---

Women, Justice and Gender Equality

It is a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart), and so many other colleagues who have spoken. In 1997, the Minister of State, Department for Constitutional Affairs, and I had the great privilege of becoming the first Ministers with responsibility for women in the country. Our agenda was to develop a child care strategy, family-friendly working, and action on violence against women. I am glad to say that the agenda survived our departure, and that so many of the successes in those policy areas have been mentioned today. We also said that we would look into the issue of process. We wanted to ensure the mainstreaming of gender in every Department, and we wanted equality of gender in public appointments, so I decided to take a little survey last week. I acknowledge that it is much more difficult to set up those processes than to check on many of the policies of which we have spoken and on the Government’s good delivery. Discrimination against women is often invisible, and people who exercise authority over others often do not know that they are discriminating. Indeed, women may not realise that they are subject to discrimination, as my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley (Barbara Keeley) said. I asked Departments about their processes, because collecting statistics and taking specific steps to analyse gender impacts is critical to the proper delivery of equality. I asked Departments to tell me about their gender strategy, and I am sorry to say that two Departments—the Home Office and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs—failed to reply. All others did, but no Department has a gender strategy. I hope that my hon. and learned Friend the Under-Secretary and my hon. Friend the Minister for Women and Equality who are on the Front Bench will take that point back to their discussion groups, because there is much more work to be done. That is not to diminish in any way the brilliant work that has already been done. When I asked Departments whether they had a gender equality action plan, the majority of Departments said either that they did, or that they were developing one and that they would certainly have it in place by the deadline, which is 30 April. I pay tribute to my colleagues on the Front Bench, because their answers were exemplary. I wanted to share with the House all that the Departments were doing, because it is so important and interesting. People rarely know that such work is going on, or the extent to which civil servants are committed to advancing gender equality. The Departments varied in what they said, but, looking at the clock, I see that I do not have the opportunity to tell the House what they said. Some were much more expansive than others, and some clearly have very good practice in consulting widely throughout their Department—for example, some involve stakeholders and have women’s networks—and in bringing everything together. The Ministry of Defence and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office were able to tell me that they had got ahead and were developing strategies and publishing documents even last year, before the requirement was in place. I also took the trouble to consider public appointments. When the Minister of State, Department for Constitutional Affairs, and I began our jobs as Ministers with responsibility for women, we looked for a commitment to ensure that 50 per cent. of appointments were women. Departments gave that commitment, and they have been working towards meeting it ever since. The Department for Education and Skills is the closest, with 44.8 per cent. of public appointments made by Ministers in that Department going to women. Sadly, four Departments have made such appointments at a rate of below 25 per cent. and a couple of them have slipped back: the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Department for International Development. Let me say a few words about DFID, as it is the Department that I have come to know best in my capacity as a member of the International Development Committee. The first question that I asked the Secretary of State when I became a member of the Committee was whether there was a gender strategy. There was not. The Department said that it would develop one. It has been making progress, and I understand that a document on that was either published yesterday or will be published today. Half of the senior civil servants in that Department are women. [Interruption] The Minister for Women and Equality is showing me that she has a copy of that document with her; I have not got mine yet. However, we found that of 28 appearances before the Committee, only seven were by women. Therefore, although that Department has women in senior positions, it is not sending them to our Committee. It is crucial that DFID has gender equality strategies, because the women of the developing countries of the world and of the very poorest countries are suffering the most. Let me conclude by telling an anecdote. I have recently returned from Ethiopia. Women are running every project in water and sanitation in Ethiopia. One women’s group had built a lot of shower cubicles and latrines which they were going to have primarily for women, but they suddenly realised that they could give half of them to the men. They charged the men for their use, and they set up a tea stall alongside. Women display such entrepreneurship and initiative throughout the world—in our communities, and particularly in developing countries.