1. If she will discuss with trade union representatives the guidance provided to employers on rights for employees with families. (313700)

The Government are committed to building a fair and family-friendly labour market, and my ministerial colleagues and I meet regularly with both unions and representatives of business to discuss this aim and how to advance it. Today’s announcement that fathers will be able to take up to six months off on paternity leave by replacing the mother at home for some of her maternity leave is a further advance for the flexibility agenda.

The unions are doing a great job in promoting the right to work flexibly, but many parents remain unaware of their rights or are wary of asking for them. What more can the Department do, working with the trade unions, to make people feel more able to ask for more family-friendly hours and to increase the uptake of that right?

There is a range of things that we can do. Equality reps, which many trade unions have in workplaces, can help to provide better information and signpost individuals and companies to it. The section of the businesslink.gov website on employing people has 350,000 hits a month from employers seeking information on how to provide better flexibility. The evidence is that many people ask for flexible working and 95 per cent. of requests are positively met.

Many businesses find that operating a flexible working policy brings huge productivity gains, as well as being good for those with families, although some remain either unconvinced or unsure of how to go about it. What can the Government do to promote the business benefits of flexible working too, and encourage more organisations to take it up, whether by creating part-time roles at senior levels or pursuing such policies as job sharing?

The hon. Lady is right. We do a range of such work. The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions recently announced that we would bring together employers, business representatives and the TUC to look at how to improve family-friendly working practices further. That type of pragmatic three-way discussion does just that: it is successful, and it is good news for employees and employers. In other words, it is a typical, good Labour policy.

Employees at O₂ in my constituency presented me with a petition last week about child care vouchers. It was initiated because the child care voucher companies had left them unaware that the Government had changed their planned policy for tax breaks for child care vouchers. Will the Minister please talk to the child care voucher providers to ensure that they work with the companies that use such vouchers and inform employees of that positive policy?

I am happy to take up the point that my hon. Friend has made and talk to the relevant organisations.

2. What recent discussions she has had with religious groups on the provisions of the Equality Bill. (313702)

Ministers in this House—in particular my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary, Government Equalities Office—and Ministers in the Lords have had a number of discussions with religious and belief groups and have received a number of representations relating to religion or belief since the introduction of the Equality Bill. Such discussions and representations are ongoing.

Will the Minister finally admit that were it not for the successful amendment from Baroness O’Cathain in the House of Lords earlier this week, the Equality Bill as unamended would have further restricted employment for people working in religious organisations?

No, it would not. We thought that it would be helpful for everyone involved to clarify the law, and that is what the amendment that we brought forward aimed to do. That amendment was rejected. However, it would be helpful for the House to understand that there are religious jobs and non-religious jobs within organisations. For example, I would say that a pensions assistant ensuring that the records database is kept up to date was not doing a religious job. I would also say that issuing and processing invoices, even if it is done in the employment of the Church of England, is not a religious job.

To make it clear, the law applies to religious organisations when they employ people in non-religious jobs in the same way that it does to everyone else. We have always been clear that we are not going to insist on non-discrimination in relation to religious jobs such as being a vicar, a bishop, an imam or a rabbi. The law has stepped back from that and said that religious organisations can decide themselves how to do that. However, when it comes to non-religious jobs, those organisations must comply with the law, and that is how the law remains.

The Minister will know that before the Government’s defeat, her Bill as unamended did not even make it clear that ministers of religion would have to live in accordance with the faith of their religion. Following the Government’s defeat in the other place not once but three times, by a coalition led by Conservative peers, bishops and Cross Benchers, the Bill has been improved. Can the Minister confirm that the Government will accept the decision in the other place to enable Churches to insist that key posts be held by those who live in accordance with the tenets of their faith, or will she seek to reverse that defeat in this House?

I think that the hon. Gentleman is trying to perpetrate a further misunderstanding. We are absolutely clear that we have never intended to extend the non-discrimination provisions to ministers of religion, nor have we ever tried to do so. Therefore they are exempted. We have always made it absolutely clear that they are and will continue to be exempted from the non-discrimination laws, and we have not sought to change that. There has been an issue about what is or is not a religious job, and we sought to clarify that. Our helpful clarification was not regarded as helpful in the House of Lords, and therefore the amendment was defeated. We will consider how to respond to that, but an official announcement will be made in due course, once these things have gone through the machinery, as it were. However, I would reassure hon. Members that the policy will remain as it is, and I would not want to lead them to anticipate that it will be brought forward again in this House.

3. If she will bring forward amendments to the Equality Bill to provide equality of access to information for blind and partially-sighted people. (313703)

Undertakings have been given in the other place to consider tabling amendments on Report. However, the existing disability discrimination legislation provides that accessible information for visually impaired people and others is a reasonable adjustment, and the disability equality duty requires public authorities not to discriminate against disabled people on the grounds of their disability. Providing accessible information for disabled people might be required to meet that obligation in appropriate circumstances.

The problem is that organisations such as the Royal National Institute for Blind People feel that the provisions of the Disability Discrimination Act 2005 to which the Minister referred are unenforceable because access to information is classed as an auxiliary aid and service. I hope that my hon. Friend will look favourably on the suggestion that the Equality Bill needs a separate clause to make these provisions absolutely clear. Will she also confirm that trying to solve this problem by means of a judicial review would not be the way forward?

The requirements of the current Disability Discrimination Act are enforceable, and they can be enforced in appropriate circumstances. However, we want public authorities to take a leading role and to lead by example in providing accessible information to those with visual impairments and others. In that respect, I hope that the House authorities themselves will consider whether refusing to allow a visually impaired parliamentarian a Braille copy of a Bill is really helping that parliamentarian to do his job. Should we not be leading by example in this respect? I believe that we should be, and I hope that the House authorities will reconsider that decision.[Official Report, 3 February 2010, Vol. 505, c. 3MC.]

4. When she plans to publish the draft regulations on age discrimination as provided for in the Equality Bill. (313704)

We aim to consult in the autumn on a draft order under the Equality Bill, which will specify the exceptions to the otherwise full ban on age discrimination against adults in services and public functions.

I thank the Minister for that response, and I am pleased to see that the Government have accepted the concerns of those of us who served on the Bill Committee about the need to retain good age discrimination. Can she confirm that the exemption for companies such as Saga will be in the regulations, and not just in the guidelines?

Yes, I can, and I am sorry that I could not do so earlier when I was asked to make that clear on Report. There will be a number of specific exceptions. There has been a very good consultation process on this. We had 106 responses from businesses, the age lobby and local authorities—indeed, everyone we could have wished to feed in did so. There will certainly be specific exemptions for financial services, and for age-related group holidays, which are obviously advantageous.

Does my young ministerial colleague not agree that it is totally unacceptable that anyone should be discriminated against because of their age, and that there is no justification for forcing someone out of work when they reach 65 if they want to continue in employment? If it is good enough for us, it should be good enough for the people outside the House.

I volunteer to be the young Minister who responds to my equally youthful colleague’s question. Obviously, we are looking as closely as we practically can, and as quickly as we can, at the question of the future of the default retirement age, which frankly seems unpromising. It is probably older than both my hon. Friend and me, and past its sell-by date.

Following on from the question from the hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick), and given that the Equality Commission now agrees that a mandatory retirement age is discriminatory and should be outlawed, I should like to inform the Minister that there is an opportunity in the Lords at the moment to table an amendment on this matter. Will the Government table such an amendment to end the mandatory retirement age?

It is prudent, when something has been a fact in a given piece of law in our system for a very long time, not simply to click one’s fingers and remove it, but to consult and to find out what any unintended consequences might be, so that it can be done—if it is to be done—in a sensible way, after all the input has been considered. We have recently mentioned a date by which we expect to complete that process, and I hope that the hon. Lady will curb her impatience at least until then.

I have seen as an employer, and personally as the years roll on, the value of experience. I hope that the good voters of Ochil and South Perthshire see that too. Does the Minister agree that valuable experience will be a building brick to get the economy growing as we move out of recession, and that it should be seen as a significant asset?

Yes, I do—I am equally prepared to volunteer to be an experienced Minister. A number of employers are now seeing the benefits of having older people working for them, which is marked in places such as B&Q. They see enormous benefits in terms of good customer relations and general wisdom. I agree with my hon. Friend 100 per cent.

Is the Minister aware that a golf club in my constituency proposes to stop offering reduced membership to its pensioner members, on the basis of its understanding of the Equality Bill? Has it got it right?

No, it has not. I can write to the hon. Gentleman to set out, step by step, how it has got it wrong. But take it from me—it has got it wrong.

5. What information the Government Equalities Office collates on the gender pay gap for (a) full-time and (b) part-time workers. (313705)

The Government Equalities Office uses data collected by the Office for National Statistics in the annual survey of hours and earnings to monitor the gender pay gap. In 2009, women working full time were paid 12.2 per cent. less than full-time men; women working part time were paid 2 per cent. more than part-time men. Comparing all women—full and part time—with all men, the pay gap is currently 22 per cent.

I thank my hon. and learned Friend for that answer. In recent times, one disappointing thing has been the growing pay gap in the private sector. That is possibly a result of the financial restraints currently operating there, but it is still unacceptable. Will the Equality Bill have a material impact on that pay gap in the private sector? Is there any evidence that other parties will offer their support for that step forward?

Overall, during our period in office, the pay gap has reduced from 27.5 to 22 per cent. We are passing pleased about that, although the Equality Bill is intended to jump that process up a lot of gears. Our proposals have not had wholehearted support from the Opposition, to put it bluntly. The proposals hinge on the need to make pay structures in business transparent, so that we can compare business with business, sector with sector, like with like, and see where the imbalances are. Only when such imbalances are visible can they be pushed out. The short answer is that we were not supported in that admirable endeavour by Her Majesty’s Opposition.

Is it not ludicrous that the Government give tens of millions of pounds to the Equality and Human Rights Commission to lecture the rest of the country about the gender pay gap, yet the Equality and Human Rights Commission itself pays women more than men?

I am groping hard for the logic behind that question—was “ludicrous” the word the hon. Gentleman used. The Equality and Human Rights Commission has had a lot of input into making the right measurements available so that the hon. Gentleman, as well as I, can know what the pay gap is, so that he can join forces with me to ensure that women are given equal pay in the very near future.

Let us get real about low-paid women workers. The national minimum wage has increased the earnings of many more women than men. Will the Government Equalities Office keep a close eye on the impact of a minimum wage on the gender pay gap for low-paid workers, and make representations to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to use the minimum wage as a key driver for equality?

Of course the minimum wage has had an enormously advantageous impact on low-paid women, despite the best endeavours of the Tories to stop it getting on to the statute book. It will continue to have a good effect, as will a number of other proposals that we have. Perhaps the most telling fact is that the Tories will oppose all the steps we take to advance equal pay, even though it is clearly known that the most important single measure to get children out of poverty is to give women equal pay. That does not affect the Tories, but they still oppose it.