The government has launched a consultation on plans to reform equal pay laws and strengthen protection against pay discrimination.

The Equal pay and pay discrimination consultation(Opens in a new tab) builds on a call for evidence(Opens in a new tab), which demonstrated a need for serious reform of the current system. The government accepts that the existing legal protection places too much of the burden of enforcement on individuals, encourages lengthy and adversarial disputes and doesn't do enough to protect those people who need it.

It is thinking about reforming the system in two distinct phases. Phase one will ‘fix' the systemic failures of the current equal pay regime and phase two will address pay gaps which impact disabled people, those from ethnic minority groups and outsourced workers.