Disabled people are more than £2,100 a year worse off than non-disabled colleagues, with women facing a double whammy of discrimination at work, a committee heard.

Rhianydd Williams, of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) Cymru, gave evidence to the Senedd’s equality committee as part of an inquiry on disability and employment.

Ms Williams told the committee that the umbrella body estimates the pay gap at £1.16 an hour or, based on a 35-hour working week, £2,111.20 a year.

Ms Williams said the difference is wider for women and called for mandatory reporting of disability pay gap information and a greater focus on intersectionality.

She highlighted disability pay gap day on November 7, the day an average disabled worker effectively stops being paid for the rest of the year compared with a non-disabled colleague.

Jenny Rathbone, who chairs the equality committee, warned that disabled women face a “double whammy of discrimination” in the workplace.

Ms Williams, TUC Cymru’s equality and policy officer, said accessing reasonable adjustments under the Equality Act 2010 remains a major barrier.

She called for time limits as well as a passporting system to keep a live record of adjustments agreed between workers and employers.

Ms Williams said employers often have the final say on what is deemed reasonable and some do not budget for any adjustments.

She warned: “A lot of the time people will just leave the workplace: they’ll experience discrimination and they will leave.”

Ms Williams pointed to examples of branches submitting grievances to try to make sure basic facilities such as workplace toilets are available.

Asked about the Welsh Government’s disability rights taskforce, she said the pace of progress has been slow and she had hoped an action plan would be in place by now.

Dee Montague-Coast, engagement officer at the Fair Treatment for the Women of Wales charity, told the committee she often works in her pyjamas from her adjustable bed.

“In my previous workplaces, things like that would have been seen as totally unacceptable or ‘not quite right’,” she said. “So, I think as a wider society, we have a lot to do in terms of making experiences like mine just normalised.”