Baroness Stowell of Beeston
That this House takes note of International Women’s Day 2013.
Baroness Stowell of Beeston
My Lords, it is an enormous privilege to introduce the International Women’s Day debate. In the same debate two years ago I made what was then my second speech in your Lordships’ House. I seem to recall the noble Lords present taking a sharp intake of breath when I said then that I had only very recently become familiar with International Women’s Day. My saying that betrayed two things. The first is that, unlike so many Members of this House, I have no claim to involvement in the fantastic advances that have been made in support of women over the past 100 years. Indeed, I feel a great sense of humility when I look down the list of speakers today.
Of course, many other Members of this House—too many to mention—have campaigned hard and achieved so much for the rights of women over the years. However, I would like to mention two Baronesses by name who we have sadly lost from this House over the past year: my late friend Lady Ritchie of Brompton, who founded Women2Win and helped so many women in my own party become MPs; and the late Lady McFarlane of Llandaff, who was one of nursing’s great pioneers and, indeed, the first nurse to become a life Peer.
Secondly, my rather shocking remark betrayed that, unlike many other countries, we here in the UK have not got into the habit of using International Women’s Day simply to celebrate women. In fact, I was talking to some Italian women the other day, who told me that in Italy the men shower them with mimosas on this day. Now, I am especially pleased that six noble Lords of the male variety have joined us, but I reassure them that we are not expecting flowers; I would not want to overburden them coming so soon after Valentine’s day and just before Mothering Sunday. Seriously, though, I am pleased that this is not a women-only debate. We will be discussing issues that affect women, but we cannot address them without the support and input of men.
Today’s debate is a chance for us to draw attention to the serious challenges that women still face here and around the world. Last night, my noble friend here with me on the Front Bench today responded to a very powerful debate about the ongoing use of sexual violence as a weapon of war. This morning we have already responded to Questions, some of them rather interesting, about a range of inequalities affecting women. I am sure that some of these matters, as well as many others, will be raised again, and my noble friend Lady Northover will be pleased to respond to them.
As the person opening today’s debate, I will focus on women and their careers, or more specifically on what we are doing to ensure that we better utilise the talents and skills of all women, whoever they are, wherever they come from and whatever they do. I want to celebrate the contribution of women and talk about how we can support them in achieving their full potential.
The challenges facing women today are very different from those that women faced in the 20th century. We know that in the past British society did not see much value in educating girls. Indeed, this is sadly still true in some parts of the world, as Malala Yousafzai’s ordeal at the hands of the Taliban has shown all too graphically. Here, girls now outperform boys in nearly every subject at nearly every stage of school, yet too many girls lack confidence, self-esteem and ambition.
In the past, women were banned from universities. Now, more young women than young men go to university, yet there are still too many subjects where a female face is rare. As we all know, it was legal in the past to pay women less than men for the same work. Women were barred from too many professions entirely. Getting married could mean losing your job; I will not even mention having a baby. Now we have some of the most comprehensive anti-gender discrimination legislation in the world, yet the gender pay gap remains and women continue to be underrepresented in positions of power and leadership.
It is clear that the way we respond to these very complex modern-day challenges needs a sophisticated, modern approach. The solutions cannot be found simply in more laws, regulations and targets. Of course, finding the solutions is not easy when there is little money around. I realise that women will wonder how we can make their lives better when we also have to make significant cuts in public spending. The truth is that it is not easy, but there are things we can do and are doing.
I will not go through the whole list, but the kinds of measures I am talking about for those on the lowest incomes and most in need include lifting more than 1 million of the lowest-paid workers out of income tax altogether, the majority of whom are women. We will also increase child tax credit by £180 above inflation for low to middle-income families. Where we can we are spending money in ways that empower women and give them real choice and control over their lives.
The top issue that comes up time and again for women is balancing work and family life. Our current inflexible system of maternity and paternity leave makes it incredibly difficult to break down the stereotypical and intrinsic view that women should stay at home and look after the children and men should go out to work and earn the money when a couple start a family. What if the mother earns more? What if she is in a more senior position than the father? What if the father simply wants to take on more of the caring responsibilities? In our modern world the state should not make it harder for parents to choose the best arrangements for their children.
That is why, after an extensive consultation, we announced last November that from 2015 we will introduce a new system of shared parental leave that will make an enormous difference to working women who want to have children. It will mean that if fathers want to take on more of a role, they can. If mothers want to return to work earlier, they can. If parents want to spend some time at home together around the birth of their child, they can. Parents will have a choice.
Crucially, albeit over time, the new parental leave arrangements and the access to flexible working for all employees—the other initiative that we recently announced—will put men and women on a level playing field in the workplace. Employers will no longer be able to assume that only women take a career break to look after their children. For my part, that was one of the biggest things that sold this policy to me.
Until that time arrives, we are also determined to help working women by boosting childcare wherever and whenever we can, especially to those who need it most. This includes but is not limited to 15 free hours a week in a nursery or with a childminder for all three and four year-olds. From September this year that will be extended to two year-olds from the most disadvantaged homes.
Even in flexible and family-friendly workplaces, women can still hit the glass ceiling, so we are working with employers to ensure that there really is no limit to how far women can go in their careers. We have just been talking about women on boards, and as a result of the fantastic work by the noble Lord, Lord Davies, to increase that number, the number of FTSE 100 all-male boards has now halved, and since last March 40% of new appointments to boards have been women —up from 13% in 2010.
There is, however, a pipeline issue for women in executive roles. Our Think, Act, Report initiative to improve transparency on pay and wider workplace equality is helping to make a difference. Employers who sign up make a commitment to identify any barriers to women in their organisation, to take action to address them, and finally to report publicly on their progress. The transparent reporting bit of the scheme is a particularly powerful tool with which to achieve change.
Since the initiative was launched just over a year ago, 73 organisations have signed up. In total, they employ more than 1 million people and include firms such as Marks & Spencer, Tesco, BT, EDF and BP. As of today, they have been joined by the Chartered Management Institute, which has more than 90,000 members and huge outreach to other employers. However, we are not stopping there. Because we recognise that we do not have all the answers, last year we established a Women’s Business Council, made up of exceptionally high achievers in business, to provide advice to government on what we can do to maximise women’s contribution to our future economic growth. It is comprehensively examining the evidence, from the issues and choices facing girls in school right through to the experiences of older women who need to continue working into their retirement but who face diminishing options in the labour market. That council is due to report to the Government later this year.
We need to encourage all women to aspire to and be ambitious for success, but too many young women still do not have the confidence to follow their dreams and, even more distressingly, too many do not have dreams at all. We are trying to change this through measures such as our pupil premium to help schools better support their disadvantaged pupils and close the attainment gap between them and their peers. We are working with schools, advertising, retail and the media to improve perceptions of body image through our Body Confidence campaign so that more young women realise their future will be defined by their talent, hard work and abilities, not by what they look like.
We are encouraging women to choose more of the STEM subjects at A-level and university that will allow them to flourish in today’s economy, and we are giving them the skills they need to succeed. Noble Lords might be interested to know that last year, for the first time, more women started an apprenticeship than men, but let me say something about aspiration, ambition and success, about which I feel very strongly. There are many definitions of success. It is vital that we have more women in positions of power, whether in business or politics. We want those women on boards. We need more women around the Cabinet table, as the Prime Minister said very recently.
However, we must not forget that many women have no desire for that kind of success. They might want to run their own business instead or be a doctor specialising in a particular field of medicine. Just because people who work in Parliament enjoy power, we must not think that everyone else does. We have to be honest here: there are also many women for whom reaching the top of the tree is not a realistic ambition. By concentrating so much on the high achievers, or telling people to aim for the very top, I worry that sometimes, without meaning to, we diminish other people’s achievements and even discourage them from being ambitious at all.
I would like to recount a story about a friend of mine called Julie. She is an undertaker. She is roughly the same age as me and left school with little in the way of formal qualifications, so was put on what we then called a YOP scheme. I am sure she will not mind my sharing this story with the House. On her first day at work, she thought that the funeral company’s office was a car showroom when she turned up because of all the big black cars outside. After a few false starts and once she had got over the shock that she was working at a funeral director’s, she knuckled down and started to progress up the undertaker ladder.
After a few years, Julie was put in charge of its new Beeston branch, which included arranging funerals. That is a difficult task, as it means talking to people when they are at their most vulnerable. However, she was good at it, so much so that the family of a teenage boy who had been killed in a dreadful accident requested that Julie direct the funeral as well and be the person leading the cortege. She had never done that before and it was a massive step. Because the family insisted that she did this, the firm quickly rustled up a uniform for her and she did it. She was magnificent. She was so proud and walked through Beeston in front of that hearse as if she had been doing it for years. As she had been so successful, she was given that additional responsibility and started to build a strong personal reputation throughout the town. Word got around that she was very dedicated and good at her job. After a further few years, after she had a short maternity break, she tried to return to work but unfortunately was not able to agree mutual terms at her old firm, and that was that; at least, it could have been.
Not many avenues were open to Julie and it would have been easy for her to enter a system that led to nowhere. After a while, however, she spotted some premises which she thought would make an ideal funeral home. With the support of people who knew her reputation and that she was a sound investment, she set up her own funeral directing business. That was five years ago and the business is now thriving, so much so that she keeps six people employed in full-time work and provides regular casual work to another four.
I told you Julie’s story to make this simple point; she is as much a role model to the young women of Beeston as I might like to think I can be. As much as we want all girls to be ambitious at school and aspire to great things, because that is the most secure route to success, those who do not can still achieve their own very worthwhile version of success if they aim to be the best at whatever they find themselves doing.
Tomorrow is International Women’s Day, and the Government are doing a range of things to mark the event. We are, very simply, celebrating all women. I hope all noble Lords will join us, and I look forward to all the contributions that will be made today, especially from the right reverend Prelate, who has chosen a debate about women to make his maiden speech, which I am sure will be very interesting. I beg to move.
Baroness Northover
My Lords, the debates in the House of Lords for International Women’s Day are always outstanding and this one has been no exception. There is such a huge range of experience and commitment among your Lordships in this area that it is a great privilege for me to respond for the Government. I start by paying a particular tribute to right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Coventry, who chose to make his very moving maiden speech in this debate today and who will clearly make a major contribution to our debates in the Lords. I welcome him and, with him, hope that it will not be too long before we do indeed hear a maiden speech from a woman bishop.
We have marked International Women’s Day for more than a century, and it is right that we do so. The lives of women in this country have been transformed over that century, as my noble friend Lady Seccombe so clearly showed. The noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, noted this as the most profound social transformation, and she is surely right. For many of us, we are the first in our families to go to university, yet our daughters, as well as our sons, expect nothing less should they wish to do so. We have the vote and the right to own property, to be employed on equal terms and not to belong to our husbands, fathers or, for that matter, to our sons. However, as noble Lords have made very clear in their speeches, inequalities persist: women earn less and we have by far the larger responsibility for children, the home and the care of elderly relatives as well as working. As the noble Lord, Lord Parekh, the noble Baroness, Lady Nye, the noble Lord, Lord Watson, and others pointed out, women are less likely to be in the House of Commons or House of Lords, on boards, at the top of companies, in our Supreme Court, among our judges, on our sports boards, editors of newspapers and so on. We see progress but sometimes it seems to be at a snail’s pace. As the noble Baroness, Lady Howe of Idlicote, said, it is a long road. Where women are not able to fulfil their aspirations to play their full part, in whatever way that might be, as my noble friend Lady Stowell so effectively explained in relation to her friend Julie, that is quite simply a loss of talent. Our economy and, more importantly, entire society miss out.
Supporting the most vulnerable in our society has been fundamental to our approach. That is why we are cutting tax for more than 23 million working people, lifting 2 million out of income tax altogether, the majority of whom are women. We are making changes to our state pension that will provide enormous benefits to older women, who may have broken records or contributions because they took time out to care for children or the elderly. Our ring-fencing the health budget particularly assists women, who are greater users of healthcare than men, whether through maternity care, through taking their children for care or in later life. Our acceptance of the Dilnot proposals, addressing an issue that has plagued our health and social care system since the establishment of the NHS, and about which no party in power since has been willing to do anything other than undertake yet another inquiry, is game-changing. Noble Lords will recall that it is women who are disproportionately the recipients and givers of care.
We want to support women, empower them and, most importantly, transform the opportunities available to them. We are investing in education, expanding our apprenticeship programme and improving careers advice to encourage young women to make ambitious choices. As the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, suggests, there are areas of the labour market where women still seem invisible. We need to encourage women to choose subjects such as science, technology and engineering at A-level and at university to enable them to flourish in today’s economy. We are introducing shared parental leave, extending the right to request flexible working to all and working with business to ensure more women are in the boardroom.
The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, asked about progress in relation to women on boards. As my noble friend Lady Stowell said at Question Time, since the noble Lord, Lord Davies, issued his report, the proportion of women on boards has increased from 12.5% to 17.3%. As of yesterday, there are now only six all-male boards. The Women’s Business Council will also be making recommendations on how we support women executives progressing up the executive ladder. I do not think that there is a shortage of potential talent. I was a trustee in a leading organisation, and when I stood down I urged that more women should be appointed. However, I was told there were none. I mentioned a name; they said, “Yes, but besides her, there aren’t any”. I mentioned several others; and, as with the “Life of Brian” and the Romans, they said “Yes, but besides those there aren’t any”. To my satisfaction, that board is now chaired by one of the women I recommended.
We have role models elsewhere. This summer, we have seen so many. London 2012 was a triumph for women’s sport, showcasing positive role models such as Jess Ennis, Victoria Pendleton and Ellie Simmonds, as my noble friend Lady Heyhoe Flint made so very clear. Hearing my noble friend on the subject of various sexist golf courses reminded me of an experience I had in Saudi Arabia. I was part of a parliamentary delegation staying in a very western hotel. I hope that my noble friend Lady Heyhoe Flint will appreciate that I took my swimsuit with me and, one evening, went down to the pool to swim. I was told that I could not because it was not the “women’s hour” to swim. I asked when the women’s hour was and was told that there was not one. There are more women taking part in sport but there is clearly so much more that we need to do and, as my noble friend Lady Heyhoe Flint has made clear, we need to do so much more especially in the running of sports. UK Sport and Sport England have included an expectation that all the national governing bodies will have at least 25% women on their boards by 2017.
As well as discrimination, girls and women face very serious challenges, including violence. Various noble Lords have made reference to that, and I assure my noble friend Lord Sheikh and others that we seek to tackle violence against women and girls and take it very seriously. We have protected central government funding for tackling violence against women and, last year, we announced that forced marriage will now become a criminal offence in England and Wales. We are also clear that we will change damaging behaviour only when we have changed the underlying attitudes that cause that behaviour, a point referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Nye. Prevention is key, which is why, with our teenage relationship abuse and rape prevention campaigns, we are helping young people to recognise abuse and understand when to seek help. The noble Baroness, Lady Nye, asked about PSHE and when the outcome of the review will come through. The Government’s internal review was extended to take account of the outcome of the wider national curriculum review and the Department for Education expects to make an announcement shortly. I assure her and my noble friend Lady Benjamin that the statutory guidance for sex and relationship education makes clear that schools should ensure that young people develop positive values, realising that this certainly applies to sexual relationships.
The noble Baroness, Lady Crawley, and others mentioned the powerful One Billion Rising campaign, and it is extremely important to have that kind of campaign keeping us all on our toes. The noble Baroness specifically mentioned FGM and rightly paid tribute to the work in this area of her colleague, the noble Baroness, Lady Rendell. The Government are also frustrated, as was the noble Baroness, Lady Crawley, by the lack of prosecutions in the past 25 years. We welcome the fact that Keir Starmer, the Director of Public Prosecutions, who published a CPS action plan in November, is seeking to improve prosecutions for FGM. As the noble Baroness will know, a major new programme is also being designed by DfID to support efforts to end the practice in sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East. This has been led by my honourable friend Lynne Featherstone, whose aim is that this should disappear within a generation. She is formidable and I am absolutely delighted that she is taking this forward.
The noble Baronesses, Lady Howe and Lady Healy, asked about women in the penal system. I assure them that we fully understand the challenges that women in the penal system face, and that many have suffered all sorts of problems in the past and maybe suffer still from domestic abuse, alcohol and drug abuse and mental problems. We are striving hard to follow through from the work done by the previous Government to keep women out of prison. I visited Holloway prison and realised very strongly how important it is, not only to the women themselves but to the children who are usually dependent on these women. I saw in Holloway Prison the support that is given for drug and alcohol abuse. We have accepted the majority of the Corston report and are actively taking it forward. I assure noble Lords that my noble friend Lord McNally really gets this.
The noble Baroness, Lady Healy, asked about pregnant refugees and asylum seekers and the response to the report on dispersal. We introduced a new policy last year which includes a commitment not to move any pregnant women within the last four weeks of pregnancy, and any asylum seeker is moved only if it is safe to do so.
Noble Lords have addressed the sexualisation of girls and the risks thereby. We need to address the confidence of girls and, as my noble friend Lady Benjamin said, their need for dignity and the dangers of that sexualisation. The Government appointed Reg Bailey to look into the issue of the sexualisation of children and young people, and he published his recommendations last year. We are using these to work with media, business and regulators to implement, and they include stricter guidelines from the Advertising Standards Authority on sexualised on-street adverts, the launch of the ParentPort website for people to make complaints about media and advertising—we heard some horrendous stories earlier—and an agreement from four of the largest internet service providers on a code of practice, including active choice on whether to access age-restricted material. I am sure this is an area we will need to continue to monitor extremely closely.
The noble Baroness, Lady Massey, mentioned invisible women and flagged it up in relation to politics and other areas. I hope I can reassure noble Lords that we have extended the ability of political parties to use women-only shortlists to 2030. Labour transformed the House of Commons with these and although the initial reaction of the press to “Blair’s Babes” was horrendous, nobody would term them that now. They contribute in a formidable fashion and this has acted as a spur to the other political parties, including my own, and I pay tribute to what Labour did in this regard. We are also working with the main political parties to collect and publish diversity data on election candidates, to give us better insight into where we need to target efforts. I note what was said by the noble Baroness, Lady Uddin, in this regard, and on the wider fields I can assure her that we are working with the Runnymede Trust to look at the general barriers facing, for example, Bangladeshi and Pakistani women in the workforce.
The noble Baronesses, Lady Massey and Lady O’Neill, talked about public appointments; we aim to ensure that 50% of new public appointees are women by the end of this Parliament. We have established the Centre for Public Appointments in the Cabinet Office, which is working throughout Whitehall and the private sector to modernise recruitment practices, and we will keep a very close eye on this.
I heard the contribution of the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, with enormous interest and I look forward to her profound thinking being applied to the Equality and Human Rights Commission. She has asked me whether we could have a debate on CEDAW before July and I will of course feed this into the normal channels. Meanwhile, I encourage all noble Lords to put this down for debate at the first opportunity in the new Session, and the noble Baroness might like to do that herself. I will feed that back.
Noble Lords have made reference to the work that we have done overseas. I am extremely proud of that, and I thank my noble friend Lady Brinton for congratulating us on delivering 0.7% of GNI on aid. Noble Lords who have referred to the situation of women and girls overseas have pointed out that they are of course the poorest and the most marginalised. The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, was right to flag up the importance of UN Women.
We have put girls and women front and centre of our international development efforts. What we have heard from my noble friends Lady Brinton, Lord Sheikh and Lord Black, and the noble Lord, Lord Mitchell, shows why we have done this and why it is so very important. Every year, more than a third of a million women die in pregnancy and childbirth. Almost two-thirds of those who are illiterate are women. Women own less than 10% of the world’s property. One in nine girls is forced into marriage before their 14th birthday. DfID’s key aims in addressing the situation for women and girls focus on delaying first pregnancy and supporting safe childbirth—again, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, referred to the challenges here—getting economic assets directly to girls and women, getting girls through secondary school and preventing violence against girls and women. They are major programmes.
In the past year alone, we have provided nearly 750,000 women with access to financial services, and supported more than 2.5 million girls into primary school and 250,000 girls into secondary schools. We know that education is critical as far as girls are concerned and that girls going through school are likely to be safer, to marry later and to have fewer children. It is of benefit to them, their families, their societies and their countries. There is also an economic dividend from that, which we recognise.
I can assure the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, that we have improved property rights and land rights for nearly 250,000 women, supported 1 million additional women to use modern methods of family planning and helped 300,000 girls and women to access security and justice. We had a passionate debate in the Chamber last night on preventing sexual violence in conflicts. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Coventry is right to flag up the especial vulnerability of women and girls in conflict. I am delighted that my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary is pushing forward an important initiative to increase awareness and data collection and to bring perpetrators to justice. We recognise that sexual violence is a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions and is liable to be seen as a war crime to be brought to the International Criminal Court. It is important that we publicise that fact and make sure that the structure is in place to gather data and that cases are brought, with the intention of trying to curb the dreadful abuse of women in these situations. Right now, we have teams of experts in Syria, for example, working on just that task.
I assure my noble friend Lord Black that we are acutely aware of the risk of AIDS. He has clearly shown the vulnerability of women in that situation.
I appreciate the strong support for our international programmes right across the House. The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, is right about the power of working together. She and I have seen, as her noble friend Lady Royall will also have seen, the power of working together across the political spectrum in Pakistan. There, in a National Assembly of 270 or so, there is a quota for 60 women’s seats. When I visited in 2006, women parliamentarians were marginalised, but they have used their block of seats in the most extraordinary fashion in the past five years. Working together across political parties, they have identified laws that discriminate against women and had them thrown out. They have moved on to laws that protect women; for example, on workplace harassment and criminalising acid attacks. The women have carried out 70% of all parliamentary business and their achievements are remarkable. I visited the survivors of acid attacks; for example, a woman who sought a divorce from her husband and he threw acid at her. If he was not to have her, then no one should want her. She sat bravely on the steps of the Parliament when the Bill came up, supported by civil society and highlighted in the media. The women persuaded their male colleagues and saw the Bill passed. I think that the work of the Pakistani women parliamentarians is a beacon to others and a model to show what can be achieved worldwide, and I salute them.
The noble Baroness, Lady Afshar, drew our attention to the continuing plight of women in Iran, who have seen a further erosion of their rights after being excluded from many fields of study at Iranian universities. I found her exposition of Islamic doctrine enlightening, and it is no wonder that the Iranian regime is concerned. We can assure her that we make clear to the Iranian regime how we view its record on human rights, because, as someone said earlier—I think it was the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill—women’s rights are not in contrast to men’s rights; women’s rights are human rights. They are all part of human rights. We make very clear to the Iranian regime how we regard this. I also agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Afshar, that, in the light of this development, it is vital that we attract talented Iranian women to study at UK universities.
This has been a wide-ranging and informative debate. We are determined to do everything in our power to transform the rights and opportunities for women both here and across the world. We have achieved a huge amount in the United Kingdom. I am constantly reminded of that when I see some of the situations in which women find themselves in developing countries. Yet we do not sit back: we realise how much more there is to achieve in the UK and we work with those in developing countries who seek, often against enormous odds, to ensure that the position of women and girls is transformed in the lifetimes of those born today. I beg to move.