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Jobs for the Girls: Two Years On

I am delighted to concur with my hon. Friend. Having met at least one such female candidate, who will become my immediate constituency neighbour, if my knowledge of the map serves me, I can say that she is a very competent lady indeed, and we will certainly benefit from her presence in the House. I would like to go through one or two of my party's proposals to deal with the problem of discrimination and the gender gap. We need to ensure that employers cannot discriminate against women in the workplace in any way. At present an employee who wins a tribunal case against their employer on equal pay may receive redress, but other employees who have been similarly discriminated against in that same workplace are not automatically helped by the tribunal finding. There are no requirements or encouragement for the employer to change its pay policy. That is something that we would like to see addressed. The Conservatives recognise the importance of a transparent and stable regulatory framework. We would introduce new rules, so that an adverse tribunal decision against an employer would automatically trigger a pay audit—something that the hon. Member for Amber Valley mentioned. I am proposing not a universal pay audit, but one that would be triggered by an adverse tribunal adjudication. The employer would have to carry that out according to agreed guidelines. This approach is a proportionate measure to protect employees against unscrupulous employers, while also minimising the burden on companies following a tribunal decision. Currently, employers can claim the pay gap is due to a material factor but the tribunal does not have to decide whether that is reasonable. We will change that. It is often women who seek to work flexibly because they are much more likely to have caring responsibilities. However, jobs currently available on this basis tend to be more poorly paid and have therefore significantly contributed to the gender pay gap. The right approach to tackling this problem is to extend the option of flexible working, where possible. That would broaden the variety of jobs available on a flexible basis, including better paid jobs, and would also help to reduce the stigma too often associated with flexible working. The contribution that flexible workers provide to the economy is often understated and undervalued, not only by employers. I take the point made earlier that often women undervalue themselves. As my hon. Friend said, not only do they undervalue themselves, they are sometimes not strident enough at standing up for themselves on pay and conditions with their employer. We need to acknowledge that such workers are helping the economy by investing their time and energy in bringing up the future generation—good citizens help the economy by working and paying taxes. Their performance levels are also of an excellent standard: 90 per cent. of employers believe that their flexible workers often out-perform their traditional full-time colleagues. Considering those benefits, it is important to support flexible workers as much as possible. That is why as the Select Committee proposals state in a paragraph that we support, the Conservatives are committed to extending over a period of time the Employment Act 2002 to all parents with children aged 18 or younger. With reference to paragraph 19 of the Select Committee's conclusions, we support the gradual extension of child care entitlement to the parents of two-year-olds in the most disadvantaged circumstances. Our child care costs are the among the highest in Europe and Labour's approach to child care restricts the choice for those parents who decide they want to work. Aside from implementing measures to ensure that women receive equal pay, more needs to be done to support young women to make broader and more ambitious career choices, helping them to achieve their full potential. That would also add greater value to the work force by helping to solve the current problem regarding skills shortages. I support the important points made by the hon. Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Glenda Jackson) about careers guidance. Too often, careers guidance is given by somebody on a part-time basis who does not have the up-to-date skills to provide a broader and more imaginative horizon, which can guide women into less traditional areas of work such as engineering. Yesterday I was with the Chemical Industries Association, which said it is terribly important to encourage women to continue to do unpopular subjects at school, such as chemistry, physics and mathematics, so that they can go on and do jobs that would not necessarily be associated with women, for example in engineering and the chemical industries.