Workers should have the legal right to demand details of their colleagues’ salaries and bonuses under proposals from the equality watchdog.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) said bosses should be forced to respond to questionnaires seeking information about pay if employees suspect a colleague is being paid more.

Under the proposals, workers could request details of colleagues’ basic salaries, working hours, overtime, bonuses and performance-related pay, as well as explanations for any differences in their earnings.

The watchdog said ministers should introduce a legal requirement for employers to answer the questionnaires within a specified time frame, backed by powers to compel companies to provide information if they refused or gave incomplete responses.

It warned: “Without such a requirement, employers may delay, provide evasive responses or avoid responding.

We suggest this should be introduced as a mandatory measure, rather than an ‘optional’ one.”

The intervention came in the EHRC’s response to a government consultation on plans to overhaul equal pay legislation, which closed yesterday.

Ministers want to reintroduce statutory questionnaires to help workers establish whether they have been paid unfairly and resolve disputes without resorting to lengthy legal proceedings.

The questionnaires, which were previously available under the Equality Act 2010 before being abolished in 2014, would allow employees to ask their employers for information about potential Right to know colleagues’ pay discrimination. However, the government has proposed that responding to the questionnaires should be voluntary.

Employment tribunals would be able to draw adverse conclusions from an employer’s refusal to answer questions, or from evasive responses, if a case subsequently reached court.

The EHRC said this would be insufficient because relatively few equal pay disputes reached a final hearing. It said: “Often, the specific pay information needed to determine whether pay discrimination has taken place is in the sole control of the employer. Disclosure through a questionnaire ... could support early resolution of pay disputes.”

Referring to its proposal to require employers to respond within a specified time frame, it said: “This should not impose a disproportionate burden, as most employers already hold pay records electronically. To be effective, the requirement should be supported by an appropriate legal mechanism to compel a response where an employer fails to respond or provides only a partial or incomplete response.”

The watchdog confirmed to The Times that employees would need only to suspect an equal pay breach to use the proposed questionnaires. It said workers should be entitled to information on the pay of colleagues doing comparable work, including their basic salaries, hours worked and additional payments. Where several workers were used for the comparison, employees could be given a list ranking their colleagues’ salaries, with details of job descriptions, pay grades and any justifications for differences in earnings.

The latest official figures showed that the gender pay gap among full-time employees was 6.8 per cent in April.

The EHRC also backed plans to extend equal pay protections for women to ethnic minority and disabled staff, although it said the overburdened employment tribunal system would first need reform.