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Women, Justice and Gender Equality

Like other hon. Members, I am pleased to speak on international women’s day. I want to talk about women and work, some of the barriers that have already been overcome and those that still need to be overcome if we are to have a more equal society. I want to begin by describing my political journey to becoming a Member of Parliament. I had a professional career as an engineer and manager with IBM but I also realised the need for women to be involved in politics and in public life. It is interesting in the context of the debate to note that I began to feel that I could not pursue my career with IBM properly if I was also involved in politics. It seemed to be one or the other. In the mid-1990s, I was elected into local government in Trafford, and I managed the responsibility of being a councillor by becoming a self-employed consultant and adviser. It is interesting that it was difficult for me to pursue both my previous career and politics. Although Trafford had evening meetings, many councils in Greater Manchester had daytime meetings, which made it difficult for both men and women who worked to be councillors. As I mentioned in an earlier intervention, the Labour group on Trafford council at the time provided a good set of role models, as it had a female council leader and, later, a female deputy. In 2001, I first tried to be selected as an MP. To expand my CV, I thought that it was important to work nationally on health and social care issues. In 2004, I was selected as the candidate for Worsley constituency. In May 2005, I became one of the 26 women Labour MPs in what was, as several of my hon. Friends have mentioned, the first predominantly female new intake. When I first became involved in politics, when Labour was in opposition, the ideas discussed in meetings were the need for child care, support for families, better maternity leave and pay and even the right to paternity leave. We talked about equal pay a lot, and closing the gaps in pay and opportunities between women and men. Thinking back, I never had equal pay when I worked for IBM: I even trained men who were at a much more junior level than me and then discovered that they earned more than me. Certainly, equal pay was an issue, as was the minimum wage. Matters such as flexible working and support for carers were not even discussed. It seemed unlikely that we would make progress on many of those issues. Today, however, on international women’s day, it must be said that we have made substantial progress within a decade. In May 1997, very soon after the Labour Government came into office, a national child care strategy was introduced. That was one of the most crucial contributions to the area of women and work. The number of child care places is now double the 1997 level, at 1.3 million. Most importantly, for women with young children, free places in nursery or early education are provided for three and four-year-olds. In April 1999, the national minimum wage was introduced, and two thirds of women benefited from that legislation. We should pay tribute to women Labour MPs, some of whom are in the Chamber today, who fought and stayed up at night, as did male colleagues, to get that legislation through. In 1999, the Government also introduced the first ever national carers strategy. In 2002, the Sex Discrimination (Election Candidates) Act was introduced, which allowed positive measures to select more women candidates. That is relevant to the earlier debate that we had. The legislation was key, and most or all of the parties in the House will have to embrace such positive action if they want to make progress. In 2003, the child tax credit and working tax credit were introduced. Importantly, as flexibility is key for women in work, flexible working rights were introduced for parents of young or disabled children. The debate has touched on the issue of domestic violence, but I shall not talk about that in depth. However, the introduction of the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004 was important. Across England and Wales, there are now 64 specialist domestic violence courts, including one in Salford. As a Salford MP, I intend to work with that court, see how it is doing and try to champion it, which is an important thing for women MPs to do. November 2004 also saw the introduction of the equality standard for sport to reduce inequalities in sport and physical activity. I took part in a debate on young people and sport in Westminster Hall last week—I was the only woman MP who did so, which is perhaps surprising—which explored the falling-off of participation in sport by young people, and particularly by girls and young women. That debate has now been dubbed the hair dryers debate, because we ended up discussing whether leisure facilities had hair dryers, and how off-putting young women found it if they could not dry their hair. Much the same issues are being explored by Dame Kelly Holmes, who is doing excellent work as national school sport champion. The Childcare Act 2006 was important, in that it was legislation devoted entirely to child care. Also important are the Women and Work Commission, on which there is a Government action plan—we have just had a ““one year on”” update—and additional work to reduce the gender pay gap. Legislation introduced during the past decade is still going through Parliament: the Pensions Bill, for instance. That Bill is hugely important to women, particularly in reducing the number of years for which they must work to build up a state pension and in providing credits for caring as well as for child care. We should salute Barbara Castle for introducing child care credits, but caring is just as important as child care in women’s lives. The commitment to sign the European convention on human trafficking is an important step, and we look forward to its ratification. April is a busy time this year: paid maternity leave is to be extended to nine months, the right to request flexible working is to be extended to carers of adults, and there is to be a public-sector gender equality duty. All that suggests that we have made great progress so far, but as others have said today, we still have much to do to ensure equality. It is now acknowledged that there will be wasted potential in the United Kingdom world of work if women’s pay continues to be lower than men’s and if there is less time for caring, causing more and continued stress for people with child-care or other caring responsibilities. As recent reports have pointed out, that waste of potential will continue unless the world of work changes. People need flexible working for a variety of purposes. They need it for parenting, or to care for older family members or a disabled child, but they need it for other reasons too. In some wards in my constituency, incomes are very low. We shall be able to help families and lone parents only if they can study, or train and receive skills qualifications, and move on. However, it is difficult for those who are working and have children to undertake courses or training. Women play an important role in volunteering and working in the community. When I was a parliamentary candidate, I noticed that all the tenants’ or community groups to whom I spoke were run by women. I salute the women in my constituency who run community, tenants’ and residents’ groups. The estates in my community would not work as well as they do without the wonderful women who run them. The Minister said earlier that it should be possible for all jobs to be part-time unless there was a solid reason to the contrary. The demand for part-time and flexible working will continue to grow. Over the next few years and decades more women will be working, and the number of carers, or people with caring responsibilities, will grow as well. It has already reached 6 million, and is expected to reach at least 10 million by 2010 and increase further thereafter. People will work for longer as a result of what we are doing here: changes in the retirement age are already planned for women born in the 1950s, and there will be changes for both men and women as the legislation kicks in. I see all those factors as drivers of change in the demand for flexible working. Let me identify some other issues that are relevant to the world of women and work. I return to women’s representation, because we ourselves are drivers of change in that women Members of Parliament put these matters on to the agenda. How are we doing? We rank 61st in terms of women’s representation in politics, and when I think of the time I have spent striving to improve the lot of women in public life, I do not consider that very impressive. I was pleased, as other colleagues will have been, to be one of 40 Labour MPs elected in 2005. There were 26 women in that group. That was the first predominantly female in-take of MPs. My personal experience is that that makes a difference for us. It makes a difference in that we have a grouping. Some of our male colleagues have complained that sometimes they feel out of it and outnumbered. I think, ““Fine, I have experienced that for decades. You will develop some sympathy if you know what we experienced.”” I was the first woman MP for Worsley and the first woman MP to represent Wigan. Since then, I am happy to say that the two local authorities, Salford and Wigan, have both appointed women chief executives. Barbara Spicer and Joyce Redfearn are excellent women and I hope that their appointment makes a difference in those authorities. They must be exceptional people already because only 21 per cent. of local authority chief executives are women. There are, sadly, very few in the north-west region. We have some way to go in local government. Fifty-two per cent. of civil servants are women but only 26 per cent. of women in the civil service are in senior management jobs. That is up slightly on last year’s figures. In Labour Members’ meetings with Cabinet Ministers, we ask them to keep reporting back to us. It behoves women MPs to keep asking Cabinet Ministers what the position is on representation in their Departments. From April, a public sector duty on gender equality will come into force. Public bodies will have to look at ways of improving that. We know that, without action, it would take 20 years to achieve equality in the civil service at senior management level. We have debated the figures. Depressingly, whatever figures we take, it will take over 70 years to get a representative House of Commons. Clearly, we are moving faster on that in the Labour party, for reasons that are obvious, I think. Since I worked in the private sector, there has developed talk of glass ceilings and sticky floors. The first is defined as women being hindered in their progress to senior levels because of discrimination and/or—this is the important thing and perhaps where the debate is going—conditions of work at senior levels making it impossible for them to progress. I personally think that that is the thing to look at rather more. Sticky floors is defined as women being unable to progress from entry level jobs owing to the same attitudes or to the conditions of work. The Prime Minister visited ASDA recently and was told by a woman who was working part-time that she could not progress to being a manager because she could not take on shift work—she had child care commitments. It is clear that at every level that is an issue. A couple of hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs. Laing), referred to the PricewaterhouseCoopers audit on women holding senior management positions. I understand that the audit was just of women holding senior management positions in the FTSE 350 companies and not of women in all professions, as was said earlier. Comment has been made on that audit:"““This is a wake-up call for the FTSE 350 companies in Britain… they are creating problems for the future. Women are exiting corporate life””." That is an issue. Interestingly, that audit, which is being reported today, is borne out by work done by the Equal Opportunities Commission, which found that thousands of women are missing from senior posts in business. We may need seriously to look at the reasons for that exodus. Lack of flexibility is being cited as one of the reasons. The commission recently said in one of its reports that flexible working is still seen"““as a deviation from the norm””." That issue must be looked at. The smaller number of women in senior management positions is significant because those are the women who may reach the boards of their companies in years to come. It may be that they are entrepreneurial and are getting out to start their own businesses, but that is not going to help the boards of those companies in years to come when they are still all male, or predominantly male. In the same way as there is a journey to achieving election here as an MP—in my case, local government and working on national health and social care issues—there is a journey by women on the career ladders in British companies. It should concern us that women appear to be coming off that ladder before they get anywhere near the top. I have touched on the need for flexible working, and I want to conclude by running through some aspects of the caring role of women, which is also an important factor. Obviously both men and women are carers, but women are much more likely to care at the heavier end of the caring commitment. Women are more likely to care for a child with a disability while men are more likely to care for a spouse and they may do so after they have retired from work. Importantly, research has been done by the Future Foundation into a generation of women in their 40s and 50s who are now caught between working and the need to care for an elderly relative. It is estimated that that group will grow by 50 per cent. by 2020. Indeed, increased longevity will mean that many more people will have to become supercarers, who look after an elderly relative as well as caring for either children or grandchildren. It is estimated that there are about 2.5 million supercarers, but that with population changes that figure will rise to 3.9 million. Most are aged between 45 and 55, and 80 per cent. of them— 2 million—are women. Unsurprisingly, supercarers are less likely to work— 38 per cent. as compared to the national average of 45 per cent. of carers who work. So this dual care is a new factor that we have to start to look at. Of course, it is increasingly accepted that caring at the heavier end of commitment has an impact on the health and well-being of the carer. Research has, not surprisingly, shown that dual care has an even heavier impact on the life of the carer physically and mentally. Only 65 per cent. of dual carers are satisfied with their life compared with a national average of 75 per cent., and well-being among such carers is less than 60 per cent. compared with the national average of 65 per cent. We have made great strides in getting carers on to the Government’s agenda. In 1999 the first national strategy for carers was introduced. Three Bills have been introduced by Labour Members that have given carers rights to assessment of their needs and rights in relation to employment, leisure time and educational opportunities. I introduced a ten-minute Bill—the Identification and Support of Carers (Primary Health Care) Bill—last year, and I hope to bring it back at some point. Local authorities have received carers grant to fund breaks for carers and other forms of support. Recently, the Government announced the new deal for carers, which included extra money for respite care, a national advice helpline and an expert carers programme. They are all welcome, but most important, at the same time the Government announced a review of the national carers strategy. That is a welcome development. I am acting this year as the parliamentary champion for carers week from 11 to 17 June—I hope that hon. Members have it in their diaries. In the next few months, I hope that we can listen to carers and their needs as part of that review. We need to find further ways to meet their needs and tackle their issues, to give them the same opportunities to work, progress in work and undertake training and have the balance in their lives that we are striving to make possible for women throughout society.