Yahoo Finance Lord Sugar tells women to shout louder about unfair pay
Apprentice star Lord Alan Sugar says women could do more to narrow the gender pay gap by demanding a pay rise.
The outspoken businessman said that while he disagreed with the BBC having to disclose the salaries of its top presenters, it was now up to women to force the issue.
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He said the pay gap could be addressed by women saying: “No, I want more money. Right, you want me to do that, I want more money.”
Lord Sugar added: “Her agent should come along and say, ‘Hold on, I know how much Charlie’s being paid and I want more for my lady to do it.’
“If the BBC, or ITV, or Channel 4, or Channel 5 say, ‘Nah, not really,’ then, tough. She’ll have to decide what she wants to be paid.”
Lord Sugar, who returns with the BBC One show The Apprentice tonight, said he did not think it was right to publish salary differences.
MORE: Pictured: The high-profile female stars who jointly wrote to BBC boss over gender pay gap
“I don’t think transparency over pay is the correct thing,” he said.
“It’s a private issue and I think it’s disgraceful, actually, that the BBC were forced to publish what people were earning,” he said.
“I don’t believe that people should publish what people are earning to start the debate that ‘Charlie earns this, and Celia only gets that, but she does the same job’. I don’t think that was right.”
In July, the BBC revealed two-thirds of its stars earning more than £150,000 are male. Some of the BBC’s most high-profile female personalities demanded the corporation act to tackle the imbalance.
They included Clare Balding, Victoria Derbyshire and Emily Maitlis, BBC Radio 4 Today programme journalists Mishal Husain and Sarah Montague, BBC News and Antiques Roadshow presenter Fiona Bruce, BBC Sport’s Sue Barker, and The One Show’s Alex Jones.
MORE: The cafe charging men an 18% tax to reflect the gender pay gap
It’s well documented that men in business are better paid than women, often in the same or similar roles.
Across the UK, men earned 18.1% more than women in April 2016, according to the Office for National Statistics.
The government has ordered both public and private sector companies and charities employing more than 250 staff to reveal their gender pay gap.
They have until April next year to do so – although it was revealed earlier this week only 85 of the estimated 9,000 companies have done so.
