Pay Transparency Bill

A

B I L L

T O

require qualifying employers to publicly disclose pay-related statistics about their qualifying employer and its employees.

BE IT ENACTED by the King’s most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:—

Section One: Definitions

(1) A qualifying employer (hereafter simply “qualifying employer ”) is one with ten or more employees.

(1) In this Act, a “qualifying employer” is an employer with twenty 50 or more employees.

(2) A closest match job title (hereafter simply “Job Title”) shall be a short description of a job defined and kept up to date by the relevant Secretary of State.

Section Two: Requirements for qualifying employers

(1) Firms Qualifying employers shall be required to catalogue the following information internally and are responsible for ensuring employees are added or removed from the database within two weeks of the start and end of their employment and are also responsible for editing information as necessary:

(a) Average weekly pay over the last financial year.
(b) Average hours worked per week over the last financial year.
(c) Job Title
(d) Detailed job role.
(e) Any and all other legally permissible elements the firm uses to calculate pay, including but not limited to years of relevant experience, time worked at the firm, and performance-related pay schemes, with how these elements contribute to pay also catalogued.
(f) Estimated monetary value of any payments in kind over the last financial year.
(g) Any additional benefits within their contract.

(2) qualifying employers shall be required to disclose the data provided about an individual to that individual upon the request of said individual.

(3) Both The qualifying employer and the relevant Department shall be legally responsible for protecting the anonymity of employee data under existing data protection regulations and shall be subject to legal penalties and damages if any names connected with the data are unlawfully disclosed due to their fault.

(4) qualifying employers shall be required to comply with any reasonable requests for clarification about the above data by the relevant Department.

Section Three: Publication of statistics

(1) Where a firm qualifying employer has a website, it is expected that they will publish the above information required of them in Section 2 on said website in an easily accessible location.

(2) Any firm qualifying employer interviewing a prospective employee must ensure that the prospective employee is aware of the above information.

(a) If there is an online application area, the firm qualifying employer must) endeavour to include this information
(b) Websites that facilitate job applications must work to ensure there is a place for firms to include this information.

(3) The firm qualifying employer must provide the information required of them in Section 2 to any current employee who requests it.

(4) No firm qualifying employer may forbid or otherwise ban employees from discussing their pay.

Section Four: Penalties

(1) A qualifying employer which fails to submit employee data on time shall be fined up to £1,000 per individual violation.

(2) A qualifying employer which intentionally or systematically (defined as a third conviction under section 4(1) with each successive violation occurring after the qualifying employer was officially made aware of the allegation of a prior violation of 4(1) by the relevant Department or a judicial body) fails to submit employee data on time may be fined up to £100,000.

(3) A qualifying employer which submits false employee data may be fined up to £1,000,000. If the qualifying employer can prove that it is likely on the balance of probabilities that the false data was submitted by accident, the penalty shall be a maximum of £50,000. £10,000

(4) A qualifying employer found to have broken Section 3 (4) is liable for a fine of up to £5,000, rising to £25,000 should this occur more than three times.

Section 5: Right to be forgotten

(1) Any individual whose information is provided to the relevant department under this act may petition the relevant department to have any information provided under the provisions of this Act scrubbed from the website and any attached databases.

(2) Where an individual makes a petition under subsection (a) o f this section, the relevant department shall be obliged to remove all the information within 30 days of receiving such a petition.

Section Six: Enactment, Extent, and Short Title

(1) This bill shall come into force 60 days after receiving Royal Assent.

(a) Section 3(2a) and Section 3(2b) shall come into force 180 days after receiving Royal Assent

(2) This bill may be cited as the Pay Transparency Act 2023.

(3) This bill shall extend to the entire United Kingdom.

This bill was written by the Right Honourable /u/colossalteuthid, with revision and editing by /u/NicolasBroaddus, on behalf of His Majesty’s 37th Most Loyal Opposition.

Opening Speech:

Deputy Speaker,

I come before this House again with a legislative idea that was once considered radical, and yet now finds its way into general acceptance, even featuring in this Government’s King’s Speech.

Negotiating for one’s place in the workforce is a difficult task, one often made intentionally more difficult by companies obscuring salaries or other information. This only benefits the employer, as employees all benefit by showing each other solidarity in salaries.

To accomplish a better system for this, this bill would set up a central pay database, putting the onus on employers to enter basic information as they would in getting a licence they might need for any other aspect of starting a business. In a previous debate on this bill, it was claimed this would be restrictive, but this is clearly untrue given the paperwork already required for employment and the simplicity of this database.

The bill also sets out onerous fines for employers violating the integrity of the database, or for refusing to use it at all. While accommodations are made for good faith mistakes, clear patterns of behaviour must be punished harshly enough to economically disincentivise the fraud.

I hope that my Opposition and the Government can come together on this issue, something they themselves promised despite opposing last term. I am happy to cooperate on the finer details as always, and commend this bill to the House.

This Division will end on the 10th at 10PM.