Britain’s Ethnicity Bill

A report on Living Standards by the Resolution Foundation found that Black, Asian and ethnic minorities losing out on an estimated £3.2bn (see notes to editors for details) every year in earnings thanks to the ethnicity pay gap - a year in wages compared to white colleagues doing the same work - it’s clear that inequality comes at an enormous cost. Now, workplace equality champions People Like Us have issued a powerful reminder that it’s time to pay the bill.

New research from People Like Us and Scope finds workers calling for real accountability, transparency, and action from the Government in the wake of the Equality (Race and Disability) Bill consultation. 70% of UK workers support mandatory ethnicity pay gap reporting.
To hold the UK government to its promise to close the gap by introducing mandatory ethnicity pay gap reporting and implementing the long-promised Equality (Race and Disability) Bill, People Like Us have launched Britain’s Ethnicity Bill.

Created by independent creative agency Worth Your While, the campaign seeks to add pressure following the recent consultation of the bill - and finally become legislation - by spotlighting a different type of bill: a giant receipt showing the £3.2bn bill owed to Britain’s ethnic minority workers, in the form of lost annual earnings made up by the ethnicity pay gap.

The outsized receipts will appear on an OOH installation in London for the next two weeks. Backing up the bold OOH is a custom-built Receipt Generator tool, which allows individuals to create a personalised receipt — and add their name to the growing total that makes up Britain’s Ethnicity Bill.

The tool can be found here: britainsethnicitybill.plu.org.uk

With the labour market under pressure, a shifting political landscape, and the government’s abandonment of its self-ID commitment for trans people raising questions about the future of broader equality legislation, the campaign represents a final effort to ensure the Bill proceeds.

Britain’s Ethnicity Bill is the latest in a series of hard-hitting campaigns created in a long-running partnership with Worth Your While agency which have shaped public opinion and made policy. Building on the success of Autocorrected Pay Gap in 2023 and last year’s campaign, #NameTheBias, a filmic collaboration with spoken word artist Yasmin Ali which won a Cannes Lions earlier this year, the new campaign aims to ensure once and for all that mandatory ethnicity pay gap reporting - a critical step toward addressing structural inequalities in UK workplaces - is not delayed.

Britain’s Ethnicity Bill will run on OOH in London, backed up by the receipt generator web-based tool, social and PR activations.

The Receipt Generator tool was conceptualised by Worth Your While and built in collaboration with London-based digital products studio Planes Studio.