---

Jobs for the Girls: Two Years On

Certainly my experience as the Minister for disabled people and my work in trying to carry the torch for the employment of disabled people showed that small firms are perhaps more able to deal with flexibility—someone just asks the owner and does not have to go through a huge human resources department. Small firms can be particularly good at arranging flexibility where it does not completely destroy the needs of the business—obviously no one wants that to happen. It is important that where there is good practice—in whatever sector—it is acknowledged and celebrated, and that the word is spread. We can all benefit from such examples. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, North made some points about the situation in Wales, why part-time work is undervalued and how important the right to request is. She made some of the points I have already dealt with about work placements, training and careers advice. It does not sound as if the situation in Wales is that different from the one in England; in fact, from what she said, it seems that there have been some of the same experiences. My hon. Friend asked about black and minority ethnic women's opportunities and why they are particularly restricted. Certainly, our proposals in the equality Bill include the chance to engage in voluntary positive action, which is one way that kind of inexplicable—or explicable only in terms of the concept of discrimination—distinction can be tackled. We are currently examining whether we should allow claims for multiple discrimination in the Bill, which might further highlight the issue of ethnic minority people being particularly discriminated against. I shall say a bit about the equality legislation that we are planning. Certainly, since the report was produced by my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley, there have been some policy developments. When the evidence for the report was being considered, the discrimination law review was still ongoing. We have moved on a little bit since then, so I shall mention what our future plans are. We will try to make further progress through a combination of legislative and non-legislative measures, which I now know the Opposition will thoroughly approve of. We want to ensure that the gender pay gap does not take another 80 or so years to be closed. We know that if we do nothing more, we will still have that gap. The idea behind the forthcoming equality Bill is to simplify, modernise and strengthen the law so we can close the gender pay gap more swiftly than would happen under the measures already taken. Of course, it is good that the gap has closed to a degree, but we need to close it further. It is important to simplify the disparate bits of legislation that have come onto the statute book over different time periods during the past 30 or 40 years. The hon. Member for Cotswold referred to the numbers of pieces of legislation and secondary legislation that deal with employment rights, and we need to persuade business that equality legislation is not about burdens on business. I do not accept that rights at work equate or should be equated with red tape, regulation or burdens; such rights equate to enabling employees to do a good job. If one is to believe the weekend newspapers, there is a slight debate going on among the Conservative party about what its policy on that should be during these times. The Observer reported—[Interruption.]Was it wrong? The Observer reported that senior Tories were calling for a"““freeze on new employment rights, in a shift away””" from the previous attitude of the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) and his"““previous enthusiasm for measures like extra parental leave,””." The Observer went on to state that senior Tories were"““arguing that the priority was to save jobs by reducing business red tape.””" If that is true—and perhaps the hon. Member for Cotswold will tell me whether it is—it is equating rights at work with burdens and red tape. The hon. Gentleman did not seem to do that in his remarks—although he made some reference to the amount of legislation that there has been. It would be interesting to know whether the report in The Observer is accurate.