After missing the extended deadline by a whole month, the Labour Party has finally published its gender pay gap report for 2020. It shows women now earn 98p for every £1 earned by men – a median gap of 1.84%, compared to -2.67% in 2019 when women earned 3p more per hour than their male colleagues. This might explain why the party was so reluctant to hand over the report…

The party also released an accompanying document that acknowledges the figures, and admits they must “ensure we consistently maintain pay equality across the Labour Party over the coming years.” The report is coy about explaining that whereas women were previously paid on average 4.68% more than men, they now have a mean pay gap of 0.33% less than men, a swing of 5.01% in relative pay in favour of men. They also claim – in big, bold text – that the Labour Party “is committed to transparency“. A brave move considering how long it took them to publish all this.

To be fair, women working at CCHQ also earn 2% less than the men, so they really shouldn’t have been so coy about it. At least the Tories submitted their homework on time…