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Women, Justice and Gender Equality

I agree with the Minister entirely. I am not suggesting that the matter can be solved easily or that the definitional point is anything more than that, but it is a starting point. The fact that we are having this exchange across the Dispatch Box during an important debate on justice for women brings the matter to the fore. I am pleased that she and her colleagues share our concern about the matter. Trafficking, which has been mentioned by the Minister and other Members, is another matter that involves violence and where we have so much more to do. Trafficking is tragic. Look at the prevalence of trafficking and at the number of young women and girls involved, because some of them are still legally children, who are brought into this country and other parts of Europe illegally, under duress and under false pretences. They are literally sold as prostitutes, or sometimes as domestic servants—that is obviously less of a problem but it is still a difficult issue. When they are sold as prostitutes they are made to work in appalling conditions, with no freedom. That is akin to slavery. I am sure that neither Minister needs me to convince them on that issue. We are all concerned about it. I want to ensure that, by discussing it in the House, it is given the attention that it deserves. I suggest that guidance in the health service might help us to identify women and girls who are being forced to work as prostitutes. We often see Daily Mail-type articles about how scandalous it is that some women have three abortions in a year. Has it never occurred to the health professionals dealing with such cases that, if a woman presents herself three times in a year as pregnant and in need of an abortion, there may be something wrong other than just carelessness, and that that is often the case? I am told by respectable and powerful charities that deal with the issue of trafficking that identification of victims is difficult, but could be made easier if professionals working in front-line services were trained to look for the danger signs. I hope that that is something that the Government will consider doing. We will continue our campaign on trafficking because it is tragic, as I am sure everyone in the House agrees, that women and girls are literally sold into slavery in this way. The third area in which there is still much to do is health. Taking preventive action is much better for patients and for the economies of the health service in the long run than leaving people to develop diseases and then having to cure them. I want to be quick so I will use just one example. I have worked with the all-party group on osteoporosis for some time, and with the National Osteoporosis Society. It is unfortunate—let me put it no stronger than that—that at present osteoporosis, which is easy to detect, is not diagnosed in hundreds of thousands of women who go on to suffer from it. It is a disease which, if detected early, can be almost completely cured; its worst ill effects can be avoided. Some men suffer from the disease, but the vast majority of sufferers are women, and a large number of women who do not know that they have it because it does not manifest itself in any particularly awful way until most women are in their mid-70s. If an older woman suffers a fracture and is made immobile for six or seven weeks, the complications, which may include other health problems such as pneumonia or much more difficult illnesses to treat, can be very serious. It is a shocking statistic that if a woman in her later years suffers a fracture that would be as nothing to a younger person, she is likely to die within six months when she may have been really pretty healthy before the fracture occurred. Usually, such a fracture occurs because she is suffering unknowingly from osteoporosis. I really ought to declare an interest. The reason why I managed in a fairly moderate little ski-ing accident to break my leg is that I have osteoporosis. I have become more knowledgeable about the subject, although I have known that I have it for many years. Something that is easily shaken off in one’s 40s—I was pleased when my doctors described me as youthful in medical terms—is pretty serious in one’s 70s. Older women’s health is a much-neglected area in health priorities. The Minister would argue that if we have priorities some people win and some people lose, but there is a good economic case as well as an extremely good compassionate case for investing in the prevention of certain diseases, especially among the female population. I wish to come to a conclusion quickly now, but I have to say a couple more things about women’s economic activity and the great steps that still have to be taken to produce equality in the workplace. PricewaterhouseCoopers has produced statistics today that show that there are 40 per cent. fewer women at the top of the professions today than five years ago. The reasons given are of course that child care costs have increased enormously—by something like 27 per cent. over the past five years—and that there is insufficient flexibility in the workplace. I dealt with that earlier. Ministers will have the support of the Opposition if they take steps under the Work and Families Act 2006 to extend the right to request flexible working that the parents of small children enjoy to parents generally and to people with family responsibilities. It is time that we faced the truth that we are asking women who have children to do two jobs. We need a new approach to the way in which jobs are done at the highest level in our economy. I do not suggest for a moment that this is something that can be done by the Government or Parliament. It is a matter of change of attitudes. I saw advice to young women entitled ““How to succeed in a career”” recently, written by someone for whom I have great respect, and who has succeeded enormously in her career. It said that one of the main things that women have to do is to be 100 per cent. dedicated to the work they are doing. Anyone, even the mother of a small child, can be 100 per cent. dedicated to the work that they do from 9 to 5 Monday to Friday, but if someone has family responsibilities they cannot be 100 per cent. dedicated to the work that they are doing. We see young men 100 per cent. dedicated and they go up and up in the work force; they succeed more and earn more and so the spiral is perpetuated. The CBI then argues that we should not worry about unequal numbers of women achieving in the professions because there are equal numbers of men and women in the City in well-paid jobs aged 28. Well, that is no surprise to me. When I was 28 I did exactly the same job as my then husband. Of course I did. We all do when it is just a question of being a women without any responsibilities; it is the same as being a man without any responsibilities. But the fact is that we need women to produce children, we need women to look after families and care for elderly relatives so we have to accept that we are asking women to do two jobs. Therefore, we have to encourage not just the right to request but the granting of flexibility in the workplace.