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Jobs for the Girls: Two Years On

I agree with my hon. Friend. Interestingly, officials from the Graphical, Paper and Media Union came to see us during one inquiry. That industry features very traditional attitudes among the work force, but the officials talked openly about changing working patterns and flexibility, how it could be done and what they were doing to educate and work with their members to allow it. That was an interesting and surprising example. I do think that that happened when we were taking evidence for this report, but these things sometimes seem to be seamless over the years. Clearly, it is difficult, and it is just as bad for an employee simply to assume that they can have anything that they want as it is to assume that they should not be listened to at all. There has to be a balance between the needs of the job and the needs of the employee. That balance can be to the benefit of the employer when it is possible to offer flexible employment. It should at least be considered. Interestingly, one of my real interests in getting the report done was giving a boost to publicity for the women and work commission. We have to keep going back, getting publicity and keep the pressure going, as has been said, if we are going to change attitudes. I was pleased that when the report was published, we got a massive round of publicity. I went on loads of TV, radio and all the rest of it, only to find myself being asked what I thought about Alan Sugar. I assumed that he made some comment on flexible working, but it turned out that he had made some rather unguarded comments, having been asked about the issue off the back of our report, that got a massive amount of publicity. He had said something about how people would not take on women and how employers should be able to ask about their life situation, children, whether they would have children, and said that there was a disincentive to employing women. He tried to row back on what he said by saying that he had employed some good women, but it was an interesting furore. Different attitudes have been put forward. One of the members of that Committee was very keen—she was absolutely right—to say that although we were looking at occupational segregation, it is also important to look at the undervaluation of traditional women's jobs. There is nothing wrong with traditional women's jobs—they are important, and but they are undervalued and underpaid often. What is more important than bringing up children and being involved in nursery care or primary school teaching, which mostly involves women? Many such jobs, including, caring jobs are among the most important, yet they are undervalued. We wanted to highlight that. The minimum wage is important in that respect, but we were given examples of projects within traditional areas of work by which efforts were being made to assist in projects to get women higher up the scales. I am interested in what the Minister has to say on that. We moved on to enforcement and legislation. There is a great deal of controversy—I will not to go on too long because nobody else will have a chance to come in—over whether pay audits should be made compulsory, and we decided to take evidence from the TUC and CBI at the same time. That was interesting, partly because the CBI was saying that making pay audits compulsory so that what is going on in the firm or in that area of employment can be seen and whether any changes should be made, was much too difficult and bureaucratic, and that it was one of the classic burdens on business. At that point the people from the TUC said, ““Actually it is very easy; you can do it in quite a light-touch way. Would you like us to take up a commission? We can come and do it for you at a fairly small fee. We will be happy to come and do some audits for your companies.”” That was interesting as a potential exchange with the TUC setting up as an agency sending its experienced officers to do pay audits elsewhere. The issue of compulsory pay audits has not moved on, and I am sure that my hon. Friend the Minister will probably want to comment on our current position in relation to the equality Bill and the current big push for transparency and encouraging employers voluntarily to be transparent about, and publicise, pay structures. We felt that we could not at this stage conclude that pay audits should be mandatory, but we looked at the alternative possibility: we are still making our way on whether the gender equality duty in the public sector will have an impact, but another way forward could be to extend the gender equality duty to the private sector. We reached the conclusion that we would not recommend either course at this time; but that if the pay gap continues to decline only at the terribly slow rate at which it has declined until now, the Government should consider some of those further measures. We took evidence originally at a time when people were putting their evidence to the Discrimination Law Review, which most people, including the Committee, were rather disappointed with. It turned out that by the time Ministers came before us they were rather disappointed with it too. We moved on from some of the issues that were then being discussed. However, we thought that several of the issues that were raised should be examined, with respect to whether changes in legislation would help, including hypothetical comparators, representative actions and the role of equality representatives. I should be interested to know whether those issues are still on the table, and where we may be going with them. We made some comments on no win, no fee lawyers, but if I get on to that territory I shall probably be here for the next hour. I did not like being ambushed when I was speaking about the report at a conference for Incomes Data Services. There were questions from the back, and I discovered that those concerned had not told me they were some of the lawyers raking in a fortune by taking up relevant cases. However, that is another story. It is an area of considerable concern. I mentioned the survey of different Departments. One of our recommendations, which I suppose rests with the Minister for Women and Equality and with Select Committees, is to examine the extension of best practice beyond Departments. The last measure that I want to mention, which is very important, and is a subject dear to the heart of the Select Committee, is public procurement. We have raised the matter on several occasions. There was one day when we were in Brussels and the officials there were very hazy about whether public procurement could be used to promote social objectives or whether that would be anti-competitive. We took the view that the advice given by the Office of Government Commerce is far too timid and that it could be the case that public bodies are indeed required to meet the gender equality duty and could be in breach of it if they failed to ask their suppliers and contractors to demonstrate active commitment to equality principles. They cannot necessarily ask them whether they have equal numbers of men and women, but they could be asked about a commitment to equalities principles and to showing that they have procedures to deal with those. In that context we are talking about £160 billion of contracts; the draft equality measures give a higher level than we had thought. There should be some requirement for those who obtain contracts to promote social objectives, particularly those that are set out in law, such as health and safety and equalities. Public procurement is potentially a powerful tool for action. We are certainly very pleased that Government have taken it on board. One relevant example is the Olympics Delivery Authority, which uses the approach in relation to social objectives. I met the person who deals with contracts for one of our biggest construction companies, who said that, far from there being a problem with including social objectives through public procurement, it was hoped that they would win some Building Schools for the Future contracts specifically by promising to deal in a big way with apprenticeships and training, and promoting that in the community. The hope was that it would be a plus point towards winning a contract, not that it would be anti-competitive and prevent their winning it. It was seen as potentially a positive way forward and certainly not something that would hold back industry. There are many recommendations, and there is much more in the report, precisely because it is such a massive area, and it is hard to know where to start. It is a matter of working on all fronts at once. A number of actions have been taken, but it would be useful to know about further developments. Sometimes it feels depressingly as if we have made no progress, but at the last international women's day debate a fellow MP gave me a 1943 guide to hiring women, which I liked. It was written for male supervisors of women in the work force during world war two, and had several useful passages:"““Be tactful when issuing instructions or in making criticisms. Women are often sensitive; they can't shrug off harsh words the way men do. Never ridicule a woman””.""““General experience indicates that ““husky”” girls—those who are just a little on the heavy side—are more even-tempered and efficient than their underweight sisters.””""““Pick young married women. They usually have more of a sense of responsibility””" than those flighty ones who have not got married yet. There are ten of these pieces of advice. I like this one:"““Give the female employee a definite day-long schedule of duties so that she will keep busy without bothering the management for instructions every few minutes.””" I am sure that there are some workplaces where one would still find some of those attitudes.