Women will still have the right to receive equal pay for doing a similar job as their male counterparts, the government has insisted, despite the fact that an EU law guaranteeing the protection has been scrapped.
The legislation was intended to protect workers, including those whose jobs have been outsourced or who work in different locations.
However, part of the guarantee was among a host of some 600 EU laws which the government announced in May that it would scrap by the end of the year, in the retained EU law bill.
One of these was an EU regulation known as the “single source” test, which allows workers to compare their role with that of someone working in a different establishment, if a “single source” has the power to correct the difference in pay, or in their terms and conditions.
The rule protected women who work for outsourcing companies or those employed in different locations but doing similar jobs.
Despite this, thousands of mostly female shop floor workers including at Tesco and Asda – who were paid less than male warehouse staff – previously launched legal action against their employers over equal pay.
On Tuesday night, the government said it intended to bring the law back through secondary legislation later this year.
A spokesperson for the government’s Equality Hub said: “There will be absolutely no reduction in equal pay protections.”
They added: “The new secondary legislation will be laid before parliament long before the end of the year.”
The announcement came hours after Labour committed to reinstating the single source test if it wins power. The party’s chair, Anneliese Dodds, accused ministers of performing a “Tory U-turn”.
In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, Dodds said: “Women will wonder if the party that put these rights at risk can really be trusted to protect them.”
The legislation has also previously been used in battles over unequal pay in the public sector, after female cleaners and school meal serving staff took legal actions over claims that they were paid less than male street cleaners.
In 2014, Birmingham city council agreed to pay more than £1bn to settle the claims of tens of thousands of women, which stretched back over many years.
There have also been successful claims against Glasgow city council and Dudley council. Cumbria county council reached a settlement with 1,800 workers, paying them an average of £12,079 each, in 2009.
