A WOMAN’S right to earn the same as a man may be enforced by “equality police” in the office with firms being forced to carry out equal pay reviews.

The proposal will be outlined in a paper published next week by a commission that Tony Blair set up last year to combat sexism in the City after a number of discrimination cases.

A draft copy of the Women and Work Commission’s paper says companies could be made to carry out compulsory pay reviews to force them to narrow the pay gap between men and women.

It argues that radical measures are needed to plug this differential, more than 40% for part-time workers and 18% for full-time employees.

It says firms should employ “equality representatives” to police salaries, particularly those of women part-timers who often suffer when they return from maternity leave to no defined role.

Many firms have introduced such measures voluntarily but business groups are likely to balk at direct government intervention that has the sanction of law. Campaigners including the Equal Opportunities Commission and the Fawcett Society, a gender lobby group, have called for mandatory pay audits because many firms are unwilling to carry them out voluntarily.

Tomorrow Blair will appear on BBC Radio 4’s Women’s Hour programme as Labour seeks to campaign this week on family issues.

The Women and Work Commission, chaired by Baroness Margaret Prosser, a former deputy general secretary of the Transport and General Workers’ Union, also recommends enforcing a “gender duty” across the public and private sectors to enhance the opportunities of women.

Its interim report points out that throughout the post-war period the proportion of women in employment has increased. Between 1971 and 2004 the female employment rate rose from 42% to 70%, but “persistent differences” remain between the experiences of men and women in the workplace despite the Equal Pay Act 1970.

The gender pay gap has fallen steadily since then but the rate of change has slowed in recent years, the report says.

The report follows a number of high-profile cases, including that of Stephanie Villalba, 42, a senior banker who issued the biggest sexual discrimination case Britain has seen against her former employer, the City firm Merrill Lynch, last year.

The landmark claim was for £7.5m and was based on a series of alleged incidents. She claimed she was made to sit in a stewardess’ seat and serve drinks to male executives on a flight in a corporate jet, and that her boss bullied and humiliated her.

Villalba won her case for unfair dismissal but lost the sexual discrimination claim. An employment tribunal in Croydon, south London, accepted that there had been “non-discriminatory reasons for her treatment”.

Cherie Blair is supportive of tough measures against firms that pay women less than men who do the same job. The prime minister’s wife, who is an employment lawyer, has privately argued in favour of “naming and shaming” the worst firms.

• The government will this week promise to boost maternity and paternity pay. The Department of Trade and Industry is publishing a consultation paper promising to increase the state payments from six months to nine months by April 2007.

  Labour’s election manifesto will also set a goal to pay the benefit for a whole year by the end of the party’s third term in power.

  The party will allow the payments, currently just over £100 a week, to be paid to fathers as well, so that parents can decide to split their time off.

  Labour believes it can steal a march on the Conservatives if Michael Howard refuses to match its pledges for parents.

  A Labour spokesman said: “The proposals recognise that dads now want to play a bigger role in raising their children than they may have done in the past. So we will give parents greater choice in how they share out increased paternity leave. Extra support for new mums and dads is only possible because of a strong economy.”

  Sources close to Patricia Hewitt, the trade and industry secretary, say this week’s consultation paper on parental leave will outline ways in which flexible working can be made more business-friendly.

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