U.K.'s Ruling Conservative Party Says It Pays Women More

(Bloomberg) -- The party of Britain's only ever female prime ministers has revealed that on average it pays its female employees more than its men.

Lawmaker Rehman Chishti, who serves as vice chair of the ruling Conservative Party, told BBC Radio that it has a median pay gap of 12.9 percent in favor of women. That is the opposite of most firms and organizations in the U.K., where the national difference is 18.4 percent higher for men.

By midnight Wednesday, employers with 250 or more staff in the U.K. are required to publish data on their pay gap. So far more than 9,000 have reported the mean and median difference in average hourly wages, bonuses and what percentage of each pay quartile is female.

Why Women (Appear to) Earn Less Than Men in the U.K.: QuickTake

While the Conservatives are not legally required to take part due to having too few employees, the party has said it will voluntarily put out full details on Thursday. The main opposition Labour party, which put out its figures in February, said it pays men slightly higher on average. Neither set of data included the pay of lawmakers.

Writing in the Telegraph newspaper on Wednesday, Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May said Britain's gender pay gap is a “burning injustice” and that society will remain poorer if it is left unchallenged.

To contact the reporter on this story: Lucy Meakin in London at lmeakin1@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Paul Gordon at pgordon6@bloomberg.net, Flavia Krause-Jackson, Stuart Biggs

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