UK Music calls on government to help end gender pay gap

Florence Lockheart
Monday, October 11, 2021

UK Music has asked for the Government's help to remove the barriers that stand in the way of closing the gender pay gap.

Following last Tuesday’s deadline for large employers to report their gender pay gap figures, UK Music, an industry-funded body representing the collective interests of the British music industry, has asked for the Government's help to close the gender pay gap. 

UK Music chief executive Jamie Njoku-Goodwin said: ‘We need swifter and greater progress to address some of the structural barriers that hinder the progress of women in the workplace.’ Njoku-Goodwin added that ‘The Government must do more to help tackle these challenges. This includes addressing the need for more equitable parental leave schemes that work for all families, ensuring well-funded and accessible childcare, and ensuring access to justice for victims of workplace discrimination.’

The organisation’s diversity taskforce chair Ammo Talwar explained that ‘UK Music and its Diversity Taskforce is determined to continue building on our Ten-Point Plan to help eliminate the gender pay gap. It’s time every employer in the music industry - large and small - signed up to the aims of the Ten-Point Plan.’

The diversity taskforce deputy chair Paulette Long added that, ‘Tackling the gender pay gap as we emerge from a crisis that has disproportionately hit women and their incomes is more urgent than ever. The pace of change needs to be accelerated so women do not have to wait for yet more years before the necessary actions are taken that will allow us to see more equitable outcomes in the way we are paid.’

You can find out more about UK Music here.