Dr. Helen Russell:

On equalising downwards, which is not where we want to be, if pay transparency moderates very high wages at the top perhaps it is not such a bad thing. If we are speaking about executive level pay it is not necessarily something that would be too negative. If it is lower down the scale then that is an issue. We do not want to equalise downwards. Pay transparency will mean organisations will have to justify and explain the differences. If it is because some executives have excessively high levels of pay it is something that will be open to scrutiny. It may be the less problematic side of it.

When the citizens' assembly looked at shared leave the evidence was that having non-transferable leave was important. Where there is shared leave it tends to be transferred to women. Having to use it or lose it seems to be more associated with higher take-up of the leave by men. This is an area where we need better data. We do not have good data on who takes parental leave and whether there are top-ups by employers. There is a real gap that we need to fill.