Baroness Northover
That this House takes note of the contribution of women to economic life in the United Kingdom and worldwide.
Baroness Northover (LD)
My Lords, it is an enormous privilege to open this debate marking International Women’s Day. I am delighted that so many noble Lords are speaking today, and that we have a maiden speech from my noble friend Lord Palumbo as well. These debates, which have become an annual event, always demonstrate the enormous range and depth of experience of Members of this House. They are always constructive and thought-provoking. I am very much looking forward to noble Lords’ contributions.
On Saturday 8 March we will mark the 103rd International Women’s Day, an opportunity to celebrate women’s social, economic and political achievements. But while we celebrate the contribution of women to our economy, society and culture, we remain well aware of the barriers to full equality both here in the United Kingdom and internationally.
In 1911, on the first International Women’s Day, women in the United Kingdom were still campaigning for the right to vote, to work and to hold public office. On that day, more than a million women and men attended rallies calling for equality.
Three years later saw the outbreak of the Great War—a centenary that we are about to mark. The First World War saw a social revolution that would have profound and lasting effects on women in the United Kingdom, but it built on earlier changes—people moving into towns and cities, the extension of education to girls and increasing prosperity. In the Great War many women found themselves for the first time in paid employment. Women began taking on the vital roles left vacant when men were conscripted into the military. They worked in munitions factories, agriculture and transport. This movement into the workplace by women saw a far more fundamental change. Women began to expect more from life and society. They began to question the status quo. They asked why they could not do the same jobs or have the same education as men.
However, gaining that greater equality has been a long, slow process and we are not there yet. Women’s lives have of course changed greatly since the first International Women’s Day and the Great War, but we need to focus on challenging the unfairness and prejudice that can still stop women making the most of their potential. Women and girls are still expected to do more in the home than men and boys. The pay gap remains. They are less likely to take leading roles in business and public life. Yet we have also seen major shifts in all areas of women’s lives over the 100 years since the Great War. Today women run FTSE 100 companies, bring home gold medals and go into space. We need to tackle the multiple barriers that can hold women back—for their own sakes, for that of their families, including their daughters, and for the economy. This debate focuses on women’s contributions to the economy, at home and abroad. It is only by full participation that their contribution will be truly measured. There are many reasons why women face a greater range of challenges to fulfilling that economic potential, even if the landscape is transformed from earlier times, and even across the generations living now.
Of course, we need to encourage our daughters as much as our sons from the start. I certainly recall my mother being determined that I and my sister had the same opportunities and ambitions as my brother. Today, girls in the UK are outperforming boys at school and university: last year 24.8% of GCSE exams sat by girls were graded A* or A, compared to 17.6% of those sat by boys. Many girls are highly ambitious and want to get ahead, with over half of them saying they want to be a leader in their profession one day. The assumption in 1914 was that a girl’s only real aspiration should be marriage and motherhood. Of course, there are still some deeply ingrained social and cultural assumptions about girls’ abilities and interests. We hope that both sexes—girls and boys—will value family life. We can bring about that greater equality that we wish to see through a fundamental rethink about how men and women live their lives so that both sexes have the opportunity to fulfil themselves through both work and family—should they wish that.
We know that girls’ sense of their own self-worth and potential can cause them to limit their aspirations. In the United Kingdom, over 80% of girls feel that they are judged more on how they look than on what they can do. Sometimes their sense of what is appropriate for girls closes their eyes to other opportunities. At A-level, the subjects that can lead to some of the highest-paying careers, particularly maths and science, remain dominated by boys. In 2013, almost eight in 10 physics papers were taken by boys. Only 30% of women with STEM qualifications now work in science, engineering or technology occupations, compared to 50% of men with STEM qualifications. We need to help make the next generation of girls consider science, technology, engineering, maths or business as their potential route to achievement. Whatever route they wish to take, we wish to encourage girls to fulfil their potential.
We know that women still carry the greater responsibility for home and for children, which is why the home/life balance also has to be addressed. We are making changes that are designed to shift the ground further in favour of equality in the workplace. Flexible parental leave will allow families to share their caring responsibilities and help to end the automatic assumption that the woman will be the one to remain at home. Extending the right to request flexible working to all will help to challenge the presumption that flexible working is the preserve of women and that those who make a request are less committed to their employer.
As was flagged up yesterday in the question from my noble friend Lady Jenkin, we are acutely aware that once women have children, their ability to work may be severely hampered. That is why we are also helping with the costs of childcare by increasing free early education places for three and four year-olds to 15 hours a week and have extended that to disadvantaged two year-olds. As I mentioned yesterday, we are taking a range of other measures as well.
We are also aware that women’s caring responsibilities range wider than their children to older family members and others in need. This was an area we sought to address in the Care Bill, and through a number of other measures.
We are seeing girls outperform boys at school, although not always in subjects that will lead to the brightest of careers, and we are seeking to assist men and women to stay in work when they have families. What happens when women are in work? Two in three girls think that there are not enough women in leadership positions in the UK, and for many of them this lack of role models affects their sense of their own ability to succeed.
We are seeking to encourage women to aim high in the corporate world. Our Think, Act, Report initiative provides a simple framework to help companies think about gender equality in their workforces on key issues such as recruitment, retention, promotion and pay. There are now more than 170 major companies supporting the initiative, representing more than 2 million people.
At the top, we need change, hence the importance of the work being led by the noble Lord, Lord Davies, to increase the number of women on boards. We now have more than 20% of FTSE 100 board posts being held by women, up from 12.5% two years ago, with only two companies, Antofagasta plc and Glencore Xstrata plc, still without a woman in post. Bear those names in mind, because I will probably mention them again on Monday when I am answering a Question from my noble friend Lady Seccombe about women on boards—unless, of course, there has been a change over the weekend.
However, we need women at every level, and we need women entrepreneurs. More than 14 million women are now working—more than ever before. Businesses set up and run by women contribute £70 billion to our economy. We have also acted to encourage and support more women to start their own businesses. The Women’s Business Council has made recommendations to improve the health and competitiveness of our economy, focusing on four key areas it has identified where girls and women face particular challenges or difficulties.
We know that more needs to be done so that at every level of every business we see women as well as men, and women in large numbers. It is not just in business where we need to see women. We need to see them running media organisations, as professors in universities, and in public life everywhere.
In terms of public life, the 2010 general election had a record number of women candidates and there are now more female Members of the House of Commons than at any other time: 147 women, including six Asian women MPs where previously there were none. But that is not enough and it is nowhere near 50%. We now have 182 women who are Members of this House. As I said earlier, they are disproportionately active in our House. It is worth bearing that in mind for those making any appointments.
In 2012-13, 37% of new public appointments made by Whitehall departments were women, and our aspiration is that 50% of new public appointees should be women by the end of this Parliament. However, we know there is much more to do to ensure that our institutions are fully reflective of the communities that they serve, so that women and girls fulfil their potential for their own benefit and for that of their families, but also for our economy.
We know how our lives have been transformed by comparison with those of our mothers, our grandmothers and our great-grandmothers. We are also very active, as noble Lords will know, in seeking to address the position of women worldwide, which we do through the FCO, through DfID and through other engagement. Right now we therefore have parliamentarians, Ministers, NGOs and officials beginning to gather in New York for the Commission on the Status of Women. Some noble Lords who are speaking here today will soon be making their way to New York, and we wish them well. It is important work that they will be doing. They will be seeking to ensure that the millennium development goals, which will be replaced in 2015, include a stand-alone goal on gender equality, as well as to ensure that gender is mainstreamed through all the goals, because we will quite simply not address the excluded—the poorest—without doing this.
Just as we work to ensure that women in the UK are fulfilled in their lives, and contribute to our economy alongside that, we recognise that gender equality elsewhere is vital not only for the women themselves but for their families, their societies and their economies. This is why DfID puts women and girls front and centre in its work. That is because, in the words of the proposed MDGs, we aim to leave no one behind.
DfID’s strategic vision for girls and women aims to unlock their potential to stop poverty before it starts. It seeks to empower girls and women by crystallising our aims under the headings of voice, choice and control. This means girls and women having a voice in decision-making in their household, community and country and in politics, business, the media and civil society through their participation, leadership and collective action. It means that they should have the choice to complete education and benefit from paid work and opportunities to earn a sufficient income and over whether, when and with whom they have sex, marry or have children. It means having control over their own bodies and mobility, including their safety from violence, and over income, productive assets and other resources, including food, water and energy, with equal legal rights, access to justice and freedom from discriminatory social norms. This also encapsulates what we seek in the United Kingdom.
What does this mean in practice in terms of DfID’s work? I would like to illustrate this from a visit that I have just made to India. Let me take the example of a couple of villages in Madhya Pradesh, which I visited with DfID officials. Sanitation has just been installed in these villages. In the case of one of them, the main defecation field was around a school. That was where people used to come but the schoolchildren were enlisted and showed huge enthusiasm for their task: to monitor their elders and betters, blowing whistles to summon help whenever an adult followed their usual patterns and began to use the field once again as a toilet. It took some months to retrain the adults but the children were delighted with the success that they had achieved. The women also noted that they were now safer in not having to go out into the field at night, while their children were more healthy and therefore in school. Sanitation had brought a wealth of benefits, including to the economy of that village.
In the second village there was a nutrition centre providing ante-natal care along with food for pregnant and lactating mothers and children up to the age of three. Those assisting the pregnant women and cooking the meals were women: paid directly, grouping together in self-help groups, opening small bank accounts, saving up and then being able to access loans. The ones who we met had used their loan to buy a buffalo for each woman to benefit her, her family, and the village’s economy. Within a year, those loans had been paid off and they were considering their next plan. I tell the House this to illustrate how such interventions can provide both independence and greater equality for women, and improve their ability to contribute to supporting their families—by feeding them and keeping children in school—their communities and their countries.
I conclude by looking forward to our debate today. Whether we debate the United Kingdom or the wider world, we know that we have not yet secured equality and that while we celebrate what we have achieved, we note the barriers that remain to the full participation of women at every level of society and in every aspect of our economies. I expect that this debate will shine further light on how far we have to go but also on what we have achieved. 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 huge experience and commitment among your Lordships in this area that it is a great privilege to respond. I pay particular tribute to my noble friend Lord Palumbo, who chose to make his maiden speech in this debate today, and whom we welcome as a significant contributor to our House. One can see how far-sighted he is when he speaks of employers recognising that starting a family enhances, not compromises, what an employee can contribute.
It is also good to have so many male contributions to the debate today, including from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester, who flagged his optimism that we might soon see women on his Benches, possibly by the time of this debate next year. I was also very pleased that my noble friend Lord Holmes of Richmond participated, despite his case of extreme man flu. My eldest son has a habit of catching such flu, and although he beat it this autumn, when he sent me an e-mail from Nigeria saying, “Mum, I have acute typhoid”, it required my daughter to say that if he is well enough to send the e-mail, he is probably all right. Cross fingers—he probably is.
We have marked International Women’s Day for over a century. The lives of women in this country have been transformed over that century, as my noble friend Lady Seccombe so clearly showed, and as other noble Lords have remarked. I was very touched by the speech of my noble friend Lady Seccombe. In this year, in which we mark the centenary of the First World War, she is right to remind us not only how it changed lives in terms of women’s engagement in the workforce but in terms of the mental and physical suffering that ensued from that appalling conflict—indeed, in her own life.
As noble Lords’ speeches have made clear, inequalities persist. Women earn less, and we have by far the larger responsibility for children in the home and for care of elderly relatives, as well as working. Women are less likely to be in the House of Commons or the House of Lords, less likely to be on boards on the top of companies, in our Supreme Court or among our judges, as vice-chancellors of universities, as my noble friend Lady Bottomley pointed out, or as editors of newspapers, and so on. Indeed, we see progress, but sometimes it seems glacial, although it is good to hear from my noble friend Lady Benjamin about Exeter. I note what my noble friend Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville flagged on behalf of my noble friend Lady Falkner in relation to the diplomatic service. I assure noble Lords that I shall make sure that that is heard very loudly in the FCO.
I spoke in my opening speech about the action that we are taking right across government to promote equality. We know that girls are outperforming boys at school, so by investing in education, expanding our apprenticeship programme and improving careers advice, we can help young women to open their eyes to opportunities that they may have believed were unobtainable, and help them to make ambitious choices. Introducing shared parental leave will help to end the assumption that women will be the main carer for a child, helping families to juggle their home and work life and lessening the negative impact on careers of time spent out of the workplace.
We heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Afshar, about the impact of having children. Noble Lords are right about the importance of addressing the need for childcare that is affordable, flexible and of high quality. My noble friend Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville and the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, particularly emphasised the issue of childcare. As I said, we have extended free childcare for all three to four year-olds to 15 hours—from what was offered by the previous Government—and we are also offering that now to disadvantaged two year-olds. We are also helping with the cost via a tax-free childcare scheme, which is worth up to £1,200 a year from 2015. There is an extra £200 million for childcare subsidies through universal credit, and we are working to improve supply through grants to childcare businesses and setting up childminder agencies.
I recall the cost myself of having three under-fives and working. As I did the other day, I pay tribute to the party opposite for the work that it did to improve the quality and availability of childcare during its time in office. However, I point out that costs rose considerably in the 2000s. What we have sought successfully to do, as the Family and Childcare Trust’s figures bear out, is to stabilise those costs. As for provision, providers show that there are sufficient places and, in fact, vacancies; that said, we know that there is much to do, which is why we have put a great deal of effort into this.
In regard to working fathers, a point flagged up by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, I was personally speechless when the media criticised Edward Davey for taking paternity leave when his new baby arrived. As the noble Baroness, Lady Crawley, said, with regard to trolls, we have a long way to go.
The noble Baronesses, Lady Crawley and Lady Uddin, flagged the need to support carers, generally and in the workplace. We are implementing the recommendations of the report, Supporting Working Carers: The Benefits to Families, Business and the Economy, which was published in 2013. We are improving support for business and developing the market in care and support services, and the Care Bill will help to provide protection and support to those who need it most, including carers. But the noble Baroness, Lady Crawley, is right to emphasise the contribution that carers, from the family or not, can make. My noble friend Lady Benjamin, the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, and others are right to emphasise the contribution of those who are in unpaid work. It is still work and it still contributes.
The noble Baroness, Lady Prosser, rightly urged us to address the value and engagement of those who are nowhere near the glass ceiling but are, rather, around the skirting board, as she described it. The noble Baroness, Lady Nye, flagged the minimum wage, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton. They will have noted that my right honourable friend the Business Secretary has expressed his sympathy with the proposal to raise this. I do not want to get into a competition over this by saying, “We did this and you did that”, but I would point out that, in raising the tax threshold, we have disproportionately benefited women, and I am very proud of the fact that we have done that.
The noble Baronesses, Lady Uddin and Lady Howells, and my noble friend Lady Benjamin rightly urged us to ensure that what we do is inclusive of all groups, whatever their religion, race and background. We agree with that. The noble Baroness, Lady Afshar, flagged the particular challenges facing Muslim women. We pay tribute to the work that she and others are doing in that regard, and hear what she says.
The noble Lord, Lord Haskel, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Nye and Lady Prosser, spoke of the pay gap, which is a worldwide problem. The noble Lord wanted to know the relevant figures. In the United Kingdom, the pay gap is narrowing steadily. It was 25% 10 years ago and is now 19.7%. The pay gap is linked to the occupations in which women traditionally work and these sectors tend to be lower paid. We have addressed many of the issues around that in this debate. From October 2014, employment tribunals will require companies that lose an equal pay case to undertake a pay audit. We must, indeed, continue to work very hard to close this gap.
My noble friend Lady Bottomley mentioned women in the penal system and highlighted their situation and her proposed engagement with them. As she mentioned this, my noble friend Lady Jolly whispered to me that she used to provide evening classes in maths and science in Dartmoor, so there we have some STEM engagement.
All noble Lords are right to emphasise the need to address the position of women across the board. The noble Baroness, Lady Royall, and my noble friend Lady Jenkin flagged a problem that occurs at every level—that is, violence, which may be physical or insidiously mental. We are extremely exercised by this. The Government have set out their approach to the action plan on violence against women, which will be updated on 8 March, on International Women’s Day. We have ring-fenced £40 million for specialist domestic violence and sexual violence support services, and we have extended the definition of “domestic violence” to include 16 to 17 year-olds and coercive behaviour. We have announced the rollout of domestic violence protection orders and the domestic violence disclosure scheme, and we have introduced domestic homicide reviews and relaunched the “This is Abuse” campaign, aimed at teenage boys and girls. I remember answering a Question from the noble Baroness, Lady Nye, on that area.
We continue to work with the noble Lord, Lord Davies. I am very happy to agree that he is a noble sister; I think that the noble Baroness, Lady Crawley, described him as that. He is remarkable and has done a great deal to promote equality in the boardroom. He has tried to ensure that talented women take their rightful place at the top and, once there, provide a different view, which helps business maximise its potential, coming back to the point that my noble friend Lord Palumbo made.
My noble friend Lady Bottomley rightly flagged that we must not concentrate on women on boards to the exclusion of women at every level. We fully agree with that and other noble Lords echoed that point. My noble friend Lord Watson flagged that my right honourable friend Vincent Cable has requested that the EHRC should look at the legal possibilities of quotas for companies. No doubt this will be passed to the board of my noble friend Lord Holmes. I look forward very much indeed to hearing what the outcome might be. As my right honourable friend the Prime Minister has also made clear, quotas have to be a possible backstop if we do not see enough progress.
My noble friend Lord Smith has been a doughty and invaluable campaigner for better gender equality, and I personally value his support enormously. His determination that we should have no complacency in this matter rings in my ears. I would say to my noble friend Lady Jenkin that I think he is actually targeting my party and his party. However, perhaps I may pick him up on one point regarding the reports on office size, which seemed to indicate that women Ministers were undervalued. In this particular case, it is a bit of a red herring. The position gets somewhat distorted by adding in my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary’s room, which is 10 times the size of that of any of his Cabinet colleagues. I happen to know that my right honourable friend Justine Greening chose a smaller room in the DfID building because it was in the new part of the building where most of the officials were, when she could have had the very large, beautiful office that my right honourable friend Alan Duncan has. However, she chose not to have that office in order to be with the officials. It is always worth flagging these points.
Lord Smith of Clifton
Does that not make the case for having a woman Foreign Secretary?
Baroness Northover
I will volunteer immediately, but I think that my noble friend Lady Warsi will be in front of me. Of course my noble friend Lord Smith is right.
By providing support to women wishing to start and grow their own business, both at home and in the developing world, we could see equality in business, and equalising the economic participation rates of men and women could add 10% to GDP by 2030. My noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe had some very useful perceptions in this regard. Women-led SMEs already add £70 billion to the UK economy. We agree that there is tremendous potential here.
My noble friend Lady Bottomley mentioned that women were less likely to be peacocks, and my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe mentioned that men apply for promotion a year before they should, while women apply a year after they should. Having just read Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In, this seems to be a worldwide challenge. That, again, is why my noble friend Lord Palumbo’s far-sightedness, which Sheryl Sandberg shares, of recognising and promoting the contribution that women make to businesses, is indeed so important.
My noble friend Lady Fookes and the noble Baroness, Lady Prosser, flagged the challenges of getting women into STEM subjects. We are working very hard on this. Last night I was very encouraged to attend a reception hosted by the DPM for female apprentices. The enthusiasm of these women was palpable. One of the things that they emphasised was that they had a battle against their schools when they tried to head down the apprenticeship route. They asked that schools should rate apprenticeships as highly as they rate universities. This is indeed what we are seeking to do through new careers advice in schools. I also say to the noble Baroness, Lady Howells, that last night I met a remarkable apprentice who happens to be black and is apprenticed at Dr Martens. I can show the noble Baroness on my telephone some rather inadequate pictures of the stunning silk and fake crocodile Dr Martens shoes that this young lady had designed and made in the space of two days. I had no doubt that she could sell them worldwide.
My noble friend Lord Holmes gave a moving speech and reminded us strongly of how outstanding are our sportswomen. I noted that there were four winning individuals or teams at Sochi, and that three of them were female. However, that did not stand in the way of national delight and enthusiasm. It did not, and I would make that point to the media.
We heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, just how fantastic the contribution of women can be in the arts, as outlined in the cases she mentioned. I recognise not least the contribution that JK Rowling makes both to the UK Exchequer and to the fantasy life of children and adults. It was absolutely wonderful to see a dyslexic child, who had never read a book all the way through before, sit in a corner and not move until they had read all the way through a Harry Potter book.
I pay tribute as I always do, and as my noble friend Lord Smith has, to the party opposite for what it has done to encourage women to enter politics. I think that my noble friend was actually attacking my party rather than my coalition partners. I have fought long and hard in my party over many years, but we have a particular challenge because we have no safe seats—if only we had. That is why I am very glad that, at least in the House of Lords, 31% of my party’s Members are women, making us the largest group. I am also glad, astounded and impressed that in five of the six Liberal Democrat seats where MPs are standing down, we have managed to select women. I pay tribute to my noble friend Lady Brinton for her sterling efforts in that regard.
We all know that we must do more at every level. I have seen what a transformative difference Labour women MPs have made and, just like the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, I have seen a transformative difference made by women parliamentarians working together in Pakistan. What we have heard about the position of women worldwide reinforces the need to have a stand-alone goal on gender in the MDGs, as the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, made clear.
My noble friend Lord Watson of Richmond, like others, reminded us of some of the barriers faced by women elsewhere. I certainly saw what he referred to when I visited Saudi Arabia. The women are corralled into a small area in the university, unable to participate alongside men unless they are medical students. They are unable even to visit the library. I saw the horror on male faces as I was allowed to walk through the university. As I have mentioned before, the position of women came home to me even in my western-style hotel in Riyadh, where there was a swimming pool. I went down to the pool with my swimsuit but was turned away because it was not the “women’s hour” to swim. When I asked when the women’s hour was, I was told, “There isn’t one”.
Given the situation of women around the world, I am very proud of our work overseas. In our international development work, the UK has put girls and women at the heart of its approach. DfID’s strategic vision for women and girls has set ambitious targets to enhance the economic empowerment of girls and women in developing countries. I laid out the principles in my opening speech. As the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, pointed out, women do so much of the work yet have so little of the property. The imbalance is extremely striking. Two-thirds of women are illiterate and one in nine girls is forced into marriage before her 14th birthday.
Overseas, we are indeed battling against violence. Women cannot fully participate if they are subjected to violence, which they often are, as the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, pointed out. She will know of the efforts that we are making in that respect with a £25 million research and innovation fund looking at what works in preventing violence against women and girls.
The noble Baroness, Lady Howe of Idlicote, raised the issue of FGM. I am very proud of what my honourable friend Lynne Featherstone is doing in combating this overseas, and it is having an effect, too, in the United Kingdom. That is extremely welcome. It is the first time that there has been a commitment of £35 million to combat FGM overseas. I know that I am running short of time.
The noble Baroness, Lady Royall, mentioned concerns in relation to Pakistan, and my noble friends Lady Jenkin and Lady Hodgson mentioned Afghanistan. Probably all three of them will know of our very strong commitment to supporting women and girls right across the board in terms of schooling, engagement and reproductive health. That commitment in Afghanistan continues and I can write with further details if they wish.
My noble friend Lady Fookes asked about women’s political participation and leadership. DfID supports that in a number of countries and, again, I can write with details. However, I will point out that the CPA, IPU and Westminster Foundation have continuing programmes along the lines that she mentions. I know that the CPA is asking right now for a volunteer to do the type of training to which she refers in April in Kenya. Perhaps she would like to volunteer.
In conclusion, this has been a very wide-ranging and informative debate. I was enormously struck by what my noble friend Lady Bottomley said when quoting the chief executive of a company, which I shall not name, who said that the future was not with the BRICs but with women. That is most cheering and a very positive note. I hope that I have made clear the Government’s determination to do everything in their power to transform the rights and opportunities available to women and girls in the UK and overseas. As I predicted, it has been an excellent debate. It has also been constructive and thought-provoking. It is encouraging to have so many women and men seeking to drive forward the gender equality that we all need to see for the benefit of women, families, communities and countries.