government, from the landmark Equality Act [in 2010] to strengthening protections against discrimination. The next Labour government will go further to ensure no matter where you live in the UK, and whatever your background, you can thrive.”

Anneliese Dodds said it has ‘never been more important’ to deliver race equality (Stefan Rousseau/PA)

The strengthened equal pay rights would follow a consultation with business groups and unions, and would be phased in to give employers time to adapt to paying all their staff fairly, with back pay only available from when the law changes, the paper reported.

The new legislation would also place a duty on public services such as schools, councils and the NHS to collect data and report on staffing and pay by ethnicity.

Labour sources reportedly hope the new act will help the party deliver on its core mission to unlock economic growth through better jobs and more secure employment for ethnic minorities, and claimed this could be worth more than £26bn each year in increased salaries.

But the Runnymede Trust think-tank warned the plans are currently not enough to address the “formidable scale” of racial inequalities in Britain.

“Labour’s race equality act signals a much-needed pivot from the years of regressive and harmful policies we have seen under successive governments,” the group’s interim chief executive Dr Shabna Begum told the outlet.

“We welcome many of the commitments including those that address discrimination in the workplace, the lack of representation in our school curricula, as well as the promise to enact the principle of dual discrimination – finally recognising the interactive ways that discrimination can operate.

“However, the plans fall short of addressing the formidable scale of inequalities that shape the experiences and opportunities of people of colour.

“Committing to address structural racial inequality needs to understand that racism doesn’t simply arise when the system fails – but that racism is actually sewn into the very fabric of the system itself.

“Labour must use the race equality act as a platform to commit to an ambitious, cross-governmental approach supported with sustained investment addressing the unacceptable – and in some cases worsening – disparities in health, housing, wealth and policing, faced by so many communities of colour.”