On Monday I led for the Liberal Democrats in the Second Reading of the Equality Bill. The key issues are: the gender pay gap, the duty on bodies to reduce socio-economic inequality; the ending of discrimination on age in goods and services; procurement and much much more – as you can see in my speech here.
But one idea I floated in the speech was how to stop being disbarred from getting a job – before you even get an interview. Lots of people get thrown on the scrapheap because their name is a give away as to their ethnicity, sex or age. This is not (just) about discrimination that is overt – but in a pile of applications it’s about also subliminal and unconscious discrimination – and I have come up with a proposal to eliminate it. It’s in my speech in full – but Personnel Today also picked up on it.
Lynne Featherstone 
“Women in full-time work are paid 17 per cent. less than men, and 36 per cent. less if they work part-time”IN COMPLETELY DIFFERENT JOBS!Women work shorter hours, are less committed to their careers, less qualified, do less demanding are massively less dangerous jobs.If women really do work for less than men then why employ men at all?What Lynne s saying that any group in society who works hard, puts in extra hours and puts their lives at risk does not deserve to be rewarded for their efforts, and we should punish them by docking their wages to ensure less able, less determined and less useful employees, in much easier jobs do not go home with a smaller pay cheque.Quite frankly I find Lynne’s contempt for such hard working and admirable people to be a disgrace, and an incredible insult.