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One of Britain’s most senior police watchdogs is bringing a race discrimination case against the Home Office over claims that he is paid less because he is white.

Matt Parr was hired in 2016 as one of five HM Inspectors of Constabulary, and is paid £140,000 a year to oversee forces including the Met, the National Crime Agency and City of London Police.

He claims his pay is too low compared to his colleague Wendy Williams, hired in 2015 on £185,000 a year, and is arguing he has suffered discrimination due to being white and male.

The Home Office denies discrimination, and Home Secretary Priti Patel had sought to keep details of Ms Williams’ pay talks secret. She argued that publicity would be a breach of the inspector’s human right to privacy, while Ms Williams herself insisted the negotiations should remain “confidential”.

But Mr Justice Griffiths ruled against the minister, saying the case should be open so the public can understand the issues involved. The judge decided the open justice principle trumped Ms Williams’ claim to privacy, adding that details of the inspectors’ pay was already in the public domain.

“The confidentiality alleged… was not a matter of any state secret, or sensitive policing, or public interest immunity, or private discussions of public policy, or anything of that sort,” he said. He added that since the salaries of all the inspectors were in the public domain “no question of confidentiality arose”.

It was only the pay negotiations that were deemed to be confidential and require protection, he said, but since the final salary was public, it was not obvious why the pay talks needed to be confidential to such an extent.

Ms Patel insists Mr Parr’s wages were reached in a government cost-cutting drive, not due to his race or gender.

Mr Parr launched a case against the Home Secretary in 2018, the judge said. “[Ms Williams] is the HMI appointed before him, who is a woman of black or ethnic minority heritage. The Home Secretary admits that he does ‘like work’ within the meaning of the Equality Act 2010 and that he is paid less, but contends that the reason for the discrepancy in salaries, which are apparently individually negotiated for each HMI, is a pay policy which aims to reduce senior salaries.”

A tribunal last June ruled that Ms Williams’ pay negotiations could be heard in secret. But the order was overturned in January during a full trial of the case in front of a different tribunal. Lawyers for the Home Secretary appealed, and Ms Williams argued that release of the information could impact on her role and credibility.

Mr Justice Griffiths dismissed the appeal last Friday and the case will now return to the employment tribunal.