Greg Wright: The discredited policy that hit vulnerable women the hardest

Decades after legislation was introduced which should have made inequality history, far too many women are still being underpaid and denied opportunities for promotion.

The row over the pay grades of the top earners at the BBC has placed gender equality under the spotlight.

But the real injustices take place beyond the public gaze. Female workers in the lowest paid jobs are most likely to be victims of discrimination, and are the least capable of challenging an employer who breaks the law.

One in ten employers has admitted to paying women less than men for jobs at the same level, according to a YouGov survey of 800 senior figures in human resources, which was conducted on behalf of the charity, the Young Women’s Trust.

In the UK, the full-time gender pay gap is 14 per cent, according to the trust’s study. At the pitifully slow rate it is narrowing, it will take another 50 years to close the gap. Many employers think the gap will never be closed.

The Government may claim that it supports measures to promote equality, but its policies have made it harder for women to bring rogue employers to justice.

The Government introduced fees for bringing employment tribunal claims of up to £1,200 in 2013, which it said would cut the number of malicious and weak cases. In a humiliating reversal, these fees have now been ruled unlawful, and the Government will have to repay up to £32m to claimants.

The Supreme Court ruled the government was acting unlawfully and unconstitutionally when it introduced the fees.

Sam Smethers, the chief executive of the Fawcett Society, a charity which campaigns for gender equality, believes the fees should never have been introduced.

She said: “Sex discrimination claims fell by 80 per cent as a direct result of the introduction of Employment Tribunal fees. Women have been denied justice and discrimination has gone unchecked and unchallenged.”

Griselda Togobo, the managing director of the Leeds-based networking group Forward Ladies, added: “This isn’t just humiliating for the Government, but also for those shameless businesses or law-breaking bosses, who felt they had an upper hand.

“The statistics show that in some cases, for example in areas such as pregnancy discrimination and maternity discrimination, the number of claims have fallen. This obviously isn’t a result of less pregnancies. It’s due to a culture of fear within the workplace for those individuals who have been prevented from bringing claims against their employers.”

Leeds-based employment lawyer Alex Clements, of Schofield Sweeney, has found an interesting passage on the discriminatory effect of tribunal fees, which is tucked away at the end of the Supreme Court judgment.

She said: “Discrimination claims were classified as Type B, attracting the higher fees totalling £1,250. The majority of these claims were brought by women, many arising out of pregnancy and maternity-related issues, and as such, the fees regime does seem to have hit some of the most vulnerable women the hardest.

“Undoubtedly fees hit the lowest paid the hardest, for reasons of simple economics. If an employer fails to pay £500 worth of wages, many would conclude that it was simply not worth the £350 in fees to seek to recover those wages.

“As women on the whole are lower paid then men, and make up the bulk of the part time workforce, it seems likely that women in particular have lost out on the opportunity to reclaim money owing to them.”

Paul Scholey, of Morrish Solicitors, added: “Tens of thousands of deserving claimants have been denied access to justice in the name of a double dogma: that all public services should be paid for by users; and that employer freedom trumps the ability of people to enforce basic employment rights.”

We will never know how many women have been denied justice because of this reckless, and now discredited, Government policy.

If it helped to fuel a climate of fear, then it placed another barrier on the long, rocky road to equality.