Equal Pay: Ethnic Groups
The question
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether the ethnic pay gap reporting framework will require employers to record and report pay gap data for Jewish and Sikh employees as distinct ethnic groups.
Answered by Seema Malhotra
Our consultation on ethnicity and disability pay gap reporting closed in June 2025. The consultation sought views on the proposed approach, including whether ethnicity data should be collected following the Government Statistical Service (GSS) Ethnicity Harmonised Standard. Good progress has been made in analysing the responses and we will publish the Government response to the consultation in due course.
The ONS current harmonised standard does not include specific “Sikh” and “Jewish” categories for a person’s ethnic group. The Office for National Statistics (ONS), which is independent of government, is currently running a public consultation which seeks to review the harmonised standard to ensure it meets the needs of both data users and respondents.
We will monitor the progress of this review during policy development.
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