Government to revive EU-derived equal pay law months after scrapping it

The government has been accused of a U-turn after confirming it will bring back a “vital” EU protection on equal pay months after legislation was passed to scrap it.

Hundreds of Brussels-derived laws will be axed by the end of the year under the controversial Retained EU (Revocation and Reform) Act which was given Royal Assent in June.

This includes a regulation establishing the “single-source test” which gives women the right to equal pay with men for doing work of equal value, even if they work for different employers or in different locations, as long as they work for the same “source”.

The law has helped in recent landmark disputes involving thousands of female Asda and Tesco cashiers, who have argued their roles should be compared to the mostly male staff employed at the companies’ distribution depots.

The workers relied on Article 157 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU which enshrines the principle that men and women should receive equal pay for equal work – including when their jobs have been outsourced.

On Wednesday Labour accused the government of removing this protection “through the back door” with its Retained EU Law bill – and vowed to write it into UK law if it wins the next election.

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However ministers insisted there will be “absolutely no reduction in equal pay protections” when the bonfire of Brussels-derived laws comes into force, and new legislation will be passed to enshrine the rights in domestic law.

“The new secondary legislation will be laid before parliament long before the end of the year,” an equalities hub spokesperson told Sky News.

The confirmation is likely to raise fresh questions about the point of scrapping EU laws if they are going to be replaced months later.

Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner said the Tories’ “botched handling of Brexit” had left low-paid women workers “facing a cliff edge” while shadow equalities minister Anneliese Dodds accused the government of a U-turn.

Ms Dodds tweeted: “A Tory U-turn within hours of Labour committing to keep vital equal pay rights for women. But women will wonder if the party that put these rights at risk can really be trusted to protect them.”

‘Unnecessary chaos’

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Legal experts welcomed the commitment from the government but questioned whether there was enough parliamentary time to replace the EU legislation.

The UK Equality Act states men and women in the same employment performing equal work must receive the same pay, unless any difference can be justified.

However EU law goes further and allows a woman to compare herself to a man who is not in the same employment or location but where the difference in pay is from a single source with the power to fix the difference.

As well as disputes against supermarket giants, the legislation has been used in battles over public sector pay. There have been successful claims made against Glasgow and Birmingham councils for paying female-dominated jobs like catering and cleaning less than male-dominated jobs like refuse collection.

Max Winthrop, the chair of the Law Society’s Employment Law Committee, told Sky News Article 157 “closed the gaps” in UK employment legislation and without it, “legitimate claims on equal pay would have failed”.

While it would be “great” to devise domestic legislation that gave the same protections, he said it is a “complex” area of law and “parliamentary time is limited”.

Although the government watered down the Retained EU Law Bill – with 600 laws to be revoked by the end of the year instead of the 4,000 or so pledged – Mr Winthrop warned it still risked creating “unnecessary chaos” as many vital protections for UK workers, such as on holiday and sick pay, are also derived from EU law.

“Historically we have been a bit lazy with our own legislation,” he said.

“We have relied on sticking plasters borrowed from the EU.

“While it would be great for parliamentary time to be given to fix this, one has to live in the real world and that is probably not going to happen.”

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