Jon Trickett: Even when there are more women, the posh boys at the top still make the system work in their favour

Although the Conservatives pledged to “end the pay gap in a generation”, they have totally failed to equalise pay for thousands of their own female employees.

The huge gaps between what women and men earn at the hands of our government is a scandal – but one they are seem happy to ignore. Public employees both now and in later life are worse off than their male co-workers. Women’s lower wages mean lower contributions to their pensions, meaning the government isn’t only pushing women behind now, but but also holding them back during their retirement.

The government should be setting a good example for equal pay but instead they are doing exactly the opposite. Our government is stuck in the last century when it comes to women’s employment rights, let alone embracing this century’s equality act. The cabinet office, which ensures government is running smoothly and healthily, spends an average of £43,000 a year on men but only £35,800 on women. In fact, there appears to be no part of Whitehall which pays men and women equally.

Even in the so-called “feminised” departments of health and education spend more on each man than each woman. While these parts of Whitehall attract more women, they are paid less when they get there. The department of education spends an average £3,000 a year more per man, and in health, this gap is almost £6,000 every year. Even when there are more women, the posh boys at the top still make the system work in their favour.

Of the 14 departments that responded fully to parliamentary questions I have tabled, eight departments have a wider gender pay gap than the national average measured by the office of national statistics.

The picture is equally bleak for black and minority ethnic employees. Last week’s scandal at the Foreign Office showed an equally uncomfortable picture. The FCO is the largest Whitehall department – an awkward hangover from our imperial past – and pays its white employees £10,000 a year more than their black or minority ethnic counterparts. At this department, when it comes to gender, there’s a pay gap of over £5,000.

The graduate programme for civil servants – known as the fast stream – is “less diverse than the student population of the University of Oxford” according to the government’s own report. In fact, if those that went to Oxford or Cambridge are more than twice as likely to be successful when applying. The average fast streamer is white, straight, male and had parents with degrees.

These inequalities are injustices in and of themselves, but they are also a symbol of much bigger problems for the way our country works.

This scandal is just one example of how Whitehall works in favour of a tiny elite of people. In every part of government, we see the game is rigged in favour of this narrow group.

We cannot have representative policy until we have representative government. While it is filled with a self-selected group of people usually from privileged background.

It is unacceptable that power and wealth in our country lies in so few hands. Our Labour values should lead us to want to break this system open. My Labour values mean that everyone should get a fair crack of the whip, and to be treated fairly at work, not just the tiny elites still that dominate Whitehall and Westminster.