Friday 28 October 2022

The London Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), during Black History Month, today announced its support for the Ethnicity Pay Gap Campaign. The campaign, established in 2018, is aimed at making it a legal requirement for companies to report on and address pay disparity based on race, and to highlight and encourage companies to eradicate the cultural and systematic practices that generate and maintain pay inequality for some people of colour.

A parliamentary debate last year on the ethnicity pay gap concluded with no clear roadmap to a resolution and the work of the campaign remains vital to addressing issues in employment for ethnic minorities. As highlighted in LCCI’s Ethnic Diversity in Business Paper, there is a distinct need to collect and analyse ethnicity-related data and to address identified issues. Ethnicity pay gap reporting would go some way to addressing the current absence of data and could be used to address existing employment issues experienced by ethnic minorities.

The Ethnic Diversity in Business report also proposed that the government should engage with business leaders and stakeholders with experience of engagement with ethnic minority stakeholders in devising the new standards for recording, understanding and communicating data. As London’s key hub for the business community, LCCI is well positioned to support the aims of the Ethnicity Pay Gap Campaign which include raising awareness, seeking mandatory reporting, and working towards finding a way to close the pay gap and collaborating with others.

Richard Burge, Chief Executive of London Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), said: “It is imperative that we continue to break down barriers and finally end institutional discrimination in all walks of life. Recently, the London Mayor, Sadiq Khan, gave his backing to our report to end systemic discrimination. Now - with our call to end the ethnicity pay gap - the time has come to turn words into action”.

#EthnicityPayGapCampaign #BlackHistoryMonth

ENDS