By Fatma Younis
Britain's equality watchdog has recommended that workers should have the legal right to demand details of colleagues' earnings if they suspect pay discrimination, under new proposals from the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC).
EHRC proposals
The proposals would compel employers to respond to statutory salary questionnaires covering basic pay, working hours, overtime, bonuses and performance-related pay, with suspicion of discrepancy sufficient grounds for a request. The EHRC also advises making employer responses mandatory with a specified timeframe to prevent delays or evasive answers.
Gender pay gap context
The move aims to tackle systemic inequality; the UK gender pay gap stands at 6.8 per cent for full-time employees as of April 2026. A lack of transparency about what people earn for comparable work helps perpetuate discrepancies and discrimination, particularly against women.
International comparisons
The UK approach differs from Nordic tax transparency models, where individual tax records are searchable but do not show exact salary components. It also differs from the EU Pay Transparency Directive, which requires average pay data by gender for comparable work, bans salary history questions in hiring, and mandates pay assessments for unjustified gaps above 5 per cent.
Expert views
HR consultant Kate Underwood says pay secrecy never protected businesses, only bad decisions, and advises employers to document why each person is paid their salary. Rewards consultant Caroline Pryce notes that publishing salary ranges helps women and ethnic minorities negotiate fairly and cuts wasted recruitment time.
Limitations and reach
An individual disclosure right alone will not close the gender pay gap entirely, as structural factors like promotion patterns and part-time work remain. However, it could benefit workers in smaller firms not covered by current reporting thresholds, provided equal pay law is extended to cover race and disability.
