Lisa Pinney appointed chief govt of Fair Work Agency | Politics | News | EUROtoday

Labour has appointed a former Stonewall board member to move a robust new regulator with sweeping powers over British companies on a wage of as much as £162,000 a 12 months. Lisa Pinney will turn into chief govt of the Fair Work Agency in April, overseeing the enforcement of employment rights with powers to analyze and high quality employers.

Critics hit out on the appointment, with Shadow Business and Trade Secretary Andrew Griffith saying “the last thing business needs is a Left-wing, trans activist heading up a new anti-jobs regulator” when unemployment was already on the rise. He urged Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer to “pull politics out of the boardroom and U-turn on this appointment today”.

The function was marketed on-line as having a wage between £100,000 to £162,000. From 2012-18, Ms Pinney sat on the board of the marketing campaign group Stonewall, throughout which era it issued recommendation to varsities on how you can strategy transgender youngsters.

Sex Matters, a ladies’s rights organisation, criticised the recommendation on the time, saying it meant “that a boy who thinks he is a girl is told by teachers that he really is a girl”.

In 2018, whereas working on the Environment Agency, Ms Pinney revealed an article praising Stonewall and signed up the company to the group’s controversial Diversity Champions programme.

She went on to work as chief govt for the Coal Authority, which launched a gender pay hole report criticising authorities rules for less than recognising two genders.

The report said: “Government regulations for reporting the gender pay gap require us to classify colleagues as either male or female. We recognise that this approach doesn’t reflect the full diversity of gender identities within our workforce.”

Fiona McAnena, director of campaigns for sex-based rights charity Sex Matters, which campaigns for readability about organic intercourse in legislation and life stated: “It is concerning that the chief executive of the Fair Work Agency has a history of trans rights activism. Her job is to enforce the Employment Rights Bill, not to push an LGBT+ agenda.

“She has beforehand stated that ‘trans folks and their elementary rights’ have been underneath assault, however it’s ladies who’ve needed to convey authorized motion to win again fundamental privateness and decency within the office.

“No woman should have to go to court to get men who claim to be women out of women’s toilets and changing rooms at work.

“Will this honest work tsar arise for ladies’s rights at work? Let’s hope she parks her earlier calls for for ‘LGBT+ equality’ and focuses on the legislation, which protects everybody’s rights.”

Ensure our latest politics headlines always appear at the top of your Google Search by making us a Preferred Source. Click here to activate or add us as a Preferred Source in your Google search settings.

Ms Pinney was made an MBE in 2014 for services to diversity, but later criticised the honours system in a piece for a national newspaper, citing its links to the British Empire. She did not hand her own honour back.

Former Treasury minister Alan Mak said: “The Government ought to cease appointing woke activists and begin bringing in leaders with actual enterprise expertise and a monitor report of producing financial development slightly than campaigning for extra purple tape on employers and wealth creators.”

The Fair Work Agency intends to bring together the functions of several enforcement bodies to act as a centralised regulator with sweeping new powers under the Employment Rights Act.

A Government spokesperson said: “Lisa Pinney was appointed following a good and open recruitment course of and brings a wealth of expertise. The new Fair Work Agency will finish the fragmented system of employment rights enforcement, help staff, and simplify compliance for companies.”