As a postdoc in a Canadian institution, I have been offered a lecturer position in UK. In the offer email I have received, one clause reads as follows:
Please could you provide evidence of your current salary by sending me your most recent pay slip.
Is it legally OK to ask this (particularly considering the fact that the job I have been offered is not in the same level of my current job)? Is there any law that supports my potential refusal to provide the desired pay slip?
They can ask, but there is nothing in law - that I can find - which obligates an answer. (There may be some exceptions that require a previous employer to provide a reference which might include this detail, but that does not appear relevant here.)
As an aside, there is an ongoing #EndSalaryHistory campaign by the Fawcett Society which is focused on equal pay and sexual equality in the workplace, and they are calling on employers to:
stop asking salary history questions...