The Times - UK (2022-04-04)

34 Monday April 4 2022 | the times

Business

Employers that miss the gender pay gap
reporting deadline for a second consec-
utive year will face “formal” enforce-
ment action and could be named and
shamed, the Equality and Humans
Right Commission has warned.
The alert comes ahead of a deadline
today for private and voluntary sector
employers and after one for most public
sector employers last Wednesday.
The commission issued warning
notices to 1,400 employers that failed to
report by last year’s extended deadline,
which included a six-month grace
period to October because of the
pandemic. Warning notices were sent

Enforcement threat over gender pay gap

to more than 1,100 private sector

employers and to 200 public sector

employers and by late last month had

led to 99 per cent of those employees

taking the “steps they needed to

comply with the gender pay gap regu-

lations”.

The commission is warning organi-

sations that failed to report their gender

pay gap information for the October

2021 deadline that it “will consider

taking formal enforcement action

against repeating non-reporters once

the 2022 reporting deadlines have

passed”.

Its enforcement powers range from

entering a legally binding agreement,

committing the organisation to an

action plan and launching a formal

investigation if it suspects illegality.

Its approach differs from last year as

the commission will be targeting repeat

offenders first. If an employer did not

miss last year’s deadline but has missed

this one they will receive a warning

notice. Should they then fail to comply,

the commission may then consider

using its formal enforcement powers.

The commission declined to name

those that missed last year’s extended

deadline, because of the pandemic. It

did so in 2019, when it named Typhoo

Tea, Charlotte Tilbury Beauty and

Northern Automotive Systems for

failing to report their gender pay gap in-

formation on time for consecutive

years. It expects to resume the deter-

rent this year.

The gender pay gap widened last

year, despite the furlough scheme flat-

tering the performance of some sectors,

analysis by The Times a year ago

suggested. Figures at the time showed

that a woman earned 89p for every £1

that a man earned, on average. It meant

that the pay gap widened to 11.1 per cent

in 2021, up from 10.6 per cent the year

before, 9.5 per cent in 2019 and 9.3 per

cent in 2018.

The research found that 38 per cent

of organisations, ranging from private

companies to charities to government

bodies, had a larger median pay gap

than last year. The figures could not be

directly compared with the previous

year because the number of submis-

sions fell sharply.

Jemima Olchawski, chief executive

of the Fawcett Society, a charity that

campaigns for women’s rights, said that

“reporting is a good way of identifying

pay inequalities, but taking action is

key. We want the government to

require every employer to create an

action plan on how they will improve

gender equality in their workplace. In

comparison to countries across Europe

such as France, Belgium, and Sweden,

we are significantly behind the curve

on requiring employers to implement

the well-evidenced steps that will close

their gender pay gaps.”

Alex Ralph

ALAMY; MARY TURNER FOR THE TIMES

Hunt is on for more

labs in Silicon Fen

C

ambridge has

run out of

laboratory space

amid booming

demand from would-be

tenants and a lack of

new developments (Tom

Howard writes).

Locals have expressed

concerns that Silicon

Fen, as the city is

known, risks losing its

status as one of Europe’s

key life sciences hubs if

it does not start building

more labs soon.

Demand for lab space

has surged in recent

years. Pharmaceuticals

companies, healthcare

start-ups and drugs

developers have

attracted significant

investment during the

pandemic, money that

they have used to

expand. To

accommodate their

growing employee

numbers, many have

been looking for more

lab space for their

scientists and

researchers.

Cambridge, with the

help of its university, has

become a hub for

science and technology

and is home to industry

giants such as

AstraZeneca, Pfizer and

Illumina. Altos Labs, the

“anti-ageing” start-up

said to be backed by Jeff

Bezos, the Amazon

billionaire, soon will

open a laboratory at

Granta Park, a life

sciences park that sits

just south of Cambridge

off the A11.

Local property agents

estimate that there are

companies looking for,

in total, about a million

sq ft of lab space in and

around Cambridge.

However, those

businesses might be

waiting for some time.

There is no space under

construction and two

sites that would have

added 600,000 sq ft have

been turned down or

deferred in recent

months.

“We’ve got this

bottleneck in the system.

Planning permission is

just taking so long,”

Michael Jones, head of

commercial at Cheffins,

the property agent, said.

A spokeswoman for

Greater Cambridge

Shared Planning Service

refuted any suggestion

that “we are not

supportive of the [life

sciences] sector...

Integrating large and

complex developments

takes care and it is

important for our

communities that we get

it right, meaning

proposals can take

longer than developers

would like.”

Jones said that before

the pandemic, a decent

laboratory would rent at

about £42 per sq ft.

Now they fetch in excess

of £48.50 per sq ft, a rise

of 15 per cent in two

years.

New laboratory space

is needed quickly amid

concerns that

companies will look

elsewhere and move out

of Cambridge. Oxford is

another life sciences hub

and last week Canary

Wharf Group unveiled

plans to build a

750,000 sq ft lab in the

London business district.

“For a long time,

Silicon Fen was

important to people

within a 20-mile radius,”

Jones said. “Now it is on

the global stage and we

mustn’t lose that

because we can’t satisfy

demand.”

Pressure is growing for

Cambridge to provide

more lab space for science

companies in what has

been dubbed Silicon Fen

Gas prices are likely to stay high for
years, but petrol prices should fall back
sooner, according to new analysis.
The Centre for Economics and
Business Research warned that “the
cost of heating your house on gas may
well stay up for years rather than
months” as Europe faces the potential
loss of Russian supplies and infrastruc-
ture challenges in replacing them.
However, it said there was “some
hope for early relief at the petrol sta-
tions” as it believed that a series of fac-
tors “should work to bring the price of
oil down by the end of the year”.
Prices for both oil and gas have
surged since Russia’s invasion of
Ukraine amid uncertainty about sup-
plies, pushing up prices at the pump and
home heating costs. Russia is the big-
gest exporter of oil and oil products to
global markets and supplies about

40 per cent of Europe’s gas. Western

buyers have boycotted Russian oil and

the United States has imposed an oil

embargo.

However, the CEBR said oil prices

June 2020 and now offers savings ac-

counts, personal loans and credit cards.

Its loan book has grown to about

£1.5 billion and it has attracted £1.1 bil-

lion in deposits, according to Janardana.

Although he has said previously that

Zopa could try to float as early as the

fourth quarter of this year, he told The

Times that it was in no rush. Investors’

worries about the war in Ukraine and

soaring inflation have led to a drop in

initial public offerings this year, after a

boom in 2021. “The market has shut

down to a large extent,” Janardana said.

“We’ll just have to look at it and wait for

the right time.”

Zopa raised $300 million in October

in a funding round led by SoftBank, the

Japanese technology investor, in a deal

thought to have put a $1 billion “uni-

corn” valuation on the digital bank.

Profit puts Zopa on track

for stock market flotation

Ben Martin Banking Editor

Gas prices ‘will stay high for years’

should be eased by production increas-

ing elsewhere, strategic stockpiles

being released and high prices denting

demand. It said its models were in line

with a forward market that predicts

Brent below $90 a barrel in 2024 and

that “much of that fall is forecast by

December 2022”. FairFuelUK said this

should translate to a reduction of 8p a

litre in prices at the pump. Brent was at

about $104 a barrel last night.

Gas markets are much more region-

al. Moscow has threatened to cut the

gas it supplies by pipeline to Europe un-

less it is paid in roubles, while pressure

is mounting for European nations to

boycott Russian gas as evidence of

atrocities in Ukraine grows. Replacing

Russian gas will require new liquefied

natural gas terminals. “Until terminals

are built and operating and demand is

reduced, Europe has to choose between

facing a recession and continuing to

buy Russian gas,” the CEBR said.

Emily Gosden

Zopa has turned a profit for the first

time since becoming a bank in a mile-

stone that takes the digital lender a step

closer towards listing on the stock

market.

Jaidev Janardana, chief executive of

the digital-only lender, has long said

that reaching profitability would be a

precondition for floating the business.

He achieved the aim last month, when

the group generated a net profit of

under £1 million. “We wanted to estab-

lish a track record of profitability. We’ve

now started on that path,” Janardana,

43, said.

The company was launched in 2005

as the world’s first peer-to-peer lender

but has since transitioned to become a

bank. It secured a banking licence in

Petrol prices are likely to come down

as production rises outside Russia