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Oral Answers to Questions
(8 years, 10 months ago)
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Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)
1. What progress he is making on increasing the number of places on the National Citizen Service.
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
3. What progress he is making on increasing the number of places on the National Citizen Service.
Alan Mak (Havant) (Con)
5. What progress he is making on increasing the number of places on the National Citizen Service.
The Minister for Civil Society (Mr Rob Wilson)
With your indulgence, Mr Speaker, may I first congratulate the hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) on the birth of her son in May? I am sure that it is the reason for her absence today, as she normally shadows me.
More than 135,000 young people have benefited from the National Citizen Service in recent years. In 2015, more young people than ever will have the opportunity to take part. I have written to all Northern Irish and English MPs encouraging them to visit an NCS programme near them this summer.
Stephen Metcalfe
I have seen at first hand how the NCS programme can give young people greater confidence, help them work in their community and build long-lasting relationships. Will my hon. Friend confirm that the Government will continue to back the NCS into the future, so that we can give increasing numbers of young people the skills they need to get on in life?
Mr Wilson
My hon. Friend is absolutely right in his assessment, which is why I am delighted that more than 1,100 people took part in his constituency and the surrounding area last year and why I am committed to continuing the rapid expansion of the programme. He will be pleased to hear that 92% of participants say that the NCS helped them to develop useful skills for the future and 76% feel more confident about getting a job in the future.
Martin Vickers
I welcome the Minister’s answer. I am a tremendous supporter of the NCS programme, having seen the work done in north-east Lincolnshire, where the programme is delivered by Grimsby Town Sports and Education Trust. Does he agree that encouraging football clubs and similar organisations in this area encourages our young people to get even more involved in the programme?
Mr Wilson
I join my hon. Friend in thanking Grimsby Town for the part it played in supporting nearly 200 young people taking part in the NCS in his constituency and the surrounding area in 2014. In particular, I pay tribute to Graham Rodger and Lee Stephens for leading an excellent team. I understand from my hon. Friend that it contains a former Grimsby Town goalkeeper, so it could be said that the NCS is in safe hands.
Mr Wilson
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend on that. That view is supported by consecutive independent evaluations, which have demonstrated the effectiveness of the programme for people from a range of backgrounds. For instance, in 2013, 16% of NCS participants were in receipt of free school meals, which compares with a figure of about 8% of 16 to 17-year-olds in the general population. Despite this great success, I still want to go further in reaching out to more young people who face big challenges in life.
Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)
One of the Minister’s predecessors, the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (Mr Hurd), said that he was “obsessively” monitoring the backgrounds of people taking part in the NCS. Can this Minister reassure the House that he is monitoring with equal enthusiasm? Are people from deprived backgrounds taking part in the programme to the same degree as others?
Mr Wilson
I think I just answered that question, as the hon. Gentleman would know if he had listened to my previous answer. As he is aware, we have a manifesto commitment on guaranteeing a place on the NCS for all young people. That requires commitment from across government. I am working with Ministers across government to ensure that the NCS benefits as many young people as possible, no matter where they live, what school they went to or what their circumstances in life have been.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
The Minister will be pleased to hear that I will be visiting an NCS scheme in my constituency over the summer recess. Given that youth services in England have experienced cuts almost three times greater than overall cuts to local authorities, what is he doing to make sure that young people have valuable activities all year round, not just through the NCS?
Mr Wilson
The NCS is complementary to, not a replacement for, local government services. The NCS consistently demonstrates its positive impact on participants and value for money. I find it very disappointing that local councils are making the choice to cut youth services, but we in the Cabinet Office are supporting local authorities through programmes such as the Centre for Youth Impact and Delivering Differently for Young People.
Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)
2. What funding is provided to local authorities with low rates of voter registration to improve rates.
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr Oliver Letwin)
May I begin by wishing the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David), who is sitting on the Opposition Front Bench, many happy returns on his birthday?
In answer to the question, as well as giving more than £50 million to enable local authorities to carry forward the individual electoral registration system, we have also given more than £10 million to enable them to take proactive steps to increase voter registration.
Catherine West
What actions will be taken against local authorities that have coasting rates of registration—those that have registered fewer than 98% of eligible voters?
Mr Letwin
I am happy to tell the hon. Lady that the Minister for constitutional reform—my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose)—is proactively stepping in to try to ensure that those local authorities do take further action. The Electoral Commission has also reported on this, and we are keen to see that every local authority ensures right away that it no longer has large groups of people who are unregistered and that it cleans its register.
Mrs Caroline Spelman (Meriden) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend acknowledge the positive impact on voter registration of civil society campaigns and the campaign by the Church, Have Your Say, before the last election?
Mr Letwin
Yes, my right hon. Friend is absolutely right about that. I am glad to say that we see a pattern of local authorities in many parts of the country doing what she describes and working with civil society partners to reach those people who might not otherwise be reached by more formal means to persuade them to register.
Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP)
I think that we can all agree that electoral registration is desirable and that one factor that will affect that is the degree of faith and confidence that people have in our electoral system. One measure that could enhance that is the ability of people to recall their Member of Parliament in between elections. When will the Minister bring into force the remaining provisions of the Recall of MPs Act 2015?
Mr Speaker
The hon. Gentleman has indulged in what might be called an elastic interpretation of the question on the Order Paper. But just as I have been indulgent of him, I feel sure that the Minister will be similarly indulgent.
Mr Letwin
I am delighted to answer that question. The Recall of MPs Act, to which the hon. Gentleman refers, was passed just at the end of the previous Parliament. Two things now need to be done: one is to issue the commencement order, which is relatively straightforward; and the second is to issue the regulations that govern the conduct of the petition, which is more complicated. All of us in this House have a considerable interest in ensuring that that is done right. However, we are doing it at pace. I intend to bring the provisions before the House in September, when we return from recess.
Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)
Two weeks ago, the Electoral Commission published a report on the transition to full individual electoral registration. It expressed concern about the numbers that could fall off the electoral register if the Government brought forward the date of full IER to December 2015. Will the Government follow the advice of the Electoral Commission?
Mr Letwin
The shadow Minister is absolutely right that the Electoral Commission has made observations about that matter. We are now considering them very carefully, and we will think through the Government’s response before we inform the House what it is. In response to earlier questions, I should say that the Electoral Commission report has also indicated that we now have an increase in the total number of people registered compared with the situation before individual electoral registration was introduced.
Stephen Phillips (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
4. What steps he is taking to improve the administration of civil service pensions.
The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Matthew Hancock)
We have reformed the delivery of civil service pensions by setting up MyCSP, which is part-owned by employees who administer the scheme. That will reduce costs and ultimately deliver a better service.
Stephen Phillips
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his answer. I know from corresponding with him on numerous occasions that he is aware of certain problems with MyCSP, but I am still receiving letters from constituents who feel that they are being let down. Will he assure the House that every effort is being made to ensure that MyCSP offers a good service to those who rely on it for the administration of their pensions?
Matthew Hancock
Yes, I am grateful to my hon. and learned Friend for bringing the matter to the House’s attention. Work is under way to improve the performance of MyCSP. There has been a year-on-year productivity improvement of it since it started in 2012, but there is much work to do to ensure that we get everybody’s pension administered in exactly the right way.
Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)
The problem is that these problems have been going on for a long time. I have written to Ministers over the past 12 months about problems with my constituents and only last week I had a constituent who was given a pension estimate that proved to be completely inaccurate. They had based their future plans on that estimate. May I ask the Minister again to try harder to ensure that we get this sorted out? It has been going on for far too long.
Matthew Hancock
Yes, I agree that this needs to be sorted out. When we brought the delivery of civil service pensions from an external provider in 2010, there was a larger backlog than anticipated. That means that there is an awful lot of work to do, but we are pushing it through.
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)
6. What steps he is taking to ensure that people from all social backgrounds are able to become senior civil servants.
The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Matthew Hancock)
Background should be no barrier to success and we are committed to ensuring that the most senior ranks of the civil service can be reached by all.
Rehman Chishti
Although 10% of the civil service are from a black and minority ethnic community, only 4% are in senior positions. What steps are the Government taking to ensure that each and every one of them can achieve their true potential without their background being a hindrance?
Matthew Hancock
My hon. Friend raises an important point. This is true not just about ethnicity in the senior civil service but about gender and people with disabilities. We need to ensure that the senior civil service represents the country that it serves. Steps are under way to ensure that that happens and I look forward to working with my hon. Friend to reach that conclusion.
Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab)
We welcome the Minister to his place and the Opposition support genuine efforts to increase the diversity of the civil service. He will be aware that 58% of permanent secretaries were privately educated, as were 53% of senior diplomats and 45% of public body chairs. Would he therefore support targets to increase the numbers from state education at the top of our civil service?
Matthew Hancock
I certainly strongly agree that it is important that as well as considering gender, ethnicity and other characteristics we ensure that people from all backgrounds—whichever school they went to and whichever part of the country they come from—can get to senior levels in the civil service. We have a programme under way to ensure that that happens.
Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on his appointment as Minister for the civil service and assure him that the now Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee will look forward to working with him on civil service reform, as we did with his predecessor, who did so much during his term of office. May I also give my fullest support to his objective of achieving diversity? That is a vital part of having an agile civil service and requires the challenging of attitudes and habits of behaviour as much as setting targets.
Matthew Hancock
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his re-election—unopposed—to the Chair of the Select Committee. I very much look forward to working with him, although I say that with some trepidation, knowing his depth of understanding of these issues. I entirely agree that this is about culture and agility in the civil service as much as it is about tick-box targets.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
One of the biggest barriers to accessing some senior civil service jobs is where they are located. What more can be done to ensure that jobs are located outside the south of England? Why not start by moving the Department for Transport to the north, which might bring some of the money it spends down here up there, as well?
Matthew Hancock
As my hon. Friend knows, we are investing a huge amount in transport systems across the nation, not least in the north of England and in his area. It is crucial that we proceed in an efficient and cost-effective way. There are civil servants who work across the land, and we should not forget that, and we must ensure that they represent the whole country, too.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
7. What assessment he has made of the effect of the inclusion of EU citizens in the franchise for elections to the Greater London Assembly and the Mayor of London on voter engagement; and if he will make a statement.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (John Penrose)
EU citizens resident in London are eligible to register and vote in local government elections and elections for the GLA and Mayor. I am sure that both I and the hon. Gentleman would encourage them to do just that. So far I have made no assessment of the effect on voter engagement, but if the hon. Gentleman has thoughts or insights he would like to share, I am very happy to hear them now.
Patrick Grady
The Mayor of London, now also the hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson), once claimed that London was the sixth biggest French city in the world. Why does the Minister believe that it is right that all those French citizens who have made London their home should be allowed to vote for the Mayor’s successor, but not for whether this country should stay in the European Union?
John Penrose
The vote for staying in or leaving the EU will be based on the parliamentary constituency franchise, which is based on people who are eligible to vote for this place. British nationals living in EU countries elsewhere in the EU are not allowed to vote in equivalent referendums elsewhere—for example, in the Dutch referendum in 2005.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend share my fear that, with an air traffic control strike and transport workers on strike in France at the moment and massive unemployment in France owing to its socialist republic and with all these people coming over here, we could end up with a French-speaking Mayor?
John Penrose
Anecdotally, quite a lot of people are commenting on the fact that many of the French who choose to come to live in London do so because they prefer it here; they think that it is a more advantageous business environment and a better place to live and work. Therefore, perhaps they have imbibed and imbued themselves with some of the local colour and flexibility, rather than with the attitudes that my hon. Friend describes.
Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)
8. What recent estimate he has made of the number of eligible voters not on the electoral register.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (John Penrose)
As we have heard, the Electoral Commission recently published an analysis, and I am pleased to tell the hon. Gentleman that it shows that parliamentary registers have over 400,000 more entries than a year ago. The last full assessment of the completeness and accuracy of electoral registers was published in July, and it showed that the decline in registration between 2000 and 2010 had stabilised since 2011. The next full assessment will be undertaken when the transition to individual electoral registration is complete.
Grahame M. Morris
I thank the Minister for that response, but the number of eligible voters who are missing from registers is a concern. I draw his attention to two specific groups: private rented tenants and the rising 18s. In my constituency, the rising 18s are down 50%. What action is he taking to try to address that issue?
John Penrose
As we heard earlier, almost £10 million has been spent on registration activities and drives since the start of this year, and we have made it a great deal more convenient and easier to register through individual electoral registration. We are looking at the report and recommendations produced by the Electoral Commission. In due course, when we respond to them, I am sure that we will have more to say.
Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)
What recent assessment has the Minister made of the number of ineligible electors on registers—namely, EU citizens who find themselves registered for parliamentary elections?
John Penrose
One of the benefits of individual electoral registration is that it has a built-in check for validity, which dramatically improves the quality of registers as a result. As more and more of the roll is completed using individual electoral registration, we expect it to have a beneficial effect in weeding out people who are incorrectly registered in the way that my hon. Friend describes.
Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)
10. Since March 2014, there has been a reduction in young people about to turn 18 registering to vote. Will the Minister not commit the Government to rolling out the Northern Ireland schools initiative, so that schools and colleges can work with local authorities to make sure that those people register to vote?
John Penrose
A number of interesting initiatives are under way to persuade and allow students to vote. Some interesting examples are going on in Sheffield. So there are a range of possibilities, many of which are very promising. We want to ensure that we have analysed them all properly, so that we can choose the best and most cost-effective.
Danny Kinahan (South Antrim) (UUP)
T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Matthew Hancock)
The Cabinet Office is responsible for efficiency and reform, transparency, civil society, digital technology, cyber-security, constitutional matters and the delivery of the Government’s agenda.
Danny Kinahan
I and many others are concerned about the Union. A convention or congress has been ruled out quite emphatically. With Scotland wanting more and more and Wales and Northern Ireland excluded from the process and, indeed, England threatened by it, too, what mechanism is the Minister’s office putting in place to properly preserve and plan the future of the Union?
Matthew Hancock
I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman’s passionate support for the Union, which we on this side of the House wholeheartedly share. Like him, we seek a lasting settlement that strengthens the United Kingdom, and I look forward to further eloquent contributions from him to that debate and to working with him to make it happen.
Luke Hall (Thornbury and Yate) (Con)
T5. Will my right hon. Friend update the House on his plans to deliver efficiency savings across Whitehall?
Matthew Hancock
As we try to bring the books back into balance and reach surplus, making the Government more efficient is crucial in ensuring that as much money as possible gets to front-line services where it is needed. We have a widespread efficiency and reform plan, which we are driving through as part of the spending review to ensure that every taxpayer pound is spent as wisely as possible.
Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)
May I welcome the new ministerial team to their places? The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is being a little sheepish and, if he does not mind me saying so, a bit disingenuous about the numbers on the electoral register. We all know that the last election was the high-water mark with people automatically put on the register, but with the Electoral Commission saying that nearly 2 million people will fall off that register, will he say today whether he will accept its recommendations on the early bringing forward of the IER scheme? Does he really want this Government to go down in history as the first to reduce the franchise in this country?
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr Oliver Letwin)
As I have already told the House, we will look at the Electoral Commission’s recommendations seriously and come back to the House when we have made our decision on them, but there is a clear distinction between those people who are on the electoral register who should not be on it because they are not resident in the place that they are registered for—that is what the cleaning is about—and what I take it is our joint endeavour to get all those people, estimated by the Electoral Commission at 7 million, who should be on the register but are not, on to the register. That is why we are spending money and helping local authorities to attract those people on to the register.
Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con)
T6. A new cyber-security institute in Nelson in my constituency, sponsored by Training 2000, is due to be launched in the autumn. What support is the Cabinet Office offering to education providers to ensure that Britain is equipped with the cyber-security skills we need for the future?
Matthew Hancock
My hon. Friend raises an incredibly important point. To defend Britain from cyber-attack, we need to ensure that we have the cyber-skills in the future. That involves not only university-level skills, which we are putting money into expanding, but cyber-apprenticeships and entry-level schemes to ensure that, at all levels and from all parts of our country, we can recruit people to work in that important defence of our nation.
Mr Speaker
It would assist us if the Minister looked towards and spoke into the microphone. That tends to assist amplification in these circumstances.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
T2. The importance of students’ electoral registration was recognised by the Cabinet Office in allocating welcome if belated funds to the National Union of Students to get people on the register in the run-up to the general election. Will the Minister commit to providing similar funds to boost student electoral registration at the start of the new academic year to ensure that they are represented properly on the register on which the parliamentary boundary review will be based?
Mr Letwin
The hon. Gentleman raises a serious question about student registration. As he will know, we now have a system of individual registration, which people can do in about three minutes on an iPhone. We are going to make that even easier, and we will work with the NUS and others to try to encourage students to do exactly as he suggests.
Maggie Throup (Erewash) (Con)
T7. With the help of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), on St George’s day this year I launched a petition calling for English votes for English laws. I am therefore delighted to see a firm commitment by the Government to right this historic inequality once and for all. Will my right hon. Friend update the House on when we can expect the Government to introduce that important constitutional change?
Matthew Hancock
I welcome my hon. Friend to her place. As she says, we are absolutely going to right this wrong, and there will be further details shortly.
Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)
T3. A report published today by Children’s Rights Alliance for England points to a dismal failure by the Government when considering the best interests of children and young people in their decision making. Bearing that in mind, does the Minister agree that giving 16 and 17-year-olds the right to vote in the EU referendum would be a first, positive step towards greater inclusion of young people in the democratic process?
Matthew Hancock
We have improved the life chances of millions of children by introducing 2 million apprenticeships in the previous Parliament, by having 2 million more jobs and by turning our country around. The consideration of whether voting should start at 16 or 18 is a balanced one. We think 18 is the right age, but, frankly, the best thing we can do for the future of the children of this country is improve and strengthen our economy.
Mr Richard Bacon (South Norfolk) (Con)
Will the Minister for the Cabinet Office undertake to visit the Major Projects Leadership Academy in Oxford and see the excellent work being done to develop senior civil servants?
Matthew Hancock
Not only will I undertake to visit the academy—I have heard very good stories about it—but I understand that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has visited it, and he has just told me that I had better go too, so I will get there pretty shortly.
Angela Crawley (Lanark and Hamilton East) (SNP)
Q1. If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 1 July 2015
The Prime Minister (Mr David Cameron)
I am sure the whole House will wish to join me in congratulating the England women’s football team on reaching the semi-finals of the world cup in Canada and wishing them well for their match against Japan this evening.
This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others and, in addition to my duties in this House, I shall have further such meetings later today.
Angela Crawley
The Prime Minister’s plans for English votes for English laws will reduce my rights and the rights of other Scottish MPs in this House—[Interruption.]
Angela Crawley
The Prime Minister’s plans for English votes for English laws will reduce my rights and the rights of other Scottish MPs in the House of Commons, but the real issue is my ability to protect the interests of my constituents. Will the Prime Minister guarantee today that, under his plans, a Bill that has a direct or indirect effect on Scotland’s budget will not be certifiable as England-only?
The Prime Minister
First, let me welcome the hon. Lady to her place. We will publish our proposals shortly and Parliament will have plenty of time to consider and vote on them, but let me be very clear: we are not creating a system of two tiers for MPs. All MPs will still vote on all Bills, but what we are saying is that laws which apply only in England should pass only if they are supported by a majority of English MPs. That seems to me—in a devolved system where Members of the Scottish Parliament can determine their own future on health, housing and an increasing number of subjects—to provide fairness across our United Kingdom.
Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)
Q15. Yesterday the National Audit Office called for the introduction of a fairer schools funding formula so that it is “related more closely to their”—that is, pupils’—“needs and less affected by where they live.” Can the Prime Minister confirm from the Dispatch Box that the additional and very welcome £390 million awarded last year as a first step towards a fairer funding system will be incorporated into the baseline for future years?
The Prime Minister
I can say that we will implement the pledges in our manifesto on this issue because we need to make funding fairer across the country. If we look at the figures today, it is clearly unfair that a school in one part of the country can receive over 50% more funding than an identical school in another part of the country. We have already made some progress on this, but I want us to go further.
Ms Harriet Harman (Camberwell and Peckham) (Lab)
I join the Prime Minister in his congratulations to England’s women’s football team. With only a fraction of the resources that the men get, they are showing the men how it is done.
Sadly, we now know that 22 British citizens have been confirmed dead in the Tunisia attack. Our thoughts are with the bereaved and injured, and the help they and their families will need. The bereaved and those who have experienced life-changing injuries and trauma will need long-term practical and emotional support. The experience after 7/7 was that to really help those affected families, there needs to be co-ordination across Departments and agencies, so will the Prime Minister establish a dedicated taskforce reporting to a Minister to support those who have suffered in that terrible attack?
The Prime Minister
Yes, I can give the right hon. and learned Lady that assurance. Let me update the House, because I am sad to say that the confirmed number of British citizens killed in this appalling attack is now 27 and, as we have said, we expect it to rise still further. Today we are repatriating eight bodies from Tunisia on an RAF C-17 plane. The plane is now in the air and will land at RAF Brize Norton this afternoon. Every family of a victim now has a dedicated Foreign Office liaison officer, but—I can confirm what she asked—I have asked the Cabinet Secretary for advice on creating a ministerial committee to ensure that work is properly co-ordinated right across Government to provide all the support that the victims of this appalling attack deserve and to ensure that, as a nation, we mark and commemorate this event appropriately.
Ms Harman
That is a really important step that the Prime Minister has taken. We fully support it and thank those who will be working in that respect. Reports over the past few days have suggested that it was not just a lone gunman who perpetrated the attack, but an organised cell. Following the Home Secretary’s visit to Tunisia and the deployment of 50 police officers, will he update the House on the progress being made to help identify the perpetrators and bring them to justice?
The Prime Minister
On that specific issue, there is still a lot of work to be done to identify all the circumstances of this appalling attack and the support that the gunman received. As we get that information and confirm it, I will ensure that the House is regularly updated. I can confirm that the discussions between my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and the Tunisians went ahead and were successful. As I have said previously, that is looking at everything, from the protective security in hotels and resorts to intelligence co-operation at the highest levels between Britain and Tunisia, so that we can help with its capacity to combat such appalling events. It will need a lot of long-term work between our two countries, but the French, the Germans and the Americans are also willing to help, and we need to co-ordinate between ourselves how best to support that country on its road to democracy.
Ms Harman
The Prime Minister has rightly said that this was an attack on our values and everything we stand for, and there is radicalisation in this country, too. Last November the Intelligence and Security Committee said that the Prevent programme had not been given sufficient priority and that counter-radicalisation programmes are not working. Today a new statutory duty to challenge radicalisation comes into effect. Will there be sufficient training and support for those covered by the duty, and will he look again at the concern that the Prevent programme has not focused sufficiently on engaging with the communities?
The Prime Minister
The right hon. and learned Lady raises very important issues. Let me answer them as directly as I can. First, we have now put more money and resources into the Prevent programme. Secondly, on her point about the statutory duty on public sector bodies, I think that is very important, because we are saying to schools, universities, local authorities and others that they have a duty to deal with radicalisation and to confront extremism, because this effort is not just for the police and security services, or indeed just for the Government; it is an effort for us all. On her specific question, which goes back to whether it was right to split the Prevent work into work that is done to deal with extremism under the aegis of the Home Office and the programmes to encourage integration, which should be done by the Department for Communities and Local Government, I maintain that that was the right decision. It followed a review in 2011 by Alex Carlile, who found that
“there have been cases where groups whom we would now consider to support an extremist ideology have received funding.”
As we discussing in the House on Monday, it is very important that that does not happen. Yes we should work with community groups, but not those that encourage an extremist narrative.
Ms Harman
It is important that the Prime Minister does not just defend the decisions he has made, but continues to reflect on this and really tries to make absolutely sure that he gets it right. If he does that and gets the right outcomes, we will strongly support him on that.
Let me turn to another issue. With all-party support, the Prime Minister commissioned the Davies report to look at the question of airport capacity. Now that the commission has recommended a third runway at Heathrow, does he agree with us that, subject to key environmental tests being met, there should be no further delay and that it should go ahead? Will he now take that forward?
The Prime Minister
First, let us all thank Howard Davies and the team for the very thorough piece of work they have done. I think that there is a lot of common ground across almost all parts of the House that there is the need for additional airport capacity in the south-east of England, not least to maintain this country’s competitiveness, but it is important that we now study this very detailed report. I am very clear about the legal position; if we say anything now before studying the report, we could actually endanger whatever decision is made. The guarantee that I can give the right hon. and learned Lady is that a decision will be made by the end of the year.
Ms Harman
The Prime Minister says there is common ground, and there is common ground across the House; the worry is the lack of common ground on his side of the House. He gives the impression that there is going to be a proper process, but something very is different coming out of No. 10, because it is briefing that it is not going to happen. It looks like the Prime Minister has been overruled by the hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson); he should tell him that he is not the leader of the Tory party yet. Will the Prime Minister stand up for Britain’s interests or will he just be bullied by Boris?
The Prime Minister
I would have thought that with all her years of experience, the right hon. and learned Lady would know not to believe everything that she reads in her morning newspapers. It would probably be good for her blood pressure, as well as for mine, if she did not. Let me give the mildest warnings about jumping to a conclusion before seeing the results, because we had a classic example of that last week when the shadow Health Secretary warned the Government that the poverty figures would make us all hang our heads in shame. That was of course before the poverty figures were published, showing that relative poverty was at its lowest level since the 1980s.
Ms Harman
The Prime Minister seems to be keen to get off the issue of airports. It seems like he is in a holding pattern above Heathrow and Boris will not let him land. Our economic infrastructure is essential for future jobs, for growth, and for our productivity, but this week the Government have pulled the plug on electrification of the railways and seriously undermined the renewable energy sector, and now they are backing off over airports and risking losing the opportunity for Britain to be at the heart of the global economy. If the Prime Minister makes a swift decision on the Davies report, we will support him and there will be a majority in the House, so will he put Britain’s national interest first?
The Prime Minister
It is an interesting day when the leader of the Conservative party wants to talk about child poverty and the Leader of the Opposition wants to talk about an airport report that none of us has yet had time to read. I seem to remember that the last leader of the Labour party—although we have been churning through a few recently—had a totally different position on airports to the one that the right hon. and learned Lady is now putting forward. What I can say to her is that we will all read this report and a decision will be made by the end of the year.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
My constituents in rural North Dorset look increasingly to superfast broadband to help in education, agriculture and business. Will the Prime Minister commit the Government to do all that they can, with sufficient energy and resources, to ensure that the 5% black hole is filled as quickly as possible?
The Prime Minister
First, let me welcome my hon. Friend to his place. Before coming here, he was a very successful district councillor in an area I am familiar with, where he helped to achieve the second lowest council tax in the country. I am sure that he will bring that sense of good housekeeping to this place. He is absolutely right to raise the issue of superfast broadband and how we fill in the last 5% to 10% of homes, particularly in rural areas. We are providing extra funding and we are looking at all the different sorts of technology that can help to deliver this.
Angus Robertson (Moray) (SNP)
I associate myself and the Scottish National party with all the tributes and condolences to the families and friends of everybody caught up in the tragedy in Tunisia.
Because of the way the United Kingdom is structured, decisions on health, education and much English legislation have an impact on the Scottish budget. Will the Prime Minister confirm that he plans to exclude Scottish MPs from parts of the democratic process at Westminster that will have an impact on Scotland?
The Prime Minister
The point I would make to the hon. Gentleman is that English MPs are entirely excluded from any discussion of Scottish health, Scottish housing or Scottish education. What we are proposing is actually a very measured and sensible step which says that when there is a Bill that only affects, for instance, England, the Committee stage should be composed of English MPs, but then the whole House will vote on Report and, indeed, on Third Reading. What this will introduce, as it were, is a system for making sure that the wishes of English MPs cannot be overruled. That, I think, is only fair in a system where the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Parliament and, indeed, the Northern Irish Parliament have increased powers.
Angus Robertson
On overruling MPs, it is very interesting that 58 of 59 Scottish MPs have voted for the Scottish Bill to be strengthened, but they have been outvoted by English MPs. Not content with outvoting Scottish MPs elected on a mandate to strengthen the Scotland Bill, the Prime Minister is now going to introduce second-class status for MPs elected from Scotland on issues that can have an impact on the Scottish budget. He is even planning to make the membership of the Scottish Affairs Committee a minority pursuit for Scottish MPs. Is that what the Prime Minister means when he says he has a respect agenda?
The Prime Minister
I shall tell the hon. Gentleman what I mean by a respect agenda: every single thing Lord Smith represented in terms of welfare has gone into the Bill. Is it not interesting that the hon. Gentleman objects to a vote in the UK Parliament on a UK issue, which is what has happened? Let me tell him again: instead of endlessly talking about the process, is it not time that the SNP started to talk about how they are going to use these powers? Why do they not tell us? Which welfare benefits do they want to put up? Which taxes do they want to increase? Why do they not start to tell us? I have been following the debate very closely and have noticed that none of Scotland’s 59 MPs is arguing that the state pension should be devolved. In other words, the principle of pooling and sharing our resources and risks across the United Kingdom, which I believe in as leader of the United Kingdom, is apparently shared by the Scottish National party.
Mrs Anne-Marie Trevelyan (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (Con)
My constituent Paul Short from Wooler showed great courage during the Tunisian massacre last week by helping to save the life of an injured victim with first aid skills he had learned as a member of the Territorial Army. Will the Prime Minister set out how the new measures in the extremism Bill will tackle extremists and stand up for our values of democracy, equality, free speech and respect for minorities?
The Prime Minister
First of all, let me take this opportunity to praise my hon. Friend’s constituent and the skills that were used on that dreadful day in Tunisia. The Bill will reinforce the work we have already done to increase funding for counter-terrorism and counter-terrorism policing; make sure there is a duty on public authorities to combat radicalisation; and go after the fact that there are groups and individuals who are very clever at endorsing extremism but then stopping one step short of actually condoning terrorism. That is what the new banning orders we are looking at aim to achieve, because we are clear that people who support the extremist narrative have no place in our public debate.
Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)
Q2. Given regional wage profiles, many families in the north of Ireland will identify with the concerns raised today by the four children’s commissioners about tax credits. Further to heeding those wider warnings, will the Prime Minister have the Chancellor take particular care to ensure that no supposedly more targeted changes to child benefit or tax credits will end up being misdirected against natural, everyday, cross-border working families in my constituency and its hinterland?
The Prime Minister
When we talk about cross-border working families, it is still the case that welfare arrangements in the United Kingdom are far more generous than what is available in the Republic of Ireland. Our view is clear: the right answer is to create jobs, cut taxes, raise living standards and reduce welfare. I want an economy that has high pay, low taxes and low welfare, instead of low pay, high taxes and high welfare.
Let me share with the House one important statistic. Under the last Labour Government—[Interruption.] I know that Labour Members do not want to talk about the last Labour Government. [Interruption.] Well, under the last Government, inequality and child poverty fell. Now for the history lesson: let us go back to the last Labour Government. Under Labour, the number of working-age people in in-work poverty rose by about 20%. That was at the same time as welfare spending on people in work went up from £6 billion to £28 billion. What that shows is that the Labour model of taking money off people in tax and recycling it back to them in tax credits has not worked. It is time for a new approach of creating jobs, cutting taxes and having businesses that are creating the livelihoods we need.
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)
Q3. Having led a campaign and authored a letter signed by over 120 Members of Parliament from across the House to the Prime Minister and to the BBC against calling the so-called Islamic State “ISIL” or “ISIS”, I thank the Prime Minister for not calling it “Islamic State”, but an issue remains with calling it “ISIL”. Will the Prime Minister lead the way by officially calling it “Daesh”, as do France, Turkey and other countries in the middle east, which is acceptable to Muslims in this country and around the world?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend, who has spoken about this a lot, makes a very strong point. The argument I would make is that “Islamic State” is inappropriate, because it is neither Islamic in the true meaning of the word nor, indeed, is it a state; it is a bunch of terrorist thugs. I am happy for people to use “Daesh”. I think ISIL is an alternative because it does not confer such authority. I am pleased that the BBC seems to have moved its position, because until yesterday it was calling it “Islamic State”. It looks like it is going to change its approach, and I really welcome that.
Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)
Given the vital importance of Parliament and Members from both sides of the House and from all parts of the United Kingdom being able to hold the Government of the day to account properly and effectively, will the Prime Minister confirm whether he intends to try to reduce the size of the next House of Commons to 600 Members?
The Prime Minister
I am committed to what is in the Conservative manifesto, which is to complete the work that should have been done in the last Parliament so that we have equal-sized constituencies in a smaller House of Commons and cut the cost of politics.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
Q4. Owing to ongoing issues with the Post Office’s Horizon software accounting system, I believe that many honest, decent, hard-working sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses have lost their reputations, their livelihoods, their savings and, in the worst cases, their liberty. This is a national disgrace. Will my right hon. Friend consider the requests from Members across the House for a judicial inquiry into this matter and bring it to a conclusion?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend has done a real service in campaigning tirelessly on this issue, and I know that he has led a debate in the House on it as well. The Post Office’s answer is to say that it set up an independent inquiry which has not found evidence of wrongdoing, but, clearly, that has not satisfied many Members on both sides of the House who have seen individual constituency cases and want better answers.
What I think needs to happen next is for the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman), to convene a meeting involving Members of the House, the Post Office and representatives of sub-postmasters to discuss their concerns and see what should happen next. I would hope that it would not be necessary to have a full independent judicial inquiry to get to the bottom of this issue, but get to the bottom of it we must.
Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North) (Lab)
Q5. If he will hold discussions with his Cabinet colleagues to review the effect on voters’ perceptions of Parliament of Prime Minister’s Question Time.
The Prime Minister
I regularly reflect on Prime Minister’s questions with Cabinet colleagues and others. For all its faults, and there are many, I would say that it has two important points: it puts the Prime Minister on the spot to the public, but it also puts the Government on the spot to the Prime Minister—needing to know issues right across every Department before coming to the House at 12 o’clock on a Wednesday is an important mechanism of accountability.
Mr Allen
Given that Parliament may be moving out of this place in 2020, will the Prime Minister take that opportunity to share the joys of Prime Minister’s questions, which he has just outlined, and this federal Parliament by convening it in each of the nations of the United Kingdom and thereby symbolise his Government’s and this Parliament’s commitment both to the Union and to devolution?
The Prime Minister
As I said in an earlier answer, I am committed to trying to cut the cost of politics, and I am not sure that that would help. It is important that we take our politics and issues to all the different regions of the country, and that is something the Government are very committed to do, not least with our regional economic plans for every region of our country. As for the future of this House of Commons and where we stand and where we debate, that is a matter for the House of Commons, but I have to say that I have a slight emotional attachment to this place—the place at this Dispatch Box specifically.
Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Con)
The brass fittings on that Dispatch Box are worn paper thin by the sweat from the palms of Prime Ministers and Ministers down the ages. That is a visual example of parliamentary accountability. Although our constituents rightly feel that, at times, this session is a little absurd, does my right hon. Friend agree that it would be a great pity if senior members of the Executive were not held to account in that way?
The Prime Minister
I agree with my hon. Friend. I remember taking some constituents on a tour when I first became a Member of Parliament and hearing for the first time something I had not known—namely, that after this Chamber was bombed some of Winston Churchill’s most important speeches and parliamentary occasions took place in the other place rather than here. I do not want to start a complete fight between both Houses, so I think I will leave it at that.
Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)
Q6. The Prime Minister has been asked repeatedly about his plans to exclude Scottish MPs from decisions that will directly and indirectly impact on Scotland’s budget and my constituents in Airdrie and Shotts. Will he finally tell the House and the people of Scotland whether it is right to create a second-class status for Scottish MPs through the back door, or is he content to press ahead with plans that will bring about the break-up of Britain?
The Prime Minister
I am quite baffled. I thought the whole point of the SNP is that SNP Members want to exclude themselves from the UK Parliament forever. I thought that was the whole point. What we are putting in place is a fair and balanced system that is fair to all parts of our United Kingdom. Long may it stay together.
Edward Argar (Charnwood) (Con)
Q7. Over the past five years, increasing numbers of people in the east midlands and the UK have decided to take the courageous and important step to set up their own businesses and become self-employed. What steps will the Prime Minister and the Government take in future further to support those entrepreneurs in my constituency and beyond who represent and personify aspiration and hard work?
The Prime Minister
Let me welcome my hon. Friend to his place. I agree with him that people taking that step to become self-employed and start their own business has been a very big part of the jobs and enterprise revolution in our country over the past five years. Things such as start-up loans have made a real difference, which is why we are increasing them in this Parliament, but when we look at helping self-employed people, it is important to look at all the aspects of being self-employed—how people interact with pensions, benefits, maternity leave, public authorities and social housing rules. That is why I am asking Julie Deane, the founder of the fantastic Cambridge Satchel Company and a model for how self-employed people can achieve great things, to lead a review for the Government. Let us look at all the ways in which we can help self-employed people to get going.
Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)
Q8. Given the Prime Minister’s commitment to localism, will he stand by and respect the decision made by Lancashire County Council this week to reject fracking, yes or no?
The Prime Minister
Those decisions must be made by local authorities in the proper way, under the planning regime we have. Personally, I hope that, over time, unconventional gas sites will go ahead, whether in Lancashire or elsewhere, because I want our country to exploit all the natural resources we have. I want us to keep energy bills down and I want us to be part of that revolution, which can create thousands of jobs. I also want to ensure that we can exploit our own gas reserves rather than ship gas from the other side of the world, which has a higher carbon footprint. We should do that, but if the Labour party wants to paint itself into a background of not wanting any unconventional gas at all, it should say so.
Alok Sharma (Reading West) (Con)
Q9. Labour-controlled Reading Borough Council recently received a damning report from Ofsted for not doing enough to help struggling schools under its control. Will the Prime Minister tell us what the Government intend to do to ensure that systemically failing local education authorities such as Reading do not continue to ruin the life chances of our young people?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise that. Frankly, one extra term in a failing school is too long for our children. In the past, Governments and LEAs have been too tolerant in allowing schools to continue to fail year after year, so this Government have set a very testing regime for failing schools and for those that are inadequate. As my right hon. Friend the Education Secretary set out this week, we will do similar things to schools that we would define as coasting and that could be doing better. We can now see the model of academy chains taking over a failing school, changing some of the leadership and putting in place the things that are necessary. We can see radical increases in the results, which is what we want. We will today talk about how we tackle poverty in the long term. Tackling sink schools and educational underachievement is vital to the life chances of our children.
Chris Law (Dundee West) (SNP)
Q10. After four opportunities, the Prime Minister still has not answered the question regarding the impact of English votes for English laws. May I strongly urge him to finally reassure the people of my constituency that their elected MP will not be given minority status in matters affecting the Scottish budget and, consequently, the lives of the citizens of Dundee? Moreover, last night 58 out of 59 Scottish MPs—
The Prime Minister
The hon. Gentleman has had a very clear answer. It may be that the Scottish National party does not like the answer, but the proposals we discussed at great length in the last Parliament for solving this issue will now be introduced. The absolutely key point is that if, in some future Parliament, there is disagreement between English MPs who want one thing and the House of Commons as a whole which wants another, there would have to be a way of resolving the deadlock. This is effectively a block for English MPs. It is not the ability to legislate willy-nilly. He would know that if he read the manifesto.
Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)
Does the Prime Minister feel comfortable with the fact that the Conservative Government have implemented a spending target for foreign aid, but will not commit to a target of a minimum of 2% of GDP for defence? Does he realise that this is damaging the relationship with our key strategic ally, the United States, and risking our credibility with our NATO allies?
The Prime Minister
What I would say to my hon. Friend, who I know cares deeply about this issue and has in his constituency some of the most important defence manufacturers in our country, is that we have in every year met that 2% target. Many countries in the European Union do not even meet 1% for defence investment. The commitment we have made already is to invest £160 billion across 10 years into our equipment programme, with real-terms increases every year. That is why we can say the aircraft carriers, the C-17s and the new aeroplanes will all be coming forward. We will obviously make final spending decisions in the spending review this autumn.
Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)
Q11. For a man who seemingly is never away from Europe, why is it that he has never taken the opportunity, when he has been there, to put in a claim for state aid to save British miners’ jobs? He is the man who, during the election campaign, masqueraded as the workers’ champion but he has not got the guts to help those miners. He took £700 million out of the mineworkers’ pension scheme and he has not given a penny back. No wonder they call him “dodgy Dave”. The man that went to Eton: educated beyond his intelligence. [Interruption.]
The Prime Minister
It is very good to see the Labour party in full voice cheering on Jurassic Park. I would stick to the movie.
There is a serious point here. The Government have offered £20 million to the owners of Hatfield colliery to keep it going. We have been prepared to put forward money. Unlike the previous Government, we have been prepared to make ministerial directions, because we have some courage when it comes to these things.
Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)
There is a very strong sense that the Airports Commission began life three years or so ago with a conclusion and then spent £20 million backing up that conclusion. The Prime Minister is going to have to make a decision on the back of those recommendations shortly, but what assurances can he give the million or so Londoners who stand to be affected by Heathrow expansion that he will engage with the real arguments in a way that Sir Howard Davies has not?
The Prime Minister
Let me pay tribute to my hon. Friend for how strongly he campaigns on this issue. I know how strongly he cares about it and how strongly his constituents feel about it. The promise I can give him is that this very thorough report, which landed on my desk yesterday afternoon, will be studied properly. This really does matter. If you make some precipitate decision or rule out one particular option, you will actually make the decision you would like to make impossible to achieve because of judicial review. We may not like that in this House, but those are the facts and those are the ones we need to operate on.
Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab)
Q12. Thank you, Mr Speaker. The Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Mental Health Trust, which serves my constituency, is refusing to publish the so-called Alexander report on its operation. The report, which I have seen, raises serious questions about patient safety and care owing to cuts to services. Does the Prime Minister agree with me that the duty of candour should apply to NHS management as it does to NHS front-line staff? If so, will he join me in the call for the report’s publication?
The Prime Minister
First, let me welcome the hon. Gentleman to the House. I make no apology for the Care Quality Commission’s rigorous inspection regime, which is identifying areas that need improvement. I would argue that the two things we need here are to uncover bad practice and turn it round, and then to back it up with the resources the NHS needs, including those recommended by the Stevens plan. As things stand, only this party is backing the extra £8 billion into the NHS—and not the Labour party.
Mr Speaker
Points of order come after statements, and we have a couple of statements, so I am saving the hon. Gentleman up for later.
Davies Commission Report
(8 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Patrick McLoughlin)
With permission, I would like to make a statement about the Airports Commission’s final report, published earlier today. I received a copy yesterday evening, and I have had copies put in the Library of the House and the Vote Office. First, I will review the commission’s process to date; secondly, I will describe the next steps.
In September 2012, the Government appointed Sir Howard Davies to lead a Commission to consider how the UK could maintain its status as an international aviation hub and, in particular, provide capacity in the south-east. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Sir Howard for his leadership. I thank, too, his fellow commissioners—Sir John Armitt, Ricky Burdett, Vivienne Cox and Dame Julia King—for their hard work over a long period. I acknowledge hon. Members from all sides of the House who have campaigned vigorously on behalf of their constituents, and I am sure they will continue to do so.
There are strong opinions on this issue. It is not easy to resolve. For the Government, the task is to balance local interests against the wider, longer-term benefits for the United Kingdom. This report is part of that process. Over 50 different propositions were considered. In December 2013, the commission shortlisted three schemes for further consideration: two at Heathrow, and one at Gatwick. It also made recommendations for improving our existing airport infrastructure, including upgrading transport connections. We are acting on those interim recommendations. We are working with Gatwick airport to upgrade the station there; Network Rail is leading a study to improve the rail link between London and Stansted; and Crossrail will soon provide a new direct route to Heathrow.
The Commission has also sought views from across the country because the UK’s other airports, such as Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, Newcastle, Edinburgh and Glasgow, play a big role in our aviation success story. Connectivity to all parts of the UK is something that the commission has rightly considered.
The UK has the third largest aviation network in the world after the United States and China, but it is congested and a lack of capacity holds our country back. Since 1990, 12 UK airports have lost their direct links to Heathrow. As Sir Howard Davies says in his foreword to the report:
“Good aviation connectivity is vital for the UK economy. It promotes trade and inward investment.”
The report states:
“About half of the British population has travelled by air within the last twelve months.”
It also states:
“While London remains a well-connected city its airports are showing unambiguous signs of strain.”
Meanwhile, hub airports such as Dubai and Istanbul are growing fast.
The commission found that all three shortlisted schemes were credible options for expansion, but that the Heathrow airport north-west runway scheme offered the strongest solution. According to the report,
“Heathrow offers a stronger solution to the UK’s aviation capacity and connectivity needs than a second runway at Gatwick.”
The report recommends action to address the impact of any expansion on the local environment and community. The recommended action includes a limit on night flights, greater compensation, controls on air quality, and a guarantee that there will be no fourth runway.
Let me turn to the Government’s response. There are a number of things that we must do now in order to make progress. First, we must study the substantial and innovative evidence base that the commission has produced. Secondly, we must decide on the best way of achieving planning consents quickly and fairly if expansion is to go ahead. Thirdly, we will come back to Parliament in the autumn to provide a clear direction on the Government’s plans.
This is a vital moment for the future of our aviation industry. Our aviation sector has been at the heart of our economic success and quality of life. All those with an interest in this important question are expecting us to act decisively. This is a clear and reasoned report which is based on evidence, and it deserves respect and consideration, and we must act. I commend my statement to the House.
Michael Dugher (Barnsley East) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State for giving me advance sight of his fairly brief statement, and I join him in thanking Sir Howard Davies and his team for the vital work that they have done since 2012 in producing what is a very important report. I also pay tribute to both Heathrow and Gatwick for the impressive campaigns that they have run.
The report constitutes a substantial piece of evidence-led work. Sir Howard Davies has proceeded in a calm, open and assured manner throughout, and we welcome the fact that he has now produced a clear recommendation. The report states:
“A new Northwest Runway at Heathrow delivers more substantial economic and strategic benefits than any of the other shortlisted options, strengthening connectivity for passengers and freight users and boosting the productivity of the UK economy.”
It also states that the recommendation is
“a fundamentally different proposition from previous proposals to expand at Heathrow.”
Sir Howard Davies added this morning:
“The proposal in place then was a deficient proposal; it did not offer the economic advantages of this proposal.”
As the Secretary of State has said, aviation plays a massive role in our economy, and has the potential to play an even greater role in the future. The sector employs hundreds of thousands of people, contributes more than £50 billion to our GDP, and pays the Exchequer more than £8 billion in tax every year. However, as we know, the ongoing growth of our aviation sector is now at risk. Heathrow has been full for 10 years, and Gatwick is set to reach capacity within the next five.
A decision on aviation expansion should have been made many years ago. That was a failure on the part of all previous Governments, but failing to act this time is not an option. Just a few weeks ago, a report by the Independent Transport Commission revealed that if a decision was put off yet again, we would face a significant loss in productivity and inward investment, with the UK economy potentially losing up to £214 billion over the next 60 years. The evidence is clear: more airport capacity is vital to our economic success, and we need action if we are to maintain our status as Europe’s most important aviation hub.
As I have said, the report is a significant and substantial piece of work, and, like the Government, we will take an appropriate period of time to analyse and scrutinise its findings carefully; but will the Secretary of State assure me that, if the report and Heathrow can demonstrate that the main recommendation meets a number of key tests, the Government will make a swift decision to proceed? Those tests include, first, that there is robust and convincing evidence that the increased aviation capacity that is required will be delivered by Sir Howard’s recommendation; secondly, that the recommended expansion in capacity can go hand in hand with efforts to reduce CO2 emissions from aviation and allow us to meet our legal climate change obligations, which is absolutely crucial; thirdly, that local noise and environmental impacts have been adequately considered and will be managed and minimised; and fourthly, that the benefits of expansion will be felt in every corner of the country, including any infrastructure, employment and supply-chain benefits, and that regional airports will be supported, too.
The public and businesses across the UK have been clear that they do not want any further dither or delay. Can the Secretary of State reassure the House that, no matter how tempted the Government might be, he will not kick this into the long grass? The short-term interests of the Conservative party must not take priority over what is in the best long-term interests of the country.
This is the biggest decision for UK plc this decade. The message from the Labour Benches is clear: we will study the report carefully and, if our key tests are met, we will back the report and a decision that is in the long-term interests of the country. I know there are profoundly difficult issues within the Conservative party on this issue. The Secretary of State has my deepest sympathies, as always, but there is a majority in the House of Commons willing to do the right thing by the country. The Government will have our support, but they must make the right decision—and they must make it quickly.
Mr McLoughlin
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his response. It was calmer than the response I usually get from him on transport issues.
Mr McLoughlin
I do not think I will have to wait that long.
The hon. Gentleman says that there are difficulties on the Conservative Benches, with colleagues having strong views, but I beg that he looks just behind him, because certain of his colleagues oppose an expansion of airports, not least one of the leading contenders for the nomination of Labour candidate for London Mayor, the right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan), who said this morning:
“This is a bad decision. All Londoners should know if I’m elected mayor I will do everything in my power to stop this health and environmental catastrophe blighting London.”
Rather than trying to make it seem as though there is opposition just on the Conservative Benches, the hon. Gentleman and other Members should recognise the very big concerns that a number of people have and will have on any expansion of major infrastructure. That is something that I have been always careful to do as Secretary of State for Transport, whether in dealing with this subject or other subjects that cause local people a lot of inconvenience. Sometimes a scheme is basically unacceptable to them. I assure him that we will study the Davies report in great detail. It is a very good, well researched report. I will come back and inform the House further later this year.
Sir Simon Burns (Chelmsford) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend confirm, so that there can be no misunderstanding, that although this is a report to the Government, they are not necessarily bound by its recommendations?
Mr McLoughlin
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his question. As I said earlier, Sir Howard has come forward with the report. We have to consider all the implications of that. It is up to the promoters of these schemes to speak to the local residents who are most directly affected to see whether they can achieve consensus on what they want and what they will accept.
Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)
I thank the Secretary of State for the early sight of the Airports Commission report and confirm that there are no problems on the Scottish National party Benches with this. I thank Sir Howard and his team for their work.
The report, while continuing to keep Gatwick as a “viable option”, provides a clear direction. All those involved would expect clarity from the Secretary of State on his position as soon as possible. People should not have to wait until the autumn for the Government’s view. Indeed, the Prime Minister suggested today that the wait could be even longer. There is a huge amount at stake for everyone who may be affected.
For too long, in common with other parts of the UK, Scotland has not had its needs addressed in relation to the provision of fair pricing, sustainable landing slots and the power to reduce or remove air passenger duty. We hope the decisions taken will finally provide a fairer deal for Scotland’s people and one that will provide a significant boost to our economy.
In line with the report’s recommendations, will the Secretary of State confirm that there will be substantially more support on connectivity for long-haul to and from Scotland? Further, will he confirm that such connections will be put on a statutory basis? Will he also guarantee that internal route connections to Scotland will be given permanence through public service orders, to remove the “Here today, gone tomorrow” service so often suffered by the Scottish public?
Mr McLoughlin
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his points. I take it that there is no division whatever in the SNP on Sir Howard’s proposals, although I may wait a little and see how the debate develops. The hon. Gentleman is right about regional connectivity and the slots needed by Scottish airports and other airports that have lost them, and I hope we can address that. I want to reflect on that point while considering the whole report.
Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)
It is disappointing to hear the Opposition dismiss the concerns as being about the internal problems of a political party. Heathrow is already the biggest noise polluter in Europe, and increasing that by 50% will only make the problem worse.
The Airports Commission raises air quality as an issue. My view is that there is not a single air quality expert or organisation anywhere in this country or Europe, or indeed the world, who believes we can reconcile Heathrow expansion with any air quality targets. If that is the case, I presume that the Government’s decision is very, very easy?
Mr McLoughlin
I am not entirely sure that I agree with my hon. Friend that the decision is very easy, but he has been very open in the points he makes, the way in which he has campaigned and his own position on Heathrow expansion. He will be able to make those representations in the same way that other Members may make other representations.
Mrs Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op)
I welcome the Davies commission’s recommendation for Heathrow, which follows the findings of the Select Committee on Transport in its detailed report published two years ago. Does the Secretary of State agree that now is the time for a swift decision, with the key national decision to be based on the importance of connectivity both to international markets and the regions of the UK?
Mr McLoughlin
I have outlined the way in which the Government will come to their decision. On such a big issue, coming back to the House by the autumn constitutes a swift decision .
Mr Kenneth Clarke (Rushcliffe) (Con)
I accept that my right hon. Friend’s duty, both in law and following good governance, is to study the report carefully and to consider respectfully every one of the representations that will come from every quarter, particularly from those who represent home counties constituencies. Does he agree, however, that the Government were elected to deliver a modern, competitive economy for future generations, and that in the end decisions on major infrastructure projects—fracking or whatever else—should be taken on a clear judgment of the national interest of the country as a whole? As he is a fellow representative of what the Minister for Small Business, Industry and Enterprise, my right hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), calls the midlands machine, I hope he will confirm that that will be his guiding principle in reaching his conclusion.
Mr McLoughlin
In all my time in the House of Commons, I have always found it much easier to agree with my right hon. and learned Friend on such issues. He makes a number of points that we must bear in mind, and it is in a way a pity that progress has not been made on some of these subjects sooner.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
The Secretary of State started his statement by outlining the history, beginning with the Davies commission. There was a stage before that, however, when the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr Cameron)—now the Prime Minister—said to my constituents, “No ifs, no buts, there will be no third runway.” Now, 10,000 of them are at risk of losing their homes, their local community centres, their schools and their places of worship. Today the air pollution levels were double the EU legal limits. If the runway goes ahead, the noise will extend to 1.5 million people. Does the Secretary of State think the onus is now on the Prime Minister to come to my constituency and meet my constituents whose homes and whole community are now at risk?
Mr McLoughlin
What the Prime Minister was talking about initially was a proposal put forward by his own party, which was basically not a proper proposal and would not have answered the capacity question. The Prime Minister certainly ruled out that option, and set up the commission so that we could make a reasoned and proper judgment, which is exactly what we will do.
Sir Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that Sir Howard Davies has produced a serious and extremely important piece of work and that he deserves the credit of the whole House? Does he also agree that what Sir Howard has done is go overseas to check best practice and make sure his proposal is fortified by such calculations? Does my right hon. Friend further agree that what matters is that this decision is taken solely in the national interest, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) said?
Mr McLoughlin
Indeed, and the commission points out that all three of the options are well worth considering.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
A new runway at Heathrow would blight the lives of thousands as well as increasing climate emissions, yet new research shows that a small number of very wealthy people flying very regularly—not families taking an annual holiday—is driving demand. Will the Secretary of State agree to look seriously at a new proposal for a frequent flyer levy as a way of tackling the health and environmental impacts of growing aviation?
Mr McLoughlin
In fact, Sir Howard suggests in his report that there should be an extra levy particularly to compensate people who are affected by noise, so those who fly more frequently would pay more towards that levy. It is also worth pointing out to the hon. Lady that, as I said in my statement, half the population used a plane last year.
Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con)
Any courageous and difficult decision that the Government make will take time to implement. My right hon. Friend has already indicated that the UK is losing business to overseas airports. Does he agree that it is desirable and possible for airports such as Manston in Kent to be used immediately to relieve the pressure on Heathrow and other airports while the long-term decisions are being taken?
Mr McLoughlin
I did not think that my hon. Friend would miss out on the opportunity to mention Manston airport. The commission looked at more than 50 proposals in coming to its recommendations, and it is those recommendations that the Government are now considering.
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)
The Secretary of State referred in his statement to surface transport improvements to our airports, but did not refer to western rail access to Heathrow. Is he still committed to that, and does he agree with the Davies commission, which says:
“Further delay will be increasingly costly and will be seen, nationally and internationally, as a sign that the UK is unwilling or unable to take the steps needed to maintain its position as a well-connected open trading economy in the twenty first century”?
Mr McLoughlin
I think the right hon. Lady has managed to read the first part of the report, but it goes into a lot more detail on some of the proposals—I fully accept that she has not yet had time to consider all of that, and neither have I. I will say, however, that the connectivity and the connections up to Crossrail will make a huge difference to Heathrow, and the western rail access will be one thing that Sir Peter Hendy, in his new role of chairman of Network Rail, will be looking at.
Sir Alan Haselhurst (Saffron Walden) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend pay particular attention to the contradiction at the heart of Sir Howard’s recommendation: that London’s ostensibly hub airport should have a third runway but not a fourth? Does that not add emphasis to the need, as part of the northern powerhouse, for a major airport development there?
Mr McLoughlin
I realise that my right hon. Friend has not had time to read the whole report—as I have said, I have not managed to read it all yet either—but I draw his attention to page 34, where it says:
“If new capacity was found to be necessary and feasible, a wide range of options should be considered. This could include airports previously assessed as part of the Commission process, for example Stansted and Gatwick, and airports outside London and the South East, such as at Birmingham or Manchester.”
I have been very keen to ensure that airports outside London such as Birmingham and Manchester play a full role in the aviation availability for the country.
Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)
When the right hon. Gentleman was appointed, it was taken as a signal that the Government—certainly the Conservative part of the coalition—were having a fresh look at aviation capacity, because his predecessor, who does a great job as International Development Secretary, had campaigned against any capacity increase. Will he assure the House that as Transport Secretary he will act as an advocate for the Davies recommendations within Government?
Mr McLoughlin
Many interpretations were put on why I might have got the job in 2012, so I will leave the hon. Gentleman’s interpretation to his own imagination.
Dr Tania Mathias (Twickenham) (Con)
When the Secretary of State is looking at this report over the summer, will he pay particular attention to pages 289 and 290, and think about my constituents? There is talk of mitigation and compensation, but there is already too much noise pollution and, as has been said, the air pollution this morning is twice what it should be. Will he acknowledge that that there is no alleviation possible for Twickenham residents? Page 290 refers to the issue, but I do not want all our schools having fancy little pods in the playground because the noise pollution is too much for the children.
Mr McLoughlin
I know that my hon. Friend will want to make those points to me. She will want to look at the whole report in detail, although she has done a fairly good job by getting up to page 289 already, and I will want to look carefully at the points she makes. As I say, in part of the recommendations there is talk of a new levy on passengers so that some noise insulation and better noise insulation could be provided, as well as mitigation, particularly for some schools. I know that this issue is a particular problem in her constituency.
Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)
The Transport Secretary will be aware that the commission recommends but the Government decide. The Government will be aware that London’s air quality has been getting worse and worse. A few weeks ago, the Supreme Court ruled that the quality of air in London was unlawful. The impact of noise is felt during the day as well as during the night, making the lives of thousands of people in London a misery. The local infrastructure cannot cope at the moment, let alone in the future. We all want jobs and growth, so will he seriously look at plans to expand Gatwick to create additional capacity and have a high-speed link between Heathrow and Gatwick, so that we could have jobs and growth without causing the misery that the third runway would cause?
Mr McLoughlin
Of course we will be looking at all those things before we come to a final decision, but I believe that when the right hon. Gentleman was a Transport Minister he supported a third runway.
Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)
My right hon. Friend is handling this matter with great wisdom and has rightly praised the excellent report that Sir Howard Davies has completed, with its compelling and well-written argument. My right hon. Friend will be aware that the taxpayer has invested £20 million in this report, which is absolutely critical to our future economic well-being. To govern is to choose, so will he make the right decision as quickly as possible and bring it back to this House as soon as he can?
Mr McLoughlin
I have outlined exactly the scenario that the Government are going to follow, and when I come back to the House I hope that I can count on my right hon. Friend’s support.
Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)
The Secretary of State referred to the role that other UK airports play in our aviation success story, and I am sure he would want to add Belfast City and Belfast International to the list. For us, regional connectivity is key; the air links between London and Belfast are vital to grow our economy. The prospect of 5,000 new jobs in Northern Ireland alone as a result of this proposal is very welcome, but will he look carefully at the issue of guaranteed slots at Heathrow for Northern Ireland, because it is essential for our economy that those slots are maintained and indeed increased?
Mr McLoughlin
That follows on, in a way, from the points made by the Scottish National party earlier about the importance of slots available to airports, not just in Scotland, but in Northern Ireland. When I appeared before the Select Committee on Northern Ireland Affairs in the previous Parliament that was one of the important issues its members wished to raise with me, and obviously we will want to consider it.
Mr Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend look carefully at the Howard Davies proposals? If there is to be expansion at Heathrow, one key issue is that there must be environmental benefits for the surrounding area, which has been adversely affected by the operation of Heathrow for decades. I suspect that my constituents would have mixed views on the expansion of Heathrow, but one key issue for those who live closest to it is the extent to which their quality of life deteriorates because of heavy goods vehicle movements, congested roads, car parks and grubby and ill-controlled activities, which are probably far more deleterious to their standard of living than the noise from the aircraft themselves? [Laughter.]
Mr Speaker
I call the Secretary of State, on grubby and ill-controlled activities.
Mr McLoughlin
That might need to be a private conversation with my right hon. and learned Friend outside the Chamber. However, I well appreciate the point he makes and I would want to see those sorts of issues addressed. As he rightly points out, local residents have had to put up with them for a considerable time.
Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)
This is perhaps the classic conundrum of sustainable development, with the Government and the country caught between an economic rock and an environmental hard place. The Environmental Audit Committee will want to examine it in detail when considering the report. What are the Secretary of State’s initial thoughts on the report’s conclusion in paragraph 9.120 that Gatwick performs “best” on minimising carbon emissions, and on paragraphs 9.92 and 9.93, which make clear
“the Commission’s objective to improve air quality consistent with EU standards and local planning policy requirements”
and that the scheme
“could, without mitigation, exceed the Air Quality Directive limit values and delay compliance with the EU limit value for the Greater London agglomeration”?
I do not envy the Secretary of State’s decision and the country’s decision, but we need to get this right in terms of those stringent warnings.
Mr McLoughlin
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on being elected Chairman of the Environmental Audit Committee; he has probably just shown us why. I am sure that that Committee, along with the Transport Committee and other Committees of the House, will want to look at these issues and cross-question both me and other people on their implications.
Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley) (Con)
My right hon. Friend will not be too surprised to hear that I am fully supportive of Sir Howard’s position, particularly as I recognise the huge economic benefits of Heathrow over the somewhat weak plan for Gatwick. Will my right hon. Friend reflect on his points about speeding up the process? He was one of the Ministers responsible on HS1 and is now watching HS2 creep down the railway tracks. Once he has made his decision, which we hope will be the sensible decision for Heathrow, will he speed up the rest of the procedure, even if we have to remove, with a forklift truck, our friend who is currently Mayor of London?
Mr McLoughlin
I think we are making good progress on HS2, but there have been delays on large infrastructure projects. I would like to see a consensus build on some of these issues, but it is very difficult.
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
My constituents are very divided on this issue, not least because thousands of households depend on Heathrow for employment but are also very affected by noise and by air pollution. One area where there is unity is on the need for the future of Heathrow to be secured. Will the Secretary of State rule out today any future proposal by the hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) that we should close Heathrow and that there should be a Thames estuary island, or any other similar measure?
Mr McLoughlin
Those things were looked at by the commission. It produced its report and recommendations and it is on that report and those recommendations that the Government will take action.
Mr Graham Brady (Altrincham and Sale West) (Con)
I welcome the clear recognition that Britain needs a hub airport at the end of this process. This debate has raged for more than 50 years. I urge my right hon. Friend to ensure that he is the Secretary of State who brings it to a conclusion.
Mr McLoughlin
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his support. I have outlined the way in which we will address what the commission has said, and I look forward to coming back to the House later this year.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
My hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) has already mentioned the 2009 “no ifs, no buts” statement, which I am beginning to think was made with an eye more on marginal seats on the flight path, such as my own, than on anything else. However, what I really want to ask the Minister is this: how many Cabinet resignations does he predict if the Davies recommendations are enacted?
Mr McLoughlin
I expect to be able to have good conversations with all my colleagues right across the House on what is a very important infrastructure project for the United Kingdom.
Jeremy Quin (Horsham) (Con)
As the Secretary of State said in his statement, the commission has taken views from right across the United Kingdom. Sir Howard said this morning that those views, including those from Scotland and Northern Ireland, were firmly and overwhelmingly in favour of Heathrow. I assume that that will be taken into account in his consideration of the report.
Mr McLoughlin
We will be looking at the whole report. As Sir Howard said, the three options to be considered are all viable ones.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
Today, on what promises to be the hottest day of the year, many of my constituents will be enjoying their gardens. Will the Secretary of State confirm, no ifs, no buts, that they will be able to continue to enjoy that amenity in years to come and that their lives will not be blighted by increased noise and reduced air quality as a result of any decisions that he will make later on this year?
Mr McLoughlin
Let me gently chide the right hon. Gentleman. The no ifs, no buts matter was something that he signed up to when the previous Government commissioned Sir Howard to compile this report, because the decision commanded the support of the whole Government at the time. Certainly, we must address the whole issue of noise pollution and other pollution in this report. That is one of the things that Sir Howard Davies has done. It is one of the reasons why the commission was broadly based, and actually had a member of the Committee on Climate Change as one of the commissioners.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
I welcome the publication of the Airports Commission report. It reached the best conclusion, independently arrived at, for both economic growth nationally—for this great trading nation—and this great global city of London. I also welcome my right hon. Friend’s commitment to come to a swift decision this calendar year on the future and final option. May I also seek assurances that the ministerial code will apply in this decision?
Mr McLoughlin
I can definitely confirm that the ministerial code will apply to all Ministers in the way in which we deal with this issue over the next few months.
Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)
In looking at the report over the coming months, will the Secretary of State consider the livelihoods of many in the UK— the 190,000 potential jobs, the 76,000 livelihoods of those currently working at Heathrow and the 10,000 apprenticeships—and not just the livelihoods of the hon. Members for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) and for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith)?
Mr McLoughlin
The right hon. Gentleman had a good question there, but spoiled it at the end. As I have already said, there are other mayoral candidates from the Labour party who have a similar position to that of my hon. Friend, the present Mayor of London. That is an issue that we shall consider and take forward.
Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)
May I add my congratulations on the recommendations in the Davies report and the clear indication that a third runway is required at Heathrow? As a north-west MP, may I seek assurances from the Secretary of State that north-west connectivity will only continue to improve as a result of this decision?
Mr McLoughlin
Those are the issues that we will have to address. I am sure that the Transport Committee will want to review them at some stage as well, and I know that my hon. Friend is about to join that Committee.
Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)
The increase in carbon emissions from any airport expansion will have to be contained within the overall carbon budget set by the Committee on Climate Change. What discussions is the Secretary of State having in Cabinet about offsetting from other areas of his portfolio to ensure that those emissions caps are not breached; and what discussions is he having at European level to ensure that a European emissions cap is put in place, as this country has unsuccessfully argued for previously?
Mr McLoughlin
We regard our obligations under the Climate Change Act 2008 very seriously indeed, and we tried to reflect that when we set up the Airports Commission and made Dame Julia King a member. That is certainly something that the commission has addressed in its work.
Dr Phillip Lee (Bracknell) (Con)
I thank the Secretary of State for his statement. As a long-term public supporter of Heathrow expansion, I have already welcomed the Davies commission findings. Will he consider, as soon as possible, giving the National Air Traffic Services a statutory responsibility to mitigate noise? NATS currently does not have that responsibility, the consequence of which is that holding patterns, approach and take-off from Heathrow are unnecessarily noisy. Will he also consider allowing Heathrow airport to fine airlines if they use old planes that are particularly noisy, and if their pilots are unnecessarily noisy when they fly planes in and out of Heathrow?
Mr McLoughlin
I will certainly consider those points. One recommendation is to have an independent noise commission, which would partly address my hon. Friend’s points. He is right to point out the great advances that have been made by the aircraft manufacturers in reducing noise levels from planes. I know that a lot of work continues to be done in that area.
Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)
Implementing these proposals quickly is clearly in the national interest, and I support the proposals. It has never been in the national interest that such a disproportionate amount of public money has gone into capital expenditure on transport in the south-east of England. Will the Secretary of State reassure the House that the necessary capital works—paid from the public purse—to support a third runway at Heathrow will not disadvantage the north of England and the other regions of this country?
Mr McLoughlin
I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the proposals should be implemented quickly, but they should be implemented quickly and properly and with the proper procedures. The whole process would be slowed down dramatically if we were to be challenged in the courts, and to lose, but he makes a good point about investment in transport infrastructure across the United Kingdom. I am proud of the Government’s record and of our plans for investment right across the country, including the northern powerhouse.
Kelly Tolhurst (Rochester and Strood) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend confirm that now we have these recommendations, the people of my constituency, particularly on the Isle of Grain, can be assured that there will no longer be an airport proposal for the Hoo peninsula and that it is finally off the table?
Mr McLoughlin
I think that I said to my hon. Friend when I was in her constituency a few months ago that that was one of the 50 proposals that was considered by the commission, but it has now been ruled out. What we have today are the three proposals that the commission has endorsed.
Phil Wilson (Sedgefield) (Lab)
The Secretary of State quite rightly mentioned Newcastle airport in his list of regional airports in his statement. As he is probably aware, there is another regional airport in the north-east of England, which is Durham Tees Valley airport. Part of the runway runs through the constituency of the hon. Member for Stockton South (James Wharton), the Minister with responsibility for the northern powerhouse. It is imperative that we have connectivity to Heathrow. We have it with Schiphol, but there are not so many destinations from there as there are from Heathrow. We really need a quick and positive decision on this matter to ensure that the economy in the north-east grows in the future.
Mr McLoughlin
It would have been wrong of me to try to read out every single airport in the country that would want such connectivity, and I apologise to the hon. Gentleman for not mentioning his airport. I have tried not to call these airports regional airports: they are airports that serve their local communities incredibly well.
Mr Ranil Jayawardena (North East Hampshire) (Con)
My right hon. Friend rightly referenced the growth of airports such as Dubai and Istanbul. Does he agree that that demonstrates the challenge we face in maintaining our status as a global aviation hub? Does he further agree that we should make a decision sooner rather than later in the interests of our international competitiveness?
Mr McLoughlin
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I referenced those two airports in my statement, but others are trying to get the advantage that they see the United Kingdom has. We must ensure that they do not get that advantage.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
The Secretary of State and Sir Howard can go on all they like about mitigating the effects of a third runway at Heathrow, but for hundreds of thousands of Londoners it just means more noise, pollution and congestion. What is the Secretary of State’s message for them, and will he answer, as he has not so far, the question about what the Prime Minister meant when he said that a third runway at Heathrow was not going ahead, no ifs, no buts?
Mr McLoughlin
He was talking about the proposal at the time, which the hon. Gentleman supported—
Mr McLoughlin
Perhaps he was not a Member, but his party supported that proposal in government. We asked Sir Howard to consider and address some of these issues, which is what he has done. Some of the changes that he would make as far as the noise and the levy on passengers are concerned are very important. As I say, the report has three options and we are considering all three.
Mark Garnier (Wyre Forest) (Con)
My right hon. Friend the Chancellor the Exchequer has made clear this Government’s commitment to regional economic development through his announcement of the northern powerhouse. Although I note the comments on page 34 of the report about Birmingham and other airports, does my right hon. Friend not agree that this is potentially a wasted opportunity to promote not only regional economic growth but sectoral economic growth, such as the great manufacturing sector of the midlands?
Mr McLoughlin
I am sorry that my hon. Friend so easily dismisses page 34, which I would have thought gives him and the people who run Birmingham airport, which he has spoken about in the House on occasion, some encouragement. Those airports—Birmingham, Manchester, and Tees, just to ensure I get them all right and do not upset anybody—are all incredibly important for people around those areas and we want more flights from them.
Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
I echo what my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley East (Michael Dugher) says, but Birmingham international stands ready for expansion with international flights to JFK in New York and Beijing that are cheaper than from Heathrow. Will the Secretary of State seriously take into account the fact that Birmingham has a strategic position in the UK and its connectivity to HS2?
Mr McLoughlin
Yes, I will certainly take that seriously. The hon. Lady will know that the recent runway expansion at Birmingham has been very important in trying to attract more business and offer more opportunities to fly to other destinations. She is absolutely right about how important HS2 will be for that airport.
Nick Herbert (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)
Has not the commission made an unequivocal recommendation, finding that Gatwick would deliver fewer benefits—half the economic benefits of Heathrow—has poorer transport links, especially to the north, and, crucially, would not deliver the hub solution that this country needs? In taking a decision swiftly, will the Secretary of State be mindful of the fact that it might be inconsistent to talk about a long-term economic plan and the national economic interest while going for a suboptimal solution that has not been recommended by the commission?
Mr McLoughlin
I think my right hon. Friend is trying to prejudge the decisions we will take. I shall not get caught in that trap. We will consider all parts of the report and I assure him that we are committed to seeing the United Kingdom and its long-term economic plan grow and succeed.
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)
The Davies commission report will clearly repay close study. The economic benefits of the third runway at Heathrow are understood, but does the Secretary of State appreciate that for millions of people, including millions of Londoners, the economic benefits are outweighed by the clear environmental disbenefits, such as carbon emissions, noise, and, above all, air pollution?
Mr McLoughlin
I am grateful to the hon. Lady. She is absolutely right and she mentions some of the considerations that we must seriously take on board. There is no easy answer, which is slightly different from what was said from the Opposition Dispatch Box at the start of the statement.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
Although London Heathrow might be operating at virtually full capacity, Manchester airport is not. Whatever is decided, it will clearly be many years before new capacity becomes available in the south east, so will the Secretary of State look into ways of helping Manchester airport to attract new operators and groups to Manchester?
Mr McLoughlin
Manchester did get its extra runway. My hon. Friend is absolutely right: I want more services to be available to the public from airports outside London.
Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)
With 40,000 of the extra jobs that a third runway would generate set to be in London, and given that Sir Howard Davies has looked in detail at the environmental concerns that were raised with him and is clear that they can be addressed, quite apart from the national interest, will the Secretary of State accept that it is certainly in London's interest for a third runway to go ahead?
Mr McLoughlin
Like others, the hon. Gentleman is tempting me to prejudge the Government's consideration of the report. The simple point is that, as he will have heard from various other Opposition Members, there are other considerations to take into account. I shall not therefore prejudge the decision we shall take.
Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that if the whole of the United Kingdom and, in particular, my constituents in Yorkshire are to benefit from these ambitious airport expansion plans, we need good conductivity, which means a good rail network with modern rolling stock and electrification?
Mr McLoughlin
Yes, I do. I am very proud of the huge investment in this Parliament, with £38.5 billion being spent on upgrading our railway network. I am very pleased to say that under this Government the Pacers will stop running in my hon. Friend’s constituency and will be replaced with better trains, which never happened under the previous Government.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
I am sure that the Secretary of State agrees that we need extra airport capacity. We also need a major hub airport in this country. Will he agree that, for connectivity to the north, locating capacity and that hub several miles to the south of London would be completely illogical?
Mr McLoughlin
The hon. Gentleman, who has been in this place for a fair amount of time, tries another little trick to get me to prejudge what I have said several times I will not prejudge—nice try, but he failed.
Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)
I welcome the Secretary of State’s commitment to moving this issue on as quickly as possible for the sake of connectivity, the economy and the loss of business we are suffering. When he considers the local factors in west London, which he must do, will he consider the fact that Heathrow is geographically situated very conveniently for the majority of people and that if they were forced to travel further that would add to congestion and air quality problems?
Mr McLoughlin
I think I might have to refer my hon. Friend to the reply I gave just a few minutes ago. Again, he tries to get me to prejudge where we are on this issue, and I am not prepared to do that.
Mr Virendra Sharma (Ealing, Southall) (Lab)
We have heard quite a lot about the balance between jobs and the environment. We have already spoken about further investments in roads and transport, but there are many schools and families under the flight path. I hope that the Secretary of State will take account of the future of those generations, whose education will be disturbed by noise and other pollution, whenever the final decision is made.
Mr McLoughlin
Yes, I understand exactly where the hon. Gentleman is coming from, and it is interesting that in the report Sir Howard and the commission talk about a noise levy to be paid by passengers, with the money being spent on things to alleviate noise. In fact, new modern planes are not as noisy as some of the older ones that are still flying.
Caroline Ansell (Eastbourne) (Con)
My right hon. Friend will know of the strength of support for Gatwick’s second runway in my constituency of Eastbourne and Willingdon and across East Sussex from every chamber of commerce and the Federation of Small Businesses—connectivity is so important for coastal communities such as mine. He highlighted in his statement capacity and connectivity in relation to the Heathrow proposal, but will he confirm that deliverability and affordability, where Gatwick arguably has the stronger case, will also be at the heart of decision making?
Mr McLoughlin
Again, my hon. Friend points out some of the other things that we need to take into account when reaching a conclusion and returning to the House later this year to set out the proposals that we wish to follow. Deliverability will be an important consideration for us.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
Will the Secretary of State undertake to return with specific and binding proposals for the air industry on emissions and minimising noise pollution when he announces his final conclusions?
Mr McLoughlin
That will be part of the issues that we want to address. We will look particularly at how Sir Howard and the commission have said that the issues can be addressed. As we heard in earlier questions, that will be debated by the Environmental Audit Committee and other Committees between now and the Government reaching a conclusion.
Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)
My right hon. Friend has a strong track record for acting in the long-term, strategic interests of transport infrastructure. To help him to reach a bold and swift decision, may I direct him to page 76 of the report, which points out the £5 billion cost of delays if we do not take a decision? Is there not also an environmental cost of not acting, given that capacity constraints cause planes to stack in ever-increasing numbers over London?
Mr McLoughlin
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I am quickly looking at page 76, which he drew my attention to. I can assure him that we will go through all these points, but he is absolutely right: a plane stacked over London is neither economic nor good for the environment.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
In 2015, Belfast City airport has returned to solid growth across all business sectors. Nine flights leave Belfast City airport for Heathrow every day—the busiest flights from Northern Ireland. Does the Secretary of State agree that ensuring that Belfast City airport remains a vital regional hub will bring extra passengers and create more travel and extra revenue as a key priority?
Mr McLoughlin
The hon. Gentleman points out that this is a matter of connectivity from London not just to other parts of the world, but to other parts of the United Kingdom. I accept the importance of Heathrow and those services to and from Belfast.
Mr Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley) (Con)
I do not want the Secretary of State for Transport to prejudge the commission’s report—I just want him to get on with it. He said he hopes for some consensus. I hate to break the bad news to him: it is simply not going to happen. Many businesses in Ribble Valley use Manchester airport and will be grateful for what he has said about it, but a lot of them connect to London and flights to about 40 new destinations will be available once airport capacity is expanded. Please will he—gently—get on with it?
Mr McLoughlin
My hon. Friend started by saying that he will not ask me to prejudge but urged me to make a decision here at the Dispatch Box. The answer to the first part of his question is no, I will not do that. The answer to the second part of his question, which relates to the importance of connectivity and Manchester airport, is that I accept it.
Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)
According to the report, 60% of the benefits of Heathrow will be delivered outside London and the south-east, so will the Secretary of State support the call from Newcastle international airport not only to make a quick decision in favour of Heathrow, but to put in place the steps necessary to deliver this crucial project?
Mr McLoughlin
The hon. Lady points out that this issue is important not just for London but for the whole United Kingdom. We need to reflect that in our deliberations on the subject.
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
May I praise Sir Howard Davies for the rigour of his report? Although I do not expect my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to make a decision, will he expedite the many processes that this airport has to go through, so that we actually get a runway built and the UK can compete in the 21st century?
Mr McLoughlin
My hon. Friend is correct, but we have a process that we need to go through. We do need to abide by that process. If we did not, we would simply find ourselves judicially reviewed in the courts and the whole process would take a lot longer.
Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
I welcome the Secretary of State’s view that the Davies recommendation is not a missed opportunity to use the UK’s runway capacity to the full, but I put it to him that he is contemplating staggeringly massive public sector subsidies to a western rail link, to the infrastructure work on runway 3 and to the completion of Crossrail, while pulling Leeds-Manchester electrification and midland main line electrification. He has to square that because those two projects would drive traffic to Manchester airport in my constituency.
Mr McLoughlin
I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman thinks that we are pulling those projects. I have put that electrification on pause. I want the costs to be looked at. I do not want a repeat of what happened when the last Labour Government started the upgrade of the west coast main line: it was estimated at £2 billion, turned out at £9 billion and did not lead to the changes we needed. I am very proud of what we are doing with the northern powerhouse, and I am very pleased that this Government will actually see the abolition of the Pacers that serve his constituency and the rest of the northern area, too. If this statement was not just on aviation, I could roll out a number of other improvements that we are making to support the northern powerhouse, and I would have thought that he supported us.
Karen Lumley (Redditch) (Con)
Does the Secretary of State agree that today’s report will provide a great opportunity for extra investment in Birmingham international airport? Will he congratulate it on its brand-new route to China, which will bring investment to the midlands?
Mr McLoughlin
I certainly will congratulate that airport, and I hope to be part of the celebrations for that new service this weekend.
Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)
The North East chamber of commerce, Newcastle airport and businesses across the region have made it clear that Heathrow represents the best option for the north-east economy, for jobs and for growth. May I urge the Secretary of State to take into account when reaching this decision the impact on the north-east economy and other regional economies?
Mr McLoughlin
The answer to the hon. Lady’s question is that we will take those things into consideration in reaching our conclusions.
Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con)
I hope that my right hon. Friend, who has been on his feet for nearly an hour and has listened to Members from right across the House, understands that London’s airport capacity not only affects the south-east but the rest of the country, so may I sing the praises of Leeds Bradford airport? A third runway at Heathrow would more than double demand for travel between Leeds and London in the next five years, boosting Yorkshire’s access to emerging markets, and we must not put that at risk.
Mr McLoughlin
I thank my hon. Friend for his representations, which will be taken into account.
Danny Kinahan (South Antrim) (UUP)
I welcome today’s announcement and all the work that has been done, because it means that Belfast international airport, which is in my constituency, should get a flight and direct route to Heathrow. Yes, we want it quick, but when the Secretary of State considers levies and such things into the future, will he keep it in mind that 52% of our passengers disappear down to Dublin because of air passenger duty? Any levy that is put in place might severely hurt the Northern Irish economy.
Mr McLoughlin
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his representations. Obviously, we have to be aware of that, but also part of a noise levy is considering how to put right the damage and how to try to soften or reduce the effects on those who are most disturbed by the noise. That is the right thing to do.
Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)
My right hon. Friend said that the Government asked Sir Howard Davies how the UK could maintain its status as an international aviation hub. If that is the case, there might be a difficult decision ahead for my right hon. Friend. Does he not agree that we do not want to be “an” international aviation hub? London will probably almost always be “an” international aviation hub; we want to be “the” international aviation hub. We want to take on and beat the likes of Paris, Dubai and Amsterdam, for the economy of the future, in which case the choice might be quite simple.
Mr McLoughlin
Well, that is another way in which my hon. Friend might be trying to get me to prejudge our conclusions. I have made the point that we are the third largest aviation economy; aviation’s contribution to our economy follows that made to the economies of the US and China. I am very aware of how important the industry is to the UK.
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
My constituents, a third of whom are not under the current two flight paths, will be under the flight path towards a third runway at Heathrow, so as you can imagine, Mr Speaker, I am not exactly enthusiastic about the recommendations of the Davies commission, but I agree with the Secretary of State and my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley East (Michael Dugher), the shadow Secretary of State, on the need for a speedy decision for the good of our economy, our communities in west London and the aviation industry.
In the light of the need for a speedy decision, will the Secretary of State start his analysis by looking at the risk factors in respect of further growth at Heathrow and a third runway being deliverable—the potential further breach of EU air quality legislation and the ability to deliver the carbon offsetting that other parts of the economy must address? I ask that that be done as a matter of urgency.
Mr McLoughlin
The hon. Lady points out a number of issues that we have to consider and take on board. Those will have to be addressed, and satisfactorily addressed as well.
Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)
My right hon. Friend has heard representations from around the House on the importance of connectivity from regional airports. For most air travellers, often the most frustrating part is getting airside. Therefore, prompting great relief, British Airways now runs a flight out of Leeds to Heathrow, allowing people to get airside without facing the congestion at Heathrow. However, they cannot run for the early flights in the morning because there simply is not the capacity. I am worried that the report rules out the possibility of further expansion, if needed, with respect to regional airports. With that in mind, will my right hon. Friend, as he considers the Davies report, give serious consideration to other locations such as Stansted to ensure that we have future ongoing capacity, as well as the solution being looked at right now?
Mr McLoughlin
I am not sure that the commission has ruled that out. I referred to a chapter in Sir Howard’s report, which talks about other airports playing a role and seeing those expand too. The point I would make to my hon. Friend is that one issue that is often raised is the availability of slots into London airports.
James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)
While I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement, will he reassure me, in the context of the decision he will take in the autumn, that in considering the relative merits of the commission’s report he will take into account the importance of airports such as Birmingham and regional economies such as the west midlands and the black country?
Mr McLoughlin
Yes, indeed. The last time I made a statement on aviation capacity, I think I had more questions about the future of Birmingham airport than any other airport we discussed that day. That is not lost on me.
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
While I welcome the expansion in the south east and recognise that it is important to the national economy, my constituents will also note that it represents further concentration of resources in the south. As we seem to have been doing something of a tour of regional airports during the past hour, I cannot help but mention Humberside, which is located in an area where many international companies are based. Will my right hon. Friend give an absolute assurance that airports such as Humberside will receive the necessary infrastructure to expand the local economy?
Mr McLoughlin
I visited Humberside airport quite some time ago, when I was last in the Department, so it has been providing a service for many years.
Ben Howlett (Bath) (Con)
Thank you for calling me, Mr Speaker. I have been able to cancel my step aerobics class tonight.
I thank my right hon. Friend for his comments on the link to Heathrow airport from the great western main line. Adding to the list of regional airports that we have been talking about, will he commit to looking at Bristol international airport, giving me and my constituents the confidence that he will do so over the summer?
Mr Speaker
I am very glad that the hon. Gentleman has found his exercise therapeutic. The nation has been enriched in consequence.
Mr McLoughlin
Mr Speaker, you have the habit of keeping the best until last.
I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Ben Howlett) that there has already been a lot of investment, including around Bristol airport. As has been made clear by everybody who has taken part in the debate on the statement, there is a lot more to look at than what is happening as far as London is concerned. That connectivity to all parts of the United Kingdom is important.
Mr Speaker
I am most grateful to the Secretary of State. We got through 60 Back Benchers in 56 Back-Bench minutes. It is not for the Chair to express any view on the content of answers—that is not a matter for me; such matters are the subject of much dispute in all parts of the House—but the Secretary of State could usefully conduct seminars for his Cabinet colleagues on the merits of pithy responses. If he is unwilling to court the unpopularity that such an offer would involve, it would be quite a useful deployment of the time of a Government Whip to circulate the relevant copy of the Official Report to other Ministers, because they would usefully profit from the instruction that it contained.
Child Poverty
(8 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith)
Over a decade ago, I demonstrated that the relative income measure of poverty was flawed, and that it was driving Government policy on an unsustainable path. In 2007, the Centre for Social Justice report “Breakthrough Britain” made this point:
“Many poverty analysts are concerned that setting this simplistic poverty threshold has warped government priorities.”
I shared that concern, and in 2011 I reiterated that message in a speech to the London School of Economics, calling for a rethink about the way we improve the life chances of the poorest in society.
How we measure things matters because it influences what Governments focus on and what we target. As the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field) himself said,
“this income measure…drives…policy in a single direction which is in danger of becoming counterproductive.”
Even the current chair of the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission, Alan Milburn, made a point in its latest report, before the election, that there is a real challenge to all parties to deal with the issue of this measurement.
The problem with a statutory framework set around the relative income measure has become all too apparent to all people and to everyone who wants to be honest about this. At 60% of median income, if someone sits below the line they are said to be poor; if they sit above it, they are not. Asking Government to raise everyone above that set percentage often led to unintended consequences, although for good reasons. Most of all, it led to poorly targeted spending, pumping money into the welfare system and focusing more often on inputs than on what those outcomes meant.
For example, as I have said before, we saw massive spikes in tax credit spending in the run up to election years. In the two years before the 2005 election, tax credit spending increased by nearly £10 billion, and in the two years before the 2010 election, it increased by nearly £6 billion. From 2002 to 2010, spending on tax credits more than doubled and cumulatively rose to £258 billion by the 2010 election.
Spending on welfare overall increased by 60% in real terms under the Labour Government, driven by the legitimate and reasonable need to chase what became, after the early successes, a moving line. Despite all this spending, by 2010, under the Labour Government, the number of households where no member ever worked nearly doubled, in-work poverty rose, and the Government missed their 2010 child poverty target by 600,000 children. I allege nothing from this. The motives were good, but the figures did not work.
We reached the position where a growing economy, ironically, drives increases in the measure of child poverty, whereas if the economy crashes, as happened under the Labour Government, child poverty apparently falls. Even today, if we were to increase elements of the state pension, we would run the risk of increasing the median income and thus increasing the number of households that would then fall into poverty.
We consulted widely over a number of years during the last years of the previous Government. The challenge was and remains to get a better way of identifying what we measure and how we tackle the root causes of the problem. This is because the current Act does not do enough to focus Government action on improving a child’s future life chances, to acknowledge the key role education plays, or to recognise that work is clearly a very important way, if not the real way, out of poverty.
Let me deal with the issue of work. I believe work is the best route out of poverty. It provides purpose, responsibility and role models for our children. Yet after more than a decade of welfare spending increases, by 2010 one in five households had nobody in work. During the previous Parliament we began to turn this around. There are now 2 million more people in work than in 2010. The number of children living in workless households is at a record low, and workless households are down to record levels as well. In this Parliament, I want to continue to press to improve that so that more parents get into work, stay in work and, importantly, progress when in work.
On education, the other aim that I just referred to, our ambition must be for disadvantaged pupils to be successful at school. We are committed to raising the bar among poor pupils as part of raising standards for everyone. This is because we know how important educational attainment is for improving their life chances. The Wolf report commissioned by the last Government showed that English and maths skills are vital for labour market entry, and continue to have a significant impact on career progression and pay. This is clearly shown by the staggering fact that 63% of men and 75% of women with low literacy skills have never received a promotion, remaining locked on the income on which they entered work. We are committed to ensuring that more poor pupils achieve excellent grades at GCSE, attend the very best universities, and do an apprenticeship or gain skilled employment, so that every child, regardless of background, is given an education which allows them to realise their full potential.
To that end, today I am announcing that we will bring forward legislation to remove the existing measures and targets in the Child Poverty Act 2010, as well as the other duties and provisions. However, the legislation will introduce a statutory duty to report on measures of worklessness and educational attainment. The worklessness measures will identify the proportion of children living in workless households, and the proportion of children in long-term workless households. The educational attainment measures will focus on GCSE attainment for all pupils and particularly for disadvantaged pupils.
The worklessness and education measures will reflect the agreed responsibilities in the devolution agreements. As with all our reforms, we will work with the devolved Administrations as we progress. They must make decisions about what they want to do. Alongside these reports we will continue to publish the HBAI—households below average income—statistics annually.
Alongside the statutory measures, we will develop a range of other indicators—I think this is very important—to measure the progress against the root causes of poverty. We know that in households with unstable relationships, where debt and addiction destabilise families, parents lack employment skills, and children are not ready to start school, these children do not have the same chances in life as others. It is self-evident. They cannot break out of that cycle of disadvantage. We are currently developing these measures, including family breakdown, problem debt, and drug and alcohol dependency. We will report each year on these life chances measurements as well.
We will reform the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission to become the Social Mobility Commission. The commission will ensure independent scrutiny and advocate for improved social mobility. This approach will ensure that tackling the root causes of child poverty and improving future life chances become central parts of our business as a one nation Government. As the Prime Minister said:
“We need to move from a low wage, high tax, high welfare society to a higher wage, lower tax, lower welfare society.”
Governments will no longer focus on just moving families above a poverty line. Instead, we want to focus on making a meaningful change to children’s lives by extending opportunity for all, so that both they and their children can escape from the cycle of poverty and improve their life chances. This process will, I hope, mark a shift from solely measuring inputs of expenditure to measuring the outcomes of children-focused policy. I commend this statement to the House.
Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State for early sight of his statement. What he read out today is the obituary notice for compassionate conservatism. It is the death knell for any idea that his party might one day be a party for working people.
It is only a week since we received the news that progress on child poverty has stalled, with most poor children now living in working households. The Conservatives’ manifesto said that they would
“work to eliminate child poverty”.
Instead, their solution is to change the definition—incidentally, at their second attempt; they tried this before and gave up—to remove altogether child poverty from the remit of the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission, and next week to announce cuts that will make the problems much worse.
The Child Poverty Act, which the Secretary of State, if I understood his statement correctly, now wants to repeal, received all-party support before 2010, and it put one of the most important duties on Government: to ensure that, in the 21st century, children do not grow up suffering deprivation or lacking the necessities that most of us take for granted. It has not just one, but four measures of poverty: absolute, relative, persistent, and material deprivation. The relative measure is the internationally accepted definition used by every OECD country.
Do the Government accept the importance of relative poverty? Will the Secretary of State clarify that? He told us in his statement that a decade or so ago he was arguing against the use of relative poverty. As he knows, at the same time the current Prime Minister was arguing for acceptance of relative poverty. In what he said today the Secretary of State echoed the words of the Prime Minister last week when he said:
“Just take the historic approach to tackling child poverty. Today, because of the way it is measured, we are in the absurd situation where if we increase the state pension, child poverty actually goes up.”
Of course, the Prime Minister was right. If the Government increase the income of better-off people, they make others relatively poorer. The Prime Minister last week described that as absurd, but that was not what he said when he was trying to re-brand the Conservative party in 2006. In his Scarman lecture he said that the Conservative party
“will measure and will act on relative poverty…poverty is relative and those who pretend otherwise are wrong.”
He went on to say:
“We need to think of poverty in relative terms—the fact that some people lack those things which others in society take for granted.”
That was the Prime Minister speaking in 2006.
So what is the Government’s current view? Is it that focusing on relative poverty is absurd, as the Prime Minister said with conviction last week, or is it the diametrically opposite view that he set out with apparently equal conviction on behalf of his party before? Where do they now stand? The Prime Minister promised that a Government he led would “act on relative poverty”. Why is that promise being broken?
Why cannot the Secretary of State level with the House? He hopes nobody will notice this announcement or its significance because it coincides with the airports statement. Am I right in understanding that he proposes that in his legislation there will be no targets at all, or will he include some targets in it and, if so, will he tell us what they are? I remind the Secretary of State that he and his colleagues all voted for the Child Poverty Act in 2010.
When in government, Labour lifted more than 1 million children out of relative poverty and more than 2 million out of absolute poverty. A key success was raising lone parent employment from less than 45% in 1997 to more than 60% today, mainly thanks to tax credits. That was not about lifting a few people from just below a line to just above it; it was about a very substantial change in the way the economy works. Will the Secretary of State tell us whether next week the Government will announce big cuts to tax credits? That is not about making work pay; it is about making working families pay.
What we need is not a change in the definition of poverty, but a plan to deal with poverty and boost productivity. Ministers should be tackling low pay, but instead they are attacking the low-paid. The Children’s Commissioners for England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have today come together to warn that the Government’s policies will push more young people into poverty. What happened to the long-term plan? Why have children been left out? Why is the party that promised in its pre-election manifesto to work to eliminate child poverty now planning to increase it?
Mr Duncan Smith
Let me deal with the points that the right hon. Gentleman has made. First, I thought that his comments were a little ridiculous. The idea that this is somehow an obituary for compassionate conservatism does him ill. He knows very well that the purpose of what we are doing is to get rid of child poverty, and that remains our central purpose. As I said earlier—and we are not alone in this—the problem is that if we lock two sets of measures that actually drive spending to rotate people over that line, what we get is a process of churning, but not the real and deeper change in people’s lives. That is the big reason why we want to do this.
The truth is that the previous Labour Government, on their own measure, failed to achieve their target—they failed to halve child poverty by 2010. Worse, in-work poverty actually rose. We could go through the list, but I would have thought that there was a better way of building some consensus than saying that Labour, if in power, could somehow embark on a massive spending spree and everything would be all right. Even Alan Milburn said that was unrealistic, and it remains unrealistic. We have to deal with the world as it is now, and we have to change the life chances of those children.
It is worth remembering that under this Government 74% of poor workless families who found work escaped poverty, and there was a higher poverty exit rate of 75% for children living in families who went from part-time to full-time employment. That has happened under this Government.
The right hon. Gentleman talked about international measures and suggested that we are somehow breaking away from everyone else. The reality is that no other country embarked on a plan to get rid of child poverty using that child poverty measure, and the reason is that other countries realised that it would lead to peculiar patterns of expenditure, with very little result for those who most need help.
The right hon. Gentleman asked whether relative poverty is important. Yes it is, which is why we continue to publish statistics on houses below average income, and we will continue to do so, so everybody will still be able to comment on that. Our focus will be on turning around the lives of the poorest through education and ensuring that they get back to work through skilling, which my right hon. Friend the Education Secretary has been working on.
The right hon. Gentleman talked about the poverty figures published by the IFS last week. He knows very well that before last week most of his colleagues were running around saying, “It’s going to be terrible. The IFS is predicting that child poverty will rise dramatically.” Actually, none of that happened. [Interruption.] Even on those measures, child poverty fell by over 300,000 under this Government.
The right hon. Gentleman referred to a well-respected body such as the IFS, which has all the means at its disposal, and we have enormous respect for its ability to predict things, but its predictions on child poverty have been wrong every single year that we have been in government. In its most recent prediction it was wrong again. Its original prediction was that child poverty would rise to 2.8 million, but that was out by over half a million.
I am not attacking the IFS—far from it—but simply saying that if a Government set a policy on something they find incredibly difficult to forecast or predict, they will end up chasing the error, as the previous Labour Government did. Well over £200 billion was spent on tax credits, but the key point is to turn lives around. That is why we will present this Bill, and why we will change this so that we can reach the poorest children.
David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)
Higher education standards, more apprenticeships and real jobs are what will drive down poverty, not borrowing large sums of money and spending it on benefits. Does my right hon. Friend agree?
Mr Duncan Smith
I agree. The whole point is that we want to eradicate child poverty. This is not a departure from that proposal. However, we want to ensure that we do that by changing the long-term life chances of those who live in the poorest families. I do not want to have to stand here year after year and pretend that rotating people over the line of median income somehow means that we have succeeded. I said three or four years ago that child poverty had fallen under us according to that measure, but I said that I made no claim to have done that. The previous Government crashed the economy, which is why child poverty fell.
Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)
Over 210,000 children in Scotland are living in poverty, which is more than one in five, and two thirds of them have working parents. The report published earlier today by the UK’s Children’s Commissioners makes it clear that this Government are failing to protect the most disadvantaged children from their austerity cuts. Why will the Secretary of State not back calls for powers over employment and social security to be devolved to the Scottish Parliament so that we can take more effective action there to tackle poverty?
Mr Duncan Smith
The devolved Administration in Scotland are getting powers over employment, because the Work programme and personal independence payments are being devolved, so they will have the powers to do that. In fact, the significant new powers in the Scotland Bill will give something like £2.5 billion-worth of new welfare powers to the devolved Administration, and they will be responsible for raising more than 50% of what they spend. On the basis of what I said earlier, I am happy to engage with the devolved Administrations on what measure they want to use, because they will have the capacity to decide either to continue with that measure or to change it in line with ours.
Mr Speaker
Order. I remind colleagues that it is a very long-established convention in this House that if a Member wishes to be called in response to a ministerial statement, that Member must be present at the start of the statement; it is no good wandering in at some later point, even if it is only shortly afterwards. Any Members who came in late should please not carry on standing, because they will not be called.
John Howell (Henley) (Con)
Prior to 2010, when I was the party’s child poverty champion, we discussed these changes, so I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement. Does he accept that they represent a comprehensive approach to dealing with child poverty that is actually going to help?
Mr Duncan Smith
I am glad that my hon. Friend believes that, because so do I. The purpose of what I have set out today, after a great deal of consideration over the past few years and a full consultation on the matter, is to arrive at a situation in which we are able to help those children and families in the greatest difficulty and try to move them out of poverty so that they sustain their lives out and beyond poverty.
Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)
I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement. I re-emphasise his point that whatever definition we have will drive policy and resources, but might I make two pleas? First, when he fixes the life chances definition, he should not be too modest about his own contribution. Under the Labour Government, he and my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) published a report showing that the life chances for most children, particularly poor children, can be over by the age of five. We need to concentrate on that and not to be concerned immediately with technical education, however important that may be. Secondly, this Government and the previous Labour Government have been largely successful, through their welfare-to-work scheme, in moving people from benefits to work. The welfare-to-work mark 2 agenda should be about how we move many of those who are trapped on low pay up the pay scale so that they earn decent wages, with the dignity that comes from that, while also drawing less in tax credits.
Mr Duncan Smith
I welcome the right hon. Gentleman’s comments. He knows very well that, as I have already said to him, I am very happy to engage with him and his Committee on these matters. As he says, at the beginning of the previous Parliament, we called on him and the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) to do some work for us, and I have remained absolutely wedded to the proposals that they brought forward. In fact, the Social Justice Cabinet Committee that I now chair is tasked with ensuring that those early intervention measures are driven through all Departments. My right hon. Friend the Education Secretary is already acting on much of that with the early educational markers and by driving attainment much earlier on in areas such as maths and literacy, which will be part of our measure. The right hon. Gentleman will, I hope, note that I talked about publishing, alongside that, life-chances measures for areas such as debt, drug and alcohol abuse, and family breakdown. Those measures will help to guide us on when we intervene to make the changes necessary.
Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)
In constituencies such as Wycombe, for far too long the combination of relative measures plus coarse aggregates has hidden real poverty in certain wards. Will my right hon. Friend focus on practical outcomes for families and individuals so that we can get out of the position where we complacently ignore those in need and real suffering?
Mr Duncan Smith
I agree. Apart from the two key areas that we are going to study very hard and put forward proposals on—the educational attainment and worklessness measures—we will have a duty to report on the pathways to poverty that I spoke about. Those will be the guiders that allow us to drive forward the change that is necessary, often in the very early years, in families suffering deprivation.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
Is not this statement merely a justification for next week’s cuts to tax credits for the working poor? Is it not also about avoiding the fact that the Government have absolutely no hope in hell of achieving their Child Poverty Act targets? The fact is that low income is the cause of child poverty, so what is the Secretary of State going to do to address that, because this Government have absolutely failed to make work pay?
Mr Duncan Smith
I agree that low earnings are part of the problem, but that is exactly what we are trying to address in raising the thresholds and planning to raise them again to over £12,600. We have taken millions of people out of paying tax. We also targeted this by raising the minimum wage, which will rise again to £6.70. I have made it very clear that I personally want the minimum wage to rise even further. This Government are determined, through the mechanisms and interventions that I am talking about, to raise incomes and change life chances at the very earliest stage.
Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)
I welcome the Secretary of State’s determination to break the cycle of disadvantage and to focus instead on outcomes. As he knows, health inequality also traps children in disadvantage. He has touched on alcohol and drug addiction, but will he also look at the burdens of mental health inequalities, and obesity and tooth decay, because those too are having a massive impact on children’s life chances? I hope that he will work across Government Departments to make sure that they are tackled as well.
Mr Duncan Smith
I am happy to work with my hon. Friend on this. I agree with her about poor health outcomes, which often involve mental health issues. Some of those are swept up within the work that we are already doing. We will bring forward further proposals on how we can improve outcomes for people with mental health conditions by getting them to treatment much quicker. I am happy to discuss those matters, in line with the areas that I spoke about earlier.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
In a recent answer to me, the Secretary of State admitted that the proportion of the social security budget spent on 18 to 21-year-olds on jobseeker’s allowance in receipt of housing benefit is just 0.1%. When he enacts his nasty and punitive policy to remove that entitlement, what will happen to those people and their 2,400 dependent children? Does he simply not care that they are going to be thrown into greater poverty and homelessness?
Mr Duncan Smith
No. All those young people will always be supported by this Government. We are talking about getting the balance right between those who need support and can be supported by their families and those who have genuine and serious long-term difficulties. Part of the process I have announced today is to identify those families earlier. Universal credit helps enormously in identifying the families with debt problems, housing problems, and drug and alcohol problems. Getting to them and dealing with those problems is far better than the tokenism that the hon. Lady seems to be involved in.
Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)
I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement, which will continue to build on the Government’s work to address the root causes of poverty in Mid Dorset and North Poole and elsewhere. Does he agree that this Government’s work to support families and prevent family breakdown is critical in tackling child poverty and increasing children’s life chances?
Mr Duncan Smith
I do believe that. One of the big failures of Governments is that too often they have been ambivalent about the whole concept of stable family structures and have simply chased the errors. Since we came to power, family life has stabilised, according to the latest reports. More than that, we are putting millions of pounds into help and support for those in danger of family break-up, and that never happened before.
Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)
Tory party members were the strongest opponents of a national minimum wage, and no doubt the right hon. Gentleman himself voted against it. Apart from those on the Tory Benches, most people will understand very clearly that the whole purpose of his statement and policy is to try to conceal the amount of poverty, child poverty and deprivation that exist in so many constituencies like mine. He should be thoroughly ashamed of himself.
Mr Duncan Smith
Those are the usual rather bitter and acrimonious remarks from the hon. Gentleman. I say to him, not for the first time, that I utterly disagree. More than that, I point out that all the figures that we would usually publish will continue to be published; there is no hiding anything in this report. If he is not going to be bothered to read them, I will direct him to exactly where he will find them. If we change life chances from the beginning rather than being obsessed about targets, as he is, we might change real lives rather than playing games.
James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)
In my experience as a small business owner, I was absolutely shocked to find that members of staff would decline pay rises that we offered them because they would lose so much in tax credits in this absurd system. May I assure my right hon. Friend that he will have strong support from my constituents in South Suffolk if he undertakes radical reform of tax credits, because they are a benefit trap and they hold back social mobility?
Mr Duncan Smith
We are already engaged in that. Universal credit is rolling out, replacing the current system. That will make it much easier for people to find work and then to work different hours, whereas at the moment, under tax credits, they are often penalised for making a decision to change their hours because they lose far too much of their earnings. That reform is under way, and it will change lives.
Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)
The UK Government’s £12 billion of proposed welfare cuts will risk putting up to 100,000 more children into poverty in Scotland by 2020. Yesterday the Secretary of State and his colleagues walked through the Lobby to turn down the opportunity for Scotland to have greater power over welfare and employment. He said in his statement that “work is the best route out of poverty.” Is it not time that Scotland had the power to tackle poverty, because his Government and his party clearly cannot?
Mr Duncan Smith
It will not surprise the hon. Lady to hear that I do not agree with almost every single word she said. I remind her that it is no good going on and on about the powers that one wants when one is not prepared to recognise or exercise the massive powers given under the Smith commission—£2.5 billion-worth of new welfare powers, the ability to raise more than 50% of what is spent, and powers over employment programmes. I am not quite sure what she actually wants, but I do know this much: under this Government, employment in Scotland has been better than it has been after previous recessions at any other time.
Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)
I welcome the Secretary of State’s thoughtful statement. Does he agree that, despite having figures for persistent poverty in the structure of the existing poverty targets, they have not hitherto succeeded in driving public policy change in Whitehall or in improving the life chances of those in persistent poverty in Blackpool and Cleveleys?
Mr Duncan Smith
That is exactly the point I have been making. One of the big areas that has been missing is educational attainment. By locking in educational attainment, we are at last going to be able to look at a balance of measures that ask whether people are actually seeing their life chances progress. The group of people I most constantly worry about are the families who never got near the 60% line, whose life chances were flat. I want them to be able to follow a trajectory that goes above that line and for them to be able to get ahead under their own steam as they take control of their lives.
Sue Hayman (Workington) (Lab)
In west Cumbria, as in many other parts of the UK, the areas of greatest deprivation have not shifted for decades, so I was pleased to hear the Secretary of State say that we are now moving to a high-wage economy. We have heard a lot from hon. Members about wages and tackling in-work poverty. Surely the Secretary of State must agree that until we ensure that all businesses pay a decent living wage, we are never going to tackle in-work poverty and break that cycle.
Mr Duncan Smith
The hon. Lady should recognise that wages are rising faster and more strongly than at any time since 2007, so we have started that process. We have also raised the minimum wage—it is due to go up to £6.70—but if the hon. Lady wants to press me, I absolutely agree with her. I want businesses—and I have said this before—to recognise that they need to pay the people who work for them a decent wage and not rely on the Government to subsidise that wage so that they can have bigger profits. I am going to campaign for that and I hope we will drive it.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
Unemployment in my constituency of Bury North has fallen by about half since 2010. Does the Secretary of State agree that the best way to alleviate child poverty is to have a growing economy, giving more parents the opportunity to work and enabling higher wages for those already in work?
Mr Duncan Smith
I agree with my hon. Friend. The Opposition are concerned and angry that the measure is being changed, but it is worth relating the interesting fact that, even with all the money under the measure, the number of working-age people in in-work poverty rose by 20% between 1998-99 and 2010. It beggars belief that some want a policy that is clearly not working to continue simply because it has become totemic to them. They are not looking at its actual effect.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)
If I heard the Secretary of State correctly, he said that a quarter of those who move from unemployment into work remain in poverty. Is not there a problem, therefore, of short-term working, zero-hours contracts and low wages? Is not there also a problem, particularly in London and the south-east, of excessively high rents, which are driving so many people into poverty? Any interested observer of the Secretary of State’s statement would say that it was a study in obfuscation to avoid examination of what he is really doing, which is damaging the life chances of millions of young people in this country. Child poverty is a terrible thing and he should address it rather than run away from the facts.
Mr Duncan Smith
The hon. Gentleman and I should be at one, because we are addressing the facts. That is what today’s announcement was about. The hon. Gentleman mentions the number of those who are in work but who have not risen out of poverty. The figures I read out earlier show that, of those who fail to get proper maths or English qualifications at school and make it into work—they are in the minority—some 75% of the women will never progress because of their failure to get qualifications. Does not the hon. Gentleman think that I am answering his charge through educational attainment—driving change for those children and getting them into work so that they can progress?
Jeremy Quin (Horsham) (Con)
As a former director of a credit union, I am deeply concerned about the level of indebtedness that is endured by and has blighted the lives of many low-income families. Would the Secretary of State care to expand further on the Government’s plans to address this very difficult problem?
Mr Duncan Smith
My hon. Friend should know that in the last Parliament we put a significant amount of money into credit unions. It is our plan—we are determined about this—to get credit unions to expand and to work with them so that they become the key element for people on low incomes and others to be able to get decent support, including financial support. I recommend that all hon. Members set an example by making sure that they are members of credit unions.
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)
I note that the Secretary of State will remove any Government ambition to eradicate child poverty. On behalf of the hundreds and thousands of children who go to school having not eaten breakfast or who after the summer holidays turn up thinner because they have not eaten properly—many of whom actually come from working households—may I ask the Secretary of State what he will do to make sure that no child in our country is going hungry?
Mr Duncan Smith
We have provided universal free school meals and childcare measures allowing mothers to go to work. I say to the hon. Lady that under her party’s Government, in-work poverty actually rose, so she needs to look at her figures before lecturing us.
Mr Speaker
Order. I do not intend any unkindness to the hon. Lady and I want to be fair, but I do not think she has been present throughout the exchanges or that she was here at the start. Did she leave at any stage during the proceedings?
Mr Speaker
She did not. I will take that from her. If that is what she tells me, I am content with that.
Heidi Allen
Thank you, Mr Speaker. I was here towards the end of the transport statement.
I want to draw on my own experiences as a business owner. It is important that, however we choose to describe the measures, we tackle child poverty head-on. During the early days of one particular employee’s employment, it felt like I had to drag him to work. He was a young man aged 21 with three small children and it was clear that nobody, including his peers and parents, had brought him up in the world. When I gave him employment and put his money up, he was still culturally unable to find the mental drive to go to work. We have to tackle child poverty by getting to people when they are young, through education, giving them hope and making sure they have food in their bellies—whatever it takes—and we have to achieve that together. I have seen it at the other end—you can drag a horse to water—so I welcome what the Secretary of State is trying to do.
Mr Duncan Smith
I welcome my hon. Friend to her place and her experience of running a business and trying to get people from difficult backgrounds into work. My right hon. Friend the Education Secretary is already engaged in driving schools to help inculcate and teach character resilience and key characteristics such as understanding what it is to go to work and to get up in the morning. Under this Government, average weekly earnings have been rising faster than for a considerable time.
Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)
The Secretary of State has told us that he will remove the current child poverty targets and replace them with a number of measures. I am uncertain, however, about whether there will be any other targets. If not, how will we be able to measure his success? Clearly, success is needed because, as he knows, 37% of London children live in poverty and unless he is successful they will continue to be poor.
Mr Duncan Smith
We are going to be very open and publish all the elements I mentioned earlier, including those relating to educational attainment, workless households, the new life chances measures and the figures for households below average income, so the hon. Lady and anybody else will be able to see them. We are not hiding from anything. We want those HBAI figures to fall and for the educational attainment and working household figures to improve. That will all be evident and if we are not achieving that, the hon. Lady can be the first on her feet to say so.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
The Secretary of State referred to universal credit in response to an earlier question. It is acknowledged that universal credit will be a vital support to families and children. What is being done to ensure that people in rural areas without high-speed broadband connections will not be disadvantaged in this process?
Mr Duncan Smith
That is a very good question, and the hon. Lady is right to say that universal credit will help enormously. The Government have a massive programme to roll out superfast broadband to every area of the country. I will take the hon. Lady’s question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport so that it can tell her how soon it will arrive in her area. Even if people are unable to do it online, we have made full provision for them to do it, if necessary, by paper exchange, as they would at the moment.
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)
The Secretary of State has announced that he will report on measures of worklessness and educational attainment. Will he take care to make sure that those figures are broken down by race and ethnicity, because there are complex factors at work? It is not necessarily the case that all groups of black children do worse than all groups of white children. Although we might disagree on the remedies, without sound data we cannot plan to help all of our children.
Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)
Regardless of the fiddle the Secretary of State is carrying out on the measure of poverty, does he not accept that if his Government press ahead with cuts to tax credits without raising the minimum wage to at least the living wage, he will plunge many more of my constituents and their children into poverty?
Mr Duncan Smith
The purpose is to get people into work and to help to drive up their hours so that they end up in full-time work and beyond the benefit system. I believe the reforms we have carried out and those we will bring forward will aid that. He should be reminded that his devolved Administration has the capacity and power to decide what measures they want to employ.
Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)
One of the proudest and best achievements of the previous Labour Government was the roll-out of 3,600 Sure Start children’s centres. If, as the Secretary of State says, this is all about outcomes, not inputs, why has his Government slashed the budgets of local authorities, which pay for Sure Start, to such an extent that more than 800 have closed and many more are now hollow shells of their former selves? To use his very words, they are now unable to make
“meaningful change to children’s lives”.
Mr Duncan Smith
We gave local authorities responsibility and the money. We did not ring-fence the money, but we told them that their priority should be to make sure that that early years work takes place. My view across the board is that, as all the studies I have seen show, the quality of that work is as good if not better than it was before. I was and remain a great supporter of such support, and I and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education will ensure that it continues.
Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)
London is the sixth richest city in the world and it produces a fifth of the GDP of the United Kingdom; yet four out of 10 of its children are in poverty. Does the Secretary of State accept that businesses recognise those facts by paying a London weighting? Is it time that he considered a London weighting both in relation to the minimum wage and the benefits cap in London?
Mr Duncan Smith
As a London MP, I am only too well aware of the peculiar difficulties faced by London. Even after all the years of very high expenditure through tax credits, we still have the situation that the hon. Gentleman mentions. Certain particular facts about London make that a reality. I would simply say that my purpose in all this is to look at all measures to have a better way of making certain that the support goes to such individuals. I am very happy to discuss with him the matter he raises to see whether we can make any progress.
Mike Wood
Despite the progress that has been made during the past five years, too many children of disabled parents remain in poverty. Will my right hon. Friend assure us that the Government will continue to work to help more disabled people into work—and well-paid work—so that such children can look forward to better outcomes?
Mr Duncan Smith
I welcome my hon. Friend to his place. The Government rightly spend significant sums of money on support for disabled people throughout the UK. In fact, I think the amount we spend on disabled people, as a proportion of GDP, is more than is spent by America, Germany and France together. I am proud of that. It is the right thing to do, and we should continue to do it. However, many people who have disabilities are desperate for work. We have now increased the proportion who are in work to record levels, but that is not good enough. I want to get it up to the same level as for the rest of society.
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
Will the Secretary of State please explain how redefining child poverty and removing targets will in practice give help today to a child living in poverty in a family who are in work?
Mr Duncan Smith
We continue to support families who are in work through the various mechanisms we have. As universal credit rolls out, it will add to those mechanisms, and there are additions for families with children. Including the measures I am announcing today, we will address that by ensuring that the children in such families have improved life chances through improved educational achievement. We have already done a huge amount through free school meals, support through childcare—there are massive amounts of new childcare—and the involvement of parents in further work. We are doing more to help those families than was ever done before.
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
Would the Secretary of State care to comment on a recent policy proposal from the Resolution Foundation, which has pointed out that if one really wants to target help to working families on low and middle incomes, the best way to do it is to increase or boost the working allowance as opposed to giving them tax cuts?
Mr Duncan Smith
I have never seen such things as either/or. A well-balanced Government will decide how they can help certain specific groups with support where necessary. We have done that in a variety of areas, including through the tax credits we inherited from the previous Labour Government and now through universal credit. I am a great believer in this: if, as we have done, we give people incentives by raising the threshold and taking millions of low-paid people out of tax, that has got to be good because now that they do not pay tax, they can hold on to more of their money.
Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)
The Secretary of State will no doubt want to join me in welcoming the Welsh Labour Government’s moves to tackle the deep roots of poverty, whether relative or absolute poverty, including schemes such as the Flying Start programme. He will also welcome the news that Labour-controlled Rhondda Cynon Taf Council intends to move all its workers on to the living wage. Does he agree with the concern that cuts to in-work benefits that happen too soon and are not commensurate or simultaneous with rises in the minimum wage or a move towards the living wage will inevitably impact on absolute poverty in working households?
Mr Duncan Smith
I am not altogether acquainted with the programmes that the hon. Gentleman mentions, but I have talked at length to the devolved Administration in Wales. We have endlessly discussed how we can interact. I would like us to interact more; they are sometimes a bit resistant to doing so. My purpose is to help people to get back to work and out of poverty. Wales is seeing a bit of a renaissance in terms of people going back to work, which is good news. As far as I am concerned, we want to help people through work, and I want employers to pay their people a decent wage. I have ensured that the Department for Work and Pensions in London pays the London living wage to all, including the cleaners.
Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
Higher educational attainment and improved job prospects are important goals, but they are long-term ones. In the meantime, child tax credits are absolutely vital. Indeed, they are a more precise way of targeting help to children in low-income families than normal rises in the tax threshold. The majority of such families are of course in work. What assurances will the Secretary of State give us that there is no plan to reduce child tax credits for these hard-working families?
Mr Duncan Smith
We have brought forward these particular measures because they allow us to identify families better. We now have to do the work to identify families who are stuck on low trajectories and are unlikely to break free of such a position on the measure by which we have always measured poverty in the past. I would simply say that that is the best way to give workless families more opportunities now. In the longer term, educational attainment will help to ensure that their children do not repeat what has happened in the past. I believe that the reforms we are making and those we will bring forward will help children more and will help parents to get back into work faster.
Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)
The Secretary of State has not actually addressed the questions asked about tax credits by my constituency neighbour. If I may say so, his statement skirted around the issue of children living in households where the parents work but are still in poverty. How can it possibly be fair, in next week’s Budget or at some point in the future, to cut the tax credits for those families? All he has said today about these measures and everything else will not help the parents of those households to pay the bills when he cuts their tax credits overnight.
Mr Duncan Smith
I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman ever reflects on the fact that people can best get out of poverty by progressing through work. In discussions with Labour Members, I tend to find that they are still wedded to the idea that only through constant and high Government spending can anyone move beyond the status of being in poverty. That is the difference between us: Conservative Members believe that helping, encouraging and getting people back to work and reducing the tax burden on them is likely to get them out of poverty; Labour Members think that only Government spending succeeds.
Point of Order
Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker.
Today it has been announced that, tragically, a couple from Leeds, Christopher and Sharon Bell, who were taking a holiday, were among the victims in the Tunisia massacre. I should like to place on record the condolences of the House.
I seek your advice, Mr Speaker. As the days pass, we know that further victims will be identified. Is there a way in which the whole House can offer condolences to the families at this tragic time?
Mr Speaker
The ingenuity of individual Members can sometimes enable that to happen, as the hon. Gentleman has just demonstrated with some piquancy. He will be aware that the Prime Minister periodically updates the House on losses of life that occur as a result either of tragedy or of evil. I think we will leave it there for today, but I note the concern the hon. Gentleman has expressed, which I am sure is shared in all parts of the House.
Owing to an administrative error, a notice of presentation of Bill did not appear in this morning’s Order Paper as first printed. That has since—I am pleased to say—been corrected.
Bill Presented
National Health Service Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Caroline Lucas, supported by Dr Philippa Whitford, Cat Smith, John Pugh, Hywel Williams, Jeremy Corbyn, Mr Michael Meacher, Dr Eilidh Whiteford, Rob Marris, Kelvin Hopkins, John McDonnell and Mr Roger Godsiff, presented a Bill to re-establish the Secretary of State’s legal duty as to the National Health Service in England and to make provision about the other duties of the Secretary of State in that regard; to make provision about the administration and accountability of the National Health Service in England; to repeal section 1 of the National Health Service (Private Finance) Act 1997 and sections 38 and 39 of the Immigration Act 2014; to make provision about the application of international law in relation to health services in the United Kingdom; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 11 March, and to be printed (Bill 37).
Opposition Day
Equal Pay and the Gender Pay Gap
(8 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
18:58 - The House divided: - Ayes: 261 / Noes: 312 - Question accordingly negatived.
Mr Speaker
It may be for the convenience of the House to be informed—I believe I have been advised correctly—that the second of today’s scheduled Opposition day debates has been pulled, which is to say it has been postponed, and so there will simply be one debate. That is in consequence of the two ministerial statements. We now come to that Opposition day debate and to the motion in the name of the Leader of the Opposition. To move that motion, I call the shadow Minister responsible for these important matters, Gloria De Piero.
Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House notes that, 45 years after the Equal Pay Act 1970, women still earn on average 81 pence for every pound earned by men; welcomes the fact that pay transparency under section 78 of the Equality Act 2010 will be introduced in 2016; and calls on the Government to ensure that this results in real progress to close the gender pay gap by mandating the Equalities and Human Rights Commission to conduct, in consultation with the Low Pay Commission, an annual equal pay check to analyse information provided under section 78 on pay gaps across every sector of the economy and to make recommendations to close the gender pay gap.
The motion stands in the name of my hon. and right hon. Friends. May I take this opportunity to welcome the new Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equalities and Family Justice? I hope she will put her heart and soul into it and I wish her well in the role.
It gives me great pleasure to have called the debate today on the subject of equal pay. If we boil it down, we see that the cause of equal pay is a matter of simple workplace injustice. It is about people’s basic right to be paid fairly for the work they do, to have the opportunity to move up, and to be able to improve life for themselves and their families, regardless of whether they are a working man or a working woman.
Equal pay is a fight that colours the history of the Labour party and movement, from women tram and bus conductors who went on strike in 1918, to the women machinists in the Ford Dagenham plant. The House first pressed for equal pay in 1944, in relation to equal pay for men and women teachers. The Conservative Member for Islington East, Thelma Cazalet-Keir, inserted a clause in the Education Bill but it was not to be. Churchill was so incensed that he pressured her to withdraw her amendment, telling her, “Now, Thelma. We’ll have no more of that equal pay business.”
Thelma withdrew her proposal, but Churchill agreed to set up a royal commission on equal pay. Four years later, that commission warned that paying women the same as men
“may prove disastrous in the long run even to young and strong women by heavily overtaxing their nervous and muscular energy”.
Thankfully, times changed, and in 1970 Labour’s Barbara Castle ignored those apocalyptic predictions and passed the Equal Pay Act 1970. Until that time, it was commonplace for jobs to be advertised with one rate of pay for a man, and another for a woman. The Equal Pay Act outlawed discrimination in pay and is still used today by women to challenge such discrimination, but it is not enough. Forty-five years on, women still earn on average 81p for every £1 a man earns.
Throughout our history, my party has fought for equality. We fought for the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, which outlawed maternity and sex discrimination; child benefit; the national minimum wage; a year’s maternity leave and the doubling of maternity pay; 15 hours’ free childcare; and the right to flexible working and paid paternity leave. I am proud that my party cut the pay gap by a third during our time in government, but we did not eradicate it.
I am sure the Secretary of State will say in her speech that the gender pay gap is the lowest on record, but I hope she will also concede that, in the past five years, the pace at which the pay gap is closing has slowed. That is why pay transparency is important. When companies publish data on pay, they are often surprised by how few women are in senior positions or earn the same as their male colleagues, and they usually act to change it.
Last summer, we launched a campaign for pay transparency, which called for a small but important action: that the Government implement section 78 of the Equality Act 2010 and mandate big companies to publish their gender pay gap. It is fair to say the Government put up some resistance, despite an excellent private Member’s Bill from my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion). There was a rally outside Parliament led by a truly unusual and exotic coalition—I am not talking about the Prime Minister and the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr Clegg). Ex-Bond girl Gemma Arterton joined the wonderful Dagenham machinist women, Unite the union members and Grazia magazine readers to call for pay transparency. The Government changed their stance, and I thank them for having the courage to change their mind, because, after all, pay transparency is a pretty humble measure: the simple act of companies that employ more than 250 workers publishing their pay gap. That simple step can help us to take huge strides towards closing the gender pay gap once and for all.
For that to happen, however, the information provided by around 7,000 businesses must lead to change. Transparency is effective only when firms act on the information revealed.
Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)
The hon. Lady is making a powerful speech and some very important points, but she has not touched on a critical factor: for full-time workers, the gender pay gap for women under 40 has all but disappeared.
Gloria De Piero
I will come to the way in which full-time and part-time gender pay gaps are measured. I believe there is a flaw in the measurement. An hour at work is an hour at work, no matter whether someone is part-time or full-time. I for one find it peculiar that the Office for National Statistics makes that distinction. Is it because most women are in part-time work? I fear that that is exactly why.
Friends Life, the big insurance company, was one of the first big companies to publish its pay gap. It said that
“what gets measured, gets managed”
and that
“what gets publicly reported, gets managed better”.
In other words, transparency can lead to real and lasting change. We believe it is time to take that principle and apply it to the whole country.
The purpose of the motion is to propose that the independent Equality and Human Rights Commission should be tasked with analysing the information and producing a report to the Government and Parliament each year. It will monitor progress and make recommendations for action. It will act as an equal pay watchdog. An annual equal pay check would be a tool used to measure progress towards the goal of eliminating the gender pay gap in this generation.
By analysing the information, the EHRC could compare progress in different sectors, highlight areas where the gap is unusually high or widening, and identify companies, professions or industries where the gender pay gap is a thing of the past. We recommend that the EHRC draws on the expertise of the statisticians at the Low Pay Commission, because the disproportionate number of women in low-paid jobs is a major factor in the pay gap. Crucially, the EHRC should make recommendations for action, based on its analysis. It could do that by highlighting the best practice it finds in industries and individual companies, because there is not just one reason for the gender pay gap.
Discrimination still happens. I have spoken to women who are senior executives in investment banks and women working as council care assistants who have suffered because of it. Their stories are real and human.
Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)
The hon. Lady is making a very good speech and an important point, but does she agree that it is unacceptable for Labour-controlled North Lanarkshire Council, which encompasses my constituency, to have dragged the equal pay claims of its hard-working staff through the courts for years at great cost to the taxpayer?
Gloria De Piero
I am not an expert on North Lanarkshire Council, but I would say, in relation to Scotland, that the pay gap has increased while the Scottish National party has been in government. That is a worry and it goes against the trend.
One woman who works in childcare won her equal pay claim after years of being paid less than men working in jobs that required fewer skills. She told me:
“I’d got a fair amount of money through the payout, but all of those years I struggled to pay my bills and the debt I was in as a low-waged woman worker…all those years I was in debt to credit card companies, even though I had been to college for two years. I’d got qualifications; it was a vocation not a job. And I think what would my life have been like if I’d been paid a fair wage?”
Winning an equal pay claim has never been easy. Equal pay claims make up only a fraction of employment tribunal claims. The Government have made the task even harder with the introduction of tribunal fees, which have led to a 69% fall in equal pay claims. Fewer women are accessing justice to challenge pay discrimination.
Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that it is crucial that cost never acts as a barrier to justice?
Gloria De Piero
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Indeed, our manifesto stated that the whole system needs reform, so that nobody is priced out of seeking justice at work.
Pay transparency has never only been about pay discrimination. The causes of the gender pay gap across business and across Britain are far more complex. Why is most low-paid work today done by women? Women do 59% of all minimum wage jobs: a quarter of working women earning less than the living wage, compared with a sixth of men. Why are only 9.6% of executive directors on FTSE boards women?
Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)
The hon. Lady is making a number of very good points and I have a great amount of respect for her. Will she join me in congratulating our female First Minister, the first female First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, who topped the “Woman’s Hour” international influencers poll today? She has instilled one of the first 50:50 gender balance Cabinets and has done a huge amount to champion the cause of equality for women and young girls in Scotland and across the UK.
Gloria De Piero
I always welcome and applaud senior women in our politics. I do not want to be too churlish, but I will put on record that the Labour Benches still have more women MPs, despite the fact that we left office, than all the other parties put together.
By monitoring and assessing the evidence, the annual equal pay check will help us to determine whether the continued existence of the pay gap is driven mainly by a lack of women in top jobs, and enable us to identify the industries in which women are paid less because they are mainly employed in flexible or part-time work.
David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)
The number of women in top jobs is an important issue. I had the privilege, in my business career prior to coming to the House, of working with top female executives such as Angela Spindler and Libby Chambers—people I really respected. Good progress has been made to increase the representation of women on boards. Does the hon. Lady believe that this will help to tackle the challenge that she is rightly putting to the House today?
Gloria De Piero
I am delighted that we have more women on boards, but we have so much further to go. We want women to take decisions and to be in executive roles on boards. I am afraid progress on that is really not good enough.
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
While we are talking about the kind of industries that do not have women at the top, will my hon. Friend join me in congratulating the first woman Bishop of Hull, who will be ordained in York Minster on Friday? Alongside her will be our first female chief constable of Humberside police. Indeed, I will be there too, as the first women ever to represent a constituency in Hull. This is about increasing young women’s chances of having those types of careers, as well as others.
Gloria De Piero
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Those moments of progress are indeed reasons to celebrate. What happens in schools is really important. The decline of careers advice and work experience will take us backwards in challenging stereotypes in career choices.
Mark Garnier (Wyre Forest) (Con)
The hon. Lady is making a very powerful and thoughtful speech. I ask this question in the interests of genuine debate and gaining information. We have heard that we do not have enough women in senior positions. It is possible that that is because we have not reached a tipping point where more women feel it is perfectly normal to be on a board of directors. Does the hon. Lady think we should employ more positive discrimination to reach that tipping point, so that senior roles become much more acceptable for younger women coming through?
Gloria De Piero
That has certainly worked for non-executive positions on boards. My experience, and the experience of friends and colleagues, is that when in work, women want to progress, take decisions and move up the ladder to executive roles. It is therefore important for us as a country to ask why more women are not in senior positions, because it is not credible that there are simply not enough talented women who could rise to the top of their professions. I think it is fair to say that something else is going on. Nobody wants their daughters, wives or girlfriends to miss out on those kinds of opportunities. This is not just a women’s issue; it is an issue for Britons.
Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is being most generous in giving way. Does she share my disappointment that, rather uniquely, the debate has twice as many women MPs in the Chamber, listening to her excellent remarks, as men? There are only half as many men in the Chamber.
Gloria De Piero
That is why I am so delighted that my hon. Friend has made that intervention. This cannot be seen as a women’s issue; it is a family issue. If women are not paid what they are due, all families are poorer and we are all poorer. It is for that reason that those of us on the Labour Benches have long argued for the gender pay gap to be measured in the difference in hourly wages among all male and female workers—full-time and part-time workers combined. The ONS and the current Government use the figure for full-time workers when referring to the gender pay gap, but that masks the true extent of the pay gap across our economy. An hour at work is an hour at work.
As I am sure everyone in this House would recognise, the gender pay gap in Britain is not simply about the difference between those performing the same work for different pay. It is about the dominance of women in low-paid work, and the lack of highly paid, high-quality flexible and part-time positions at the top of companies that allow parents to balance work and family life.
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
I probably should declare that I have an outstanding equal pay claim against my former employer. It is clear that a number of public bodies have a number of employees—thousands, in fact—with outstanding pay claims. How does the hon. Lady think that should be settled? Should the Government step in and discuss with public bodies how to settle these outstanding claims?
Gloria De Piero
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. It is my understanding that many of the claims in the public sector were resolved under the Labour Government through various means, such as “Agenda for Change” in the NHS and other workplace agreements. If there is further work to do, then of course it should be completed.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
Following on from the point on the numbers game made by the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner), will the hon. Lady comment on the fact that there are more Conservative male Members on the Benches today than there are Labour?
Gloria De Piero
Not proportionally—the shadow Education Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt), is performing the role of Carol Vorderman. It is a delight to see my male colleagues on the Labour Front Bench today.
Some 41% of female jobs are part-time jobs, yet on an hourly basis this part-time work is paid a third less than the full-time equivalent. So, to get a real picture of the extent of pay inequality in Britain between men and women, we have to recognise this full-time/part-time pay gap. Otherwise, we will never take the steps needed to encourage the creation of higher-paid, flexible working at every level in our economy.
Jo Cox (Batley and Spen) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that this is a matter of deep concern affecting young women? Since 2001, there have been, on average, 130,000 more young women a year not in education, employment or training than young men—that is currently 418,000 18 to 24-year-old women. Does she think we need to address that issue specifically, and does she support what the Young Women’s Trust is doing in setting up an inquiry chaired by Sian Williams into female NEETs?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. Before the hon. Lady continues, let me remind Members, especially those fairly new to the House, that interventions have to be short, because it is otherwise not fair for people who sit here all day waiting to make their speeches.
Gloria De Piero
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, and the Young Women’s Trust is doing fantastic work, with Deborah Mattinson at the helm. What my hon. Friend mentioned is, of course, a cause of real concern. Women’s participation in further education over the past five years has almost halved, so I hope that the Government will address those important points.
Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)
I hope my hon. Friend will agree with me. She mentioned women in part-time work, and it was a fantastic and proud moment when the Labour Government enabled councils to get capitalisation to provide equal pay for local authority workers. Does she also agree about the current threat from deregulation and the accompanying rhetoric on legislating to change employment law?
Gloria De Piero
The Labour Government did some fantastic work on equal pay. My hon. Friend will know that we Labour Members never stop fighting for progress and never stop challenging. That is why today is part of the overall journey; we must monitor what happens to make sure that we do not go backwards.
Stephen Phillips (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
The hon. Lady is generous in giving way. I have to say that I have never had any difficulty in being short. The last Labour Government might have done a great deal in this area, but one thing they did not do was indicate that they would bring into force section 78 of the Equality Act 2010. It has taken this Government to do that, so will she explain why the last Labour Government did not consider transparency important?
Gloria De Piero
Gosh—let me explain what happened. Just before we left office, we introduced—led by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), the acting leader of the Labour party—the Equality Act 2010. We passed the Act and section 78 merely needed to be implemented, but the coalition parties decided to ditch that section. [Interruption.] Yes, that is what happened, so I am grateful to the hon. and learned Gentleman for enabling me to remind the House of what happened.
It is extraordinary that even in professions dominated by women—hairdressing, catering, cleaning—the pay gap still exists, while women in skilled trades, including plumbers and mechanics, suffer the biggest pay gap of all. They are paid close to 30% less than their male colleagues. That is an astonishing statistic.
The information that companies will start publishing next year will provide the most comprehensive account of the gender pay gap in this country. It can tell us where progress needs to be made—sector by sector, industry by industry—but only if a central independent watchdog is tasked with ensuring that that happens.
Today, girls are outperforming boys at school and university, but even at ages 18 to 21, women are paid less on average than young men of their age. When women hit their 20s, they are already 5p behind male colleagues. This gap continues to widen throughout women’s working lives, peaking when women reach their 50s when they can expect to earn just 73p for every male pound.
Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)
In later life, one of the issues is child rearing. Does the hon. Lady agree that what the coalition Government did in bringing in shared parental leave will help ease that burden and enable more women to be equal partners in the workplace?
Gloria De Piero
When it comes to parental leave, I welcome any progress. We need to ensure that more dads take paternity leave. That is why at the last election, the Labour party said that we would double the number and increase the funding. Sadly, we are not able to implement what we wanted.
Let me provide a few more figures before I close my speech. If a woman is working in sales or the care industry, the pay gap means losing more than £100,000 over the course of a working life. A woman working in finance or law will stand to lose over £200,000. We do not fight against this injustice for women alone, because no man wants his wife, daughter, sister or mother to be earning less simply because they are a woman. Women should not have to wait another 45 years—or another 70 years, as the UN has estimated—for equal pay in Britain. I hope that today’s motion will be viewed as uncontroversial in many ways, and that the Government will be happy to vote with us.
I understand that the plan is to consult over the summer, so this is about setting the ambition high and securing an annual equal pay check that will use the information soon to be published to drive forward progress and end this injustice once and for all. Labour Members have a long and proud history of campaigning for equal pay. This motion represents the next step on that journey. I commend it to the House.
The Minister for Women and Equalities (Nicky Morgan)
I start by thanking the hon. Member for Ashfield (Gloria De Piero) and her colleagues for securing this important debate on the gender pay gap. I am delighted that we will have almost a full afternoon’s debate in the Chamber on this issue. My hope for the debate is that there will be a real consensus on the causes of the pay gap and on the solutions, some of which the hon. Lady has already set out. I hope, too, that there will be recognition—I think there has been—that this Government are committed to reducing the gender pay gap and to ending pay discrimination.
The gender pay gap is not just a measure of inequality that affects women’s income and ultimately their pensions; it is a measure of lost productivity and lost talent, too. Women make up half the population, but too often their skills are under-utilised in our economy. We need to address this mismatch and optimise the potential for the UK’s economic growth.
The House will be aware of our manifesto commitment to require companies with at least 250 employees to publish gender pay information. I intend to launch a consultation imminently, with a view to making regulations at the earliest opportunity. I know these regulations will have support from all sides and are endorsed in the motion. The consultation will not focus solely on the regulations, but will look at the full range of actions needed to close the pay gap and consign it to history. I hope that that is an ambitious enough target for the hon. Member for Ashfield, who laid down a challenge to me at the end of her speech.
Before I proceed further, I want to be clear on what we mean by the gender pay gap. I know that there is frequently confusion about the relationship between equal pay and the gender pay gap, and that campaigners, the media, and even Members can use these terms interchangeably—but they are not interchangeable. This debate should not focus narrowly on equal pay for equal work, which is already illegal and constitutes unlawful pay discrimination. The gender pay gap measures the difference between men and women’s average salaries. This difference is driven by a number of factors, notably the different careers women tend to enter, and the levels of seniority to which they progress. I will deal with each in turn. It is important to be clear that unlawful pay discrimination is only one driver of the gender pay gap, and not the most significant one.
Antoinette Sandbach (Eddisbury) (Con)
One of the real problems is getting girls to study STEM subjects and to access those highly paid and highly skilled jobs. For example, only 19% of girls who achieved an A* in GCSE physics went on to study the subject at A-level. That compares with 49% of boys. Until we tackle that gap, we will not be able to tackle the gender pay gap.
Nicky Morgan
I know that my hon. Friend has been participating in debates in the House for a number of weeks now, but I would like to welcome her to her position. She is absolutely right in what she says, and I am going to come on to deal with it in more detail, because it is relevant to my work both as Minister for Women and Equalities and as Secretary of State for Education.
As I have said, one of the most substantial causes of the pay gap is the fact that women are still far less likely to work in more highly paid industries. As Education Secretary, I am very conscious of the fact that that begins with the different choices that children make at school. My hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach) has just made the same point.
Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)
The Secretary of State is advancing some powerful and valid arguments. One possible way in which people can tackle the pay gap is to take their employer to a tribunal, but the Government have introduced tribunal fees, and, as a magistrate, I have observed that that has deterred many women from taking their employers to court. The number has fallen by 68%. How does the Secretary of State think we might change that statistic?
Nicky Morgan
I respect the hon. Lady’s experience as a magistrate. The fees were introduced during the last Parliament to reduce a £71 million burden on the taxpayer, but, as she may know, on 11 June the Government announced the start of a post-implementation review. We will consider how successful the policy has been in achieving its original objectives, which include the maintaining of access to justice. Of course, those whose claims are successful can recover the fees.
The important question that we shall discuss today, however, is how we can prevent the need for employees to go to tribunals. There should be no discrimination in the first place, in the context of both equal pay for equal work and closing the gender pay gap. I think that the hon. Lady should wait and see how our review progresses.
Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)
The Secretary of State mentions a review, but is it not already clear from the 68% drop in the number of claims that the fees are not working?
Nicky Morgan
One reason for the introduction of fees was to ensure that people did not have to go through the tribunal process, which, as I suspect we all know from our constituents, is costly, time-consuming and stressful. There are other ways of resolving disputes such as mediation. I do not think it right for us to prejudge what the review will find, and I am not sure that this is the right debate in which to focus on the economic situation with which the Government have had to deal, but the £71 million of taxpayers’ money that we have saved will go towards paying off the deficit and debt that was left to us.
Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)
The Secretary of State referred to alternative ways of dealing with the situation. When she conducts her review, will she take another look at the short-form questionnaire, which enables a woman who believes that she has been discriminated against to ask her employer for certain facts and figures before even going to a tribunal and taking legal action?
Nicky Morgan
The point of the review is to take account of questions of exactly that kind. It is being conducted by the Ministry of Justice, and I am sure that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equalities and Family Justice, who is also a Minister in the MOJ, has heard what the hon. Lady has said.
Girls often do better than boys at school overall, but evidence shows that their subject choices have a direct impact on their future careers and earnings, and that that imbalance can feed directly into our labour market. A proportion of the gap is also due to differences in years of experience of full-time work, or the negative effect on wages of having previously worked part time or—as was mentioned earlier—having taken time out to look after a family. That highlights the important role that employers can play in supporting women in the middle phases of their working lives by providing effective talent management, facilitating access to affordable childcare, and championing flexible working.
We also know that the gender pay gap is higher for older women. For many of them one of the major challenges is keeping their skills updated, but for others the main challenge is the need to reduce their hours to accommodate increased responsibilities to care for children, grandchildren and ageing parents. Again, employers have a key role, namely to provide a supportive working environment that will enable them to get the best out of all their staff. That will include flexible working.
Mrs Miller
The Secretary of State has mentioned older women. I recently looked at some statistics relating to women graduates. For more than 25 years more than 40% of university graduates have been women, and today there are female undergraduates in 53% of the Russell Group universities, which are the best in the country. Given those figures, is the Secretary of State as surprised as I am that fewer than 10% of executive positions in FTSE 100 firms are taken by women?
Nicky Morgan
I am delighted that my right hon. Friend is to be the first Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee. Yes, I am surprised, but I suspect that we all have friends who, although they were just as capable as us at university, did not decide to pursue a career for some reason, or are not as far up the career ladder as we might have expected them to be. I also suspect that that does not apply to all the men whom we may have known at university.
Diana Johnson
May I return the Secretary of State to the issue of the decisions that young people make at school, and the subject choices that they make? Are we not missing a trick? Should we not look to primary schools to make young girls, in particular, aware of the opportunities that may arise from studying science, technology, engineering and maths?
Nicky Morgan
I entirely agree. I shall say more about careers shortly, but, while we want to get the absolute basics right—the reading, writing and arithmetic—there is no doubt about the importance of inspiring young people, particularly girls, and interesting them in STEM subjects. The week that my son spent touring other classrooms and conducting science projects was one of the most exciting weeks that he had experienced. If we can persuade young people—again, particularly girls—to think about careers that they might not otherwise have thought about, such as engineering, we can all be very proud of that.
Rishi Sunak (Richmond (Yorks) (Con)
I am blessed to be the father of two young daughters. Will my right hon. Friend update the House on the initiative “Your Daughter’s Future”, and explain how it is helping parents like me and, perhaps, many other Members to enable our children to make subject choices that will give them access to the best possible careers?
Nicky Morgan
We launched that programme just before the election. It enables parents to have conversations with their daughters about the types of career that might be out there, the subjects that interest them, and the subject choices that they may need to make in order to secure fulfilling careers. I am delighted to hear that my hon. Friend is the father of two daughters. While it is lovely to have him here, I hope that one of the careers that he might advise them to consider is politics. As we all know, we need more women in the House.
Simon Hoare
I am the father of three daughters, although I am not entirely sure that “blessed” is the word I would always use.
On a serious note, will my right hon. Friend join me in congratulating Blandford school, which is in my constituency? Last Friday, for the third year in a row, not just existing but retired business men and women allowed young pupils at the school to draw on their experience. For instance, they told them how to deal with job interviews and prepare job applications. That is exactly how we should go about abolishing the pay gap.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. I want to enable all Members to speak. May I say to new Members that if they make short interventions, every speaker will have between eight and nine minutes. If they can stick to that, everyone will be well served.
Nicky Morgan
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.
I congratulate Blandford school, in my hon. Friend’s constituency, on its initiative. There are indeed many people who can inspire pupils of all ages by telling them about the career choices that are available to them. I know my hon. Friend’s three daughters well, and I know exactly who wears the trousers in his household.
Let me now make some progress. I was talking about seniority. As we know, women are still less likely to progress up the career ladder. They represent 47% of the work force, but only 34% of managers, directors and senior officials. We also know that women are sometimes not as well paid as male colleagues even when they achieve similar seniority. That may, of course, be the result of direct discrimination—which, as I have said, is already illegal—or it may be more subtle, and reflect, for example, men's greater willingness to negotiate pay rises. Either way, on this issue, the existing legal protections have a clear role to play. However, I hope that I have made it clear that the causes of the pay gap are complex. The response from Government and employers must therefore reflect that complexity and avoid over-simplifying the issue, which unfortunately still happens. That is precisely why under this Government we are taking action on all fronts. It is why we are taking action to raise girls’ aspirations, to support women with childcare and to get more women up the career ladder.
Our efforts must start early. I am passionate about the work we are doing to raise aspirations in schools and to ensure that no child, regardless of their gender, race or background, thinks that some careers are not for them.
Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)
On that note, does my right hon. Friend think we should provide more careers advice in schools, particularly through businesses and engineering companies? Should not more advice be provided on science, especially in relation to the STEM subjects? We can then help women to progress up the career ladder in those areas where we have a gap, and perhaps role models would be helpful.
Nicky Morgan
I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. She might have seen an advance copy of my speech, because I am going to talk about careers advice. Perhaps I should just press-release it and then we could move on with the debate.
We are broadening the career aspirations of girls and young women by encouraging them to get into STEM-related careers through the “Your Life” campaign. As we have already discussed, we have also published new guidance for parents, “Your Daughter’s Future”, which we will continue to promote.
As hon. Members have said, support with careers is vital. That is why in December last year I announced a new careers and enterprise company, to be led by employers and independent of Government. That company will help to transform the provision of young people’s careers experiences. It will help to ensure that all young people, irrespective of gender or background, aspire to great things and know how to achieve them. I am delighted to inform the House that Claudia Harris, a former partner at McKinsey and a graduate of Harvard Business School, has been appointed chief executive. Claudia is exactly the role model schools and businesses need, with her passion for female leadership, her drive to excel and to make a difference. I should of course also mention the fabulous chairman, Christine Hodgson. As I always say, if you want something done well, ask women. That is nowhere more true than with the England women’s football team. I am sure we all wish them every success in tonight’s match.
Nicky Morgan
That is a very good point. That is perhaps the next challenge we will have to take on.
We are also taking strong action to ensure that our workplaces are fit for the 21st century. As part of that, the right to request flexible working was extended to all employees from last June. More than 20 million employees now have that right. Working parents now also have the option of taking shared parental leave and pay, which will enable a culture change to take place both in the home and in the workplace.
Affordable, good-quality childcare is vital to enabling parents to stay and progress in work. Almost 2 million families can benefit from our new tax childcare scheme from autumn 2015, worth up to £2,000 per child. In our manifesto, we announced that we would extend the number of free hours from 15 to 30 hours a week for three and four-year-olds from working families.
Ultimately, we know that we cannot address the gender pay gap unless we work with business. We have also strongly promoted and championed the work of the Women’s Business Council, set up by my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), and implemented Lord Davies’ conclusions on women on boards.
Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)
Does the right hon. Lady agree that in order to improve the number of women on boards we must do much more to tackle the pipeline and encourage businesses to promote women internally? From my own experience working in the City of London, senior women were often brought into the organisation but very few women were promoted internally.
Nicky Morgan
I entirely agree. There has been a lot of focus on non-executive positions. The next place to look and on which to work with businesses is the executive pipeline. The hon. Lady is right. Whether we are talking about the education sector, parliamentarians or business, growing that internal talent, working to keep people in the workplace and to promote them is so important.
We have been actively working in partnership with business through the Think, Act, Report initiative. Nearly 300 companies, employing over 2.5 million people, are committed to that initiative, leading the way on gender equality. Those are just some of the steps we have taken in recent years.
We have also strengthened the law so that where an employer has been found by a tribunal to have breached the equal pay or pay-related sex discrimination provisions in the Equality Act 2010, they are now required to conduct and publish an equal pay audit.
Carolyn Harris (Swansea East) (Lab)
Since the Government introduced fees for tribunals, the number of unequal pay cases has fallen by 68%. If the Government are committed to tackling the gender pay gap, why are they making it much harder for women to challenge pay discrimination?
Nicky Morgan
I am not sure the hon. Lady was here earlier when we talked about employment tribunals, the changes made under the previous Government and the reasons for those, but I can confirm that in June we announced the start of the post-implementation review of the introduction of fees in employment tribunals. I know that the Minister will be listening carefully, given her interest and work in the Ministry of Justice.
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)
On a connected point, often the burden of challenging unequal pay falls on individuals though the tribunal system. Does the Secretary of State agree that the Government should consider having class actions and a more robust equality watchdog, which could undertake fee litigation investigations on behalf of claimants, rather than leaving the burden to fall on the shoulders of individual women?
Nicky Morgan
It is certainly something always to be considered. I go back to the point I made earlier. We would much rather not have discrimination and problems with pay in the first place, and ensure that everyone is paid the right amount for doing the work. The regulations requiring employment tribunals to order an equal pay audit, which is what happens when an employer is found to be in breach of equal pay law, came into force on 1 October last year. We are not aware yet of any cases where an audit has been ordered, but that is another way in which employers’ minds might be concentrated, if they are found guilty of breaching the equal pay laws.
Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)
The right hon. Lady mentioned the review of charges in tribunals. What is of greater importance—saving £71 million, or justice for women?
Nicky Morgan
I know that the hon. Lady is new to the House and that she will not have seen all the debates in the previous Parliament when we talked about the impact of her party—the economic legacy left to us and the justice—[Interruption.] The issue, honestly, is that the best way to have justice for women and children, given the earlier statement by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, is to have an economy that works for all, where there are jobs for all, paying good wages, and where we help all children to reach their aspirations.
Chris Stephens
On equal pay audits and employers, some of those employers who are found liable will be public bodies. Indeed, public bodies are being taken to tribunal at the moment, as I indicated earlier, including my former employer, Glasgow City Council. If public bodies are found liable with regard to equal pay at tribunal, what action will the Government take to help them because they will say, “This is costing the taxpayer money”, and will go to the Government for some of that to be recouped?
Nicky Morgan
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. Of course if a public body were found to be liable we would need to work out what the situation was and the context in which that had occurred, but I go back to a point that was made earlier. To be fair, the motion says, “Let’s have the transparency, and the regulations and the consultation, so we know exactly where there is a gender pay gap,” and therefore employers, before being taken to a tribunal, can address the issue for themselves, rather than—I say this as a former lawyer—providing more work for the lawyers and less immediate pay equality for people working in those organisations.
As a result of the actions this Government have taken, and as a result of having a strong economy, women are playing a greater role than ever before in the labour market. There are more women in work than ever before. There are also more women-led businesses than ever before, and critically, as the hon. Member for Ashfield said, the gender pay gap is the lowest on record—she obviously knew that I would point that out at some point. I am pleased to say that it has been virtually eliminated among full-time workers under 35.
The hon. Lady also talked about the full-time and part-time differences. That is interesting because the gender pay gap based on median hourly earnings, excluding overtime, has narrowed for full-time employees to 9.4% compared with 10% in 2013, and for part-time employees the higher rate of pay for women than men results in a negative gender pay gap. Although there is evidence that the part-time gap has widened in the long term, it has remained relatively stable in recent years, standing at minus 5.5% in April 2014. But the overall points remain: there is a gender pay gap and we would very much like to get rid of it.
While the fact that the gender pay gap has narrowed is something to celebrate, I am in no way complacent. That is why we pledged in our manifesto to go further. We will publish a consultation in the coming weeks to seek views on how best to implement our commitment to require employers to publish gender pay information.
Seema Kennedy (South Ribble) (Con)
In my constituency the gender pay gap figures are worse than the national average, and I would like this to be stamped out. What steps will my right hon. Friend take to encourage businesses to report on the gender pay gap?
Nicky Morgan
I thank my hon. Friend for her question and welcome her to the House. I am about to come on to the regulations that will apply to companies with more than 250 employees. I say to those businesses and employers in her constituency who may not be paying the right amounts that I know she will be an active MP and will be asking them what they are going to do to ensure there is no gender pay gap in their businesses.
I can assure the Opposition that the consultation to which I just referred will consider the mechanisms for monitoring and enforcement.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission may well play a role in monitoring, as is the case for the public sector equality duty, but as hon. Members will be aware the commission already has the ability to carry out the work envisaged in the motion. I must return to my earlier comments on the distinction between equal pay and the gender pay gap, which are unhelpfully conflated in the motion.
Natalie McGarry (Glasgow East) (SNP)
I welcome this debate. Has the Secretary of State seen and acknowledged the Fawcett Society research which shows that since 2010 some 85% of cuts to benefits, tax credits, pay and pensions have been taken from women’s incomes?
Nicky Morgan
I welcome the hon. Lady to the House. I have seen that report. I do not agree with it, and think the figures are flawed, because it makes assumptions about household income and the way men and women—two people in a household—divide their income, and those assumptions are not always right.
Let me return to the motion. All of its suggestions, apart from the formal laying of the annual document before Parliament, can already be done by the EHRC without changes to legislation or instruction by Government. The motion also talks about an annual equal pay check. The critical point here is that I do not think the hon. Member for Ashfield is actually talking about an annual equal pay check; instead, she is talking about an annual gender pay check. An annual equal pay check implies an assessment of the extent to which companies are acting lawfully under the equal pay provisions of the Equality Act and that information would not be obtainable from companies’ gender pay data. I am not saying the issues are not important, but that is the reason for our queries about the motion.
Our aim is to create greater transparency on the gender pay gap. We know from Office for National Statistics data that pay gaps can vary widely by sector. Publishing the data will help companies to understand these differences.
Fiona Mactaggart
The Secretary of State referred to the narrowing of the pay gap for younger women, but it is still stubbornly wide for older women. Will she tell us what she is going to do for those older women who lose their jobs, get stuck in low pay and who are stuck as well looking after their families without proper support from the state?
Nicky Morgan
I talked about the position of older women and the Women’s Business Council. Its “Staying on” strand of work is about helping older women. She may be aware of steps such as the carers pilot that we launched in the last Parliament to help often older women who are juggling caring responsibilities—sometimes for both children and grandchildren while also looking after older relatives—to stay in the workplace, which obviously makes a difference to their pay. However, she is right to say that the gender pay gap is wider for older woman than for younger women. We are seeing the cohort effect, whereby the gender pay gap is even narrower for women who started working in the last decade. Things are changing but I take her point that there is an issue to address for older women, which is why have concentrated on it in the work of the Women’s Business Council.
Most employers recognise the need to attract and retain the best people, and developing and promoting talented women into higher paid, senior roles could help to make companies more competitive. Let me be clear: greater transparency on pay will be good for not only employers, but shareholders, investors and prospective female employees. There is an important point here, which is that we increasingly expect greater transparency from one another.
We are aware from the wide engagement we have already had with businesses that some employers have concerns about publishing gender pay information. We will consider these issues carefully in the consultation—we have established a business reference group to inform our proposals—but we believe that these concerns are largely unfounded.
Angela Crawley (Lanark and Hamilton East) (SNP)
Will the right hon. Lady acknowledge that we face a large task in addressing the gender pay gap? Will she note that the average percentage difference in the UK is 19.6%, with the figures for England and Scotland being 19.5% and 17.4% respectively? There is still much to do to address these issues. Will she also note that the industries she speaks of do not address the acute problems that arise in low-paid sectors and industries? We are talking not only about businesses, but other areas.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
I do not want to be awkward, but may I just help Members by saying, once again, that we must have sharp interventions? They must be quick so that we can let the Secretary of State get on, because I want to get everyone in and it is your debate.
Nicky Morgan
Thank you very much, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am nearly at the end of my speech and I appreciate that Back-Bench Members will want to contribute to this important debate.
The hon. Lady makes a point about the gender pay gap, but I have it as being 19.1%, which is the lowest on record. The shadow Minister mentioned how the gender pay gap in Scotland had perhaps grown while the SNP has been in government, but I will leave it to Opposition Members to debate that. The general point is that the gender pay gap has got smaller, but there remains far more for all of us to do to tackle it. The ONS has calculated the pay gap in my Department to be 13.6%.
Let me conclude by saying that I am very pleased that the House has come together to discuss a very important issue, and I hope it is clear to everyone here and to those listening elsewhere that tackling the gender pay gap is something that I am, and my party is, extremely passionate about. As I set out, the gender pay gap is a complex issue with a range of causes, and I am determined to ensure that no child thinks a career is off limits because of their gender, race or background. That is why our efforts to tackle this issue must span right across society. I hope that all Members will join me in supporting these efforts to make the gender pay gap a thing of the past. As I have explained, we do not think that the motion is quite right, and there is a confusion between equal pay and the gender pay gap. For that reason, we will be asking Members not to support the motion, although we support the principle of getting rid of the gender pay gap.
Angela Crawley (Lanark and Hamilton East) (SNP)
I echo the sentiments of my hon. Friend the Member for Livingston (Hannah Bardell) in congratulating the First Minister on making top place in the list of the 100 most powerful and influential women in the UK. I also recognise the work of the Scottish Government in creating a 50:50 Cabinet, and the importance of ensuring that this Chamber, and all Chambers of democracy, receive 50:50 representation.
It is my pleasure to speak in this important debate and to open on behalf of my party. I regret that, in this day and age, this debate has to take place, but it does and I welcome the consensus from all parties on the fact that progress has to be made. Across my constituency, I have met many women who say life is still tough for them and their families. They say that, despite the optimistic forecasts from the Chancellor, the recovery he speaks of is not reaching their pay packet. In fact, a report last year showed that it could be almost 100 years until women can expect to be paid the same as men—this while three quarters of company directors, three quarters of MPs and more than three quarters of national newspaper editors are men. That simply is not good enough and more action needs to be taken. More than 40 years after the Equal Pay Act 1970, the pay gap between men and women in the UK remains substantial.
Carolyn Harris
The gender pay gap in Scotland has risen by 0.2% under the SNP. Why does the hon. Lady believe that her Government in Holyrood are failing so badly?
Angela Crawley
I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention, but she is in fact mistaken, as the gap has reduced to 17.4%.
The gender pay gap is not a surprise, as it is women who bear the brunt of the Government’s welfare cuts. But devolution has proved to be a success. It has shown that when the Scottish Government have the power, they take action. The Scottish National party Government are the first Administration ever to pay the living wage to all employees covered by their pay policy—something that has yet to be replicated by the UK Government.
Last year, the Scottish Government’s Finance Secretary, John Swinney, announced that the living wage would rise to £7.85 per hour. My message is clear: giving the Scottish Government powers over employment policy would benefit thousands of women across Scotland and the UK and bring about real progress in tackling low pay. The SNP Scottish Government have taken great steps to help parents, especially mothers, back into work or education by extending access to childcare. Provision for three and four-year-olds is up 45% since the SNP took office in 2007, saving families up to £707 per child. The entitlement has been extended to thousands of two-year-olds from Scotland’s most disadvantaged families. Some of the powers that we need to go further remain in this Parliament.
If the UK Government are not willing to take action on equal pay, they should not stand in the way of the Scottish Government. They should give the Scottish Parliament the powers it needs to make real change. As parliamentarians, we have a duty to ensure that, once and for all, pay inequality is a thing of the past. But the problem of unequal pay extends beyond this Conservative Government. The Labour party may talk a good game on equal pay, but the facts tell a different story.
South Lanarkshire council, on which I was a councillor before I joined this House, has a Labour majority, but the gender pay gap is a staggering 16%, and substantially more men than women are in higher grade posts. It was only a year ago that the council had to make a £75 million pay-out mainly to female workers in the equal pay scandal that has swept many local authorities. This situation is simply unacceptable and the Labour party in South Lanarkshire must get its act together when it comes to paying women the same as men.
Thanks to my colleagues in the Scottish Parliament, new labour market figures published a few weeks ago showed that female employment in Scotland has reached a record high. They reported that female employment now stands at 72.5%, that youth unemployment is at its lowest level in six years and that the number of people in work continues to grow. That is a testament to the strong action taken by the SNP Government with the economic powers that they currently hold, which is exactly why we need more economic powers to be transferred. We should have the power to create even more jobs and better jobs for women, rather than the current situation where those powers are held by the UK Government. The SNP Government have proved their record on gender equality. They have proved their commitment to equality in the workplace, which is why they should and must be given the power to build on their success.
Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley) and no one could doubt her commitment to these issues. I also wish to congratulate the hon. Member for Ashfield (Gloria De Piero) on securing this important debate. Everyone can see from the level of participation so far that there are many Members who are interested in contributing, so I will try to keep my comments as brief as I can.
It is important that we recognise the achievements that have been made in reducing the gender pay gap not just by this Government but by other Governments over recent years. If we go back to 1992, when Baroness Shephard first became Minister with responsibility for women, we can see that we have made enormous progress, and that is coming out in some of the statistics that have been rehearsed today.
As I said earlier, the gender pay gap has fallen dramatically in full-time jobs for people under the age of 40. Although regional and industry variations still exist, it is important that we acknowledge the progress that has been made. Indeed, the full-time pay gap is the lowest and narrowest since records began. Progress has not been as good, however, for those in part-time work or those over the age of 40. It is on those two matters that we need to focus. I will try to have a conversation with the hon. Member for Ashfield about this later, but I am not sure that removing the segmentation of the data would give us the clarity we need in trying to find the answers to some of these problems.
It is right that every woman in this country should have the same right as every man to a job that uses their talents and does not marginalise them simply because of their gender or their caring responsibilities. The policies put in place over the past five years by the coalition Government have created momentum for further progress in the next few years. The modernisation of the workplace will help women across the board, whether through the support for career choices mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, such as the “Your Life” campaign, or through parental leave, the right to request flexible working, or tax relief on childcare. All those things will help to give women the same sorts of opportunities as their male counterparts and I applaud and welcome all of them, but I think that all right hon. and hon. Members in the House today will agree that there is an economic and social justice imperative to continue to tackle the gender pay gap, which is why I welcome today’s debate.
To put it simply, girls outperform boys throughout the education system and have done so not just for years but for decades. We are selling the country short by not allowing the best people to do the best job that they can. More than 60% of female youngsters get five good GCSEs, 10 percentage points higher than boys. Today, 29% of girls and 19% of boys achieve the EBacc. Girls outperform boys in English and maths at school and, as I said earlier, 53% of Russell Group university undergraduates are women. More women get first-class degrees than men and 70% of law graduates are women, yet just 20% of judges in this country today are women.
That has not happened just over the past few years. For more than 15 years, more women have gone to university than men and 25 years ago, when perhaps many of us were in university, 40% of university graduates were women—and they are in their late 40s today. We have an enormous talent pool that is alive and kicking, and we should do everything we can to use it in a country that is enjoying renewed economic success.
The Secretary of State talked about the causes of the gender pay gap and she is right that career choice is important, as is time out of the labour market. Some of the changes that have been made will help to fix those causes, but there is much more to do. I want to close by focusing on three different areas and I hope that when the Minister responds she will be able to reflect on them a little more.
The first is the importance of part-time and flexible working and ensuring that there are more opportunities for skilled part-time working. I have some sympathy with the Opposition’s motion today—although I think the Secretary of State is right that it contains some flaws—but we need to understand the data on flexible working. Indeed, the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee produced a report in 2013—I think that the Secretary of State might have been a member of the Committee at around that time—that recommended that more data needed to be collected on flexible working and part-time working. I would be interested to know what progress the Government are making on collecting and publishing data on working practices in that area. The Committee also asked the Government to consider their data collection. In 2013, just 3% of Foreign Office staff worked flexibly, whereas about 40% of Department for Work and Pensions staff did so. Collecting data is important. Are we really confident that we have the data available to understand where part-time working occurs and how successful it is?
My second point relates to older women in the workplace—something that the right hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) mentioned in her intervention. An enormous amount of change is going on and there is good momentum, but I would be concerned if anyone felt that the momentum that we see in younger women’s working practices will simply work its way through the system because I do not believe that that is true.
Some good work has been done, again, in the DWP on the challenges that older women face, particularly with work opportunities. It is particularly telling that in 1983 the British social attitudes survey showed that 13% of women aged 45 to 64 thought that employers gave them too few opportunities when they got older; today, the figure is 71%. Older women are not seeing opportunities to get back into employment, and they find it difficult to balance employment with their caring responsibilities. The carers pilot was an incredibly important piece of work to put in place. I hope that the Minister can tell us about the pilot’s findings and say when an action plan will be produced.
Finally, the role of women in senior management has been rightly a focus for many Ministers in recent years, and I am sure that we would all commend the Davies commission report, which has done so much to promote women’s involvement in non-executive positions on boards.
Hannah Bardell
The right hon. Lady makes a point about women in executive positions. Before I came to the House, I worked for an oil and gas services company where I was one of three women in a senior leadership team of 23. Does she not think that we need to do even more to encourage women into those executive positions, including by extending childcare, to which the Scottish Government have given a lot of support?
Mrs Miller
Governments across the United Kingdom will support women reaching their potential in whatever position they take. Certainly, in executive positions, that is important, but there has not been enough focus on executive, as opposed to non-executive, positions. The Fawcett Society is right to question whether unconscious bias is at play here, particularly in respect of the work that executive search firms could do to enhance the number of women candidates put forward. That is another area of work that the Government need to continue to make progress on.
Today’s debate is incredibly important, but we would be wrong to think that it will produce the progress that we need if we say that it is just about monitoring data or putting in place commission reports, although I know that that is not what the hon. Member for Ashfield is talking about. We need a culture change, which needs to be driven by changing working practices and by the sort of things that the Government have been doing in recent years.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. May I stress working on the basis of eight minutes? I do not want to impose a time limit, but I want to ensure that everyone gets equal time.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
My speech today is about equality. Equality is not a women’s issue; it is a society issue. I say this because, if a woman is unable to reach her true potential, the whole of society is worse off, and that is exactly why we need this debate. It is exactly why, when people ask me if feminism still has a place, I can stand up and say, “Yes, definitively, it does,” because feminism is about equality, and that is still a long way off.
In the last Parliament, I was extremely fortunate to be supported, guided and helped by my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Gloria De Piero) and her team. I tabled a ten-minute rule Bill on gender pay equality. I wanted companies with more than 250 employees to publish their figures on the gender pay gap. A voluntary scheme had been in place since the Equality Act 2010, but under the scheme, only four companies released figures to show how much women were paid compared with men. I am delighted that 300 companies now do so—but just 300. Why would companies be reluctant to publish those figures if they have nothing to hide? Why should a woman have to carry out her own research to see whether she is receiving the same pay as her male counterpart? We need a mandatory requirement for companies to publish those figures, so that those that pay women equal pay for equal work can be celebrated and those that do not can be challenged.
In my constituency of Rotherham, women earn just 77p for every £1 a man earns. That is £200,000 over her lifetime—£200,000 that her family are missing out on. That simply cannot be right. I am proud that my Bill was overwhelmingly voted through its first stage in the previous Parliament, but I am still incredulous that eight Members voted against. I expect that the Government will take that mandate and look at putting it into practice. Today, I ask the Secretary of State to make a commitment to that effect, clarify the timetable and put her weight behind it.
However, pay is not the only area where women are still struggling to gain equality. In politics, the figure for women leading local authorities is only 13%. The Prime Minister has filled only one Cabinet post in three with a woman and the Chamber has limped up to 29% of women MPs. In the media, there is only one female editor of a national daily newspaper and only 24% of news stories are about women. In work, only 17% of directors of FTSE 100 companies are women and 70% of minimum wage earners are women. Women are consistently underrepresented throughout society, and until we tackle that head on I am afraid that little will change.
There are also direct links between the Government’s austerity programme and the disproportionate effect on women. Women’s unemployment has recently peaked at a 24-year high. Cuts to public sector jobs disproportionately affect women, as we make up two thirds of the public sector’s workforce. Cuts to benefits disproportionately affect women too, as benefits typically make up a fifth of women’s income, whereas they make up a tenth of men’s income.
Let me give an example of how we systematically discriminate against women. A recent survey of more than 2,000 working mums found that more than half would be forced to stop work or significantly reduce their working hours as a result of a cut to support for childcare costs. From politics to media, work to childcare, women are being systematically pushed down.
We are almost 100 years on from the suffragettes winning their fight for votes for women. We are approaching 50 years since the women of Ford Dagenham put down their tools and walked out in their fight for equal pay. We should be doing better than this by now, but if we think our fight for equality in the UK is hard, we should look to the rest of the world and know that we are not alone and that we are fighting this cause together.
That is why we must give our full commitment to the sustainable development goals. Those 17 goals can change the world we live in by 2030. The fifth goal is to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. It sounds ambitious, but it needs to be if we are to achieve a world where women can live freely, are empowered to make their own voices heard, can live the life they want on their own terms and reach their full potential.
One of the biggest blocks to women and girls reaching their full potential is violence. Since my election, I have been working on tackling child sexual exploitation, in my constituency and nationally. That exploitation is disproportionately of girls, and we see the same pattern with all forms of child abuse and domestic violence. Those crimes have a direct bearing on the economic potential of women due to the mental, physical and health issues involved, but there is also an effect on their confidence—their ability to ask for a pay rise and to put themselves forward.
The grim reality is that, in the UK, on average, two women a week are killed by a violent partner or ex-partner, and up to 3 million women and girls experience rape, abuse, domestic violence or stalking each year. In 2011, the forced marriage unit advised more than 1,450 people relating to possible forced marriage, 78% of whom were women or girls.
I have been trying to grasp the root causes of violence against women and girls, rather than focusing on the outcomes. I have spoken to countless survivors of abuse and met approximately 60 young Rotherham women to try to understand what needs to be done to tackle this escalation in violence. I am of the firm belief that there has been a shift in cultural norms, with young girls now accepting their “commodification” and violence from a partner, or indeed viewing it as normal.
How do we move on from that? Our first step is in empowering young children with the knowledge that they need to understand when things have crossed a line. We need to help them, from an early age, to understand what a respectful relationship is and is not, and how to speak out if they find themselves in an inappropriate relationship. I am a passionate advocate of the NSPCC’s PANTS scheme, which teaches little children that their privates are just that—private. Every child, once they reach school age, should be taught this for their own protection, and so that they do not grow up and perpetuate abuse of others because they do not know any better.
Ms Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh (Ochil and South Perthshire) (SNP)
The hon. Lady is making some excellent points and I am enjoying her speech very much. How can we tackle abuse at the young age that she is talking about, among children in school? Would it be worth while trying to introduce a scheme to normalise female leadership from a very young age in schools and beyond?
Sarah Champion
I completely agree. This is about empowerment, enabling all children to reach their potential both at a young age and as they grow up, and the direct impact that being treated with disrespect has on their potential to reach their full financial and economic growth, which directly affects their immediate family.
I am not advocating teaching little children about sex, but I am saying that every child at key stage 1 should understand about valuing themselves and others. They should understand their rights to respect and privacy, and understand what to do if those rights are violated. We cannot protect children 24/7 from abusers, but we can teach children to protect themselves.
Violence against girls and women is not a problem that can be fixed overnight, but perpetrators do not reach adulthood and decide one day that they are going to abuse a girl. It is not an on/off switch where one day they are fine and the next day they are a perpetrator of domestic violence or child abuse. It is a slow erosion of boundaries that happens over years. Instead of waiting to deal with the crime, we need to empower our young people with positive examples of relationships, using their years in education for positive interventions in an attempt to prevent violence occurring. Building on that, I intend to work with a number of the leading charities to try to engage the country and decision makers in challenging the stereotypes that are repressing women.
Angela Crawley
Does the hon. Lady agree that the key is the education not only of young women, but of young boys and men?
Sarah Champion
I completely agree, which is why I spoke about educating children, and why at the very beginning I said that this was not a women’s issue, but a society issue. Unless we address it at that level, we will not move forward at all. We need to empower all children, but young girls in particular need to be given support and encouragement so that they can reach their full potential.
Jo Churchill (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to deliver my maiden speech as the first female Member of Parliament for Bury St Edmunds.
First, I pay tribute to my predecessor, David Ruffley, a man who is good with numbers. In 2002, he was a fierce critic of the then Government’s handling of the economy. As a Treasury Committee member, he was a regular interrogator of the finance sector. For 17 years, he was a great constituency MP.
I turn to my constituency, Bury. Come and visit it—you will fall in love. It is rich in history. St Edmund, the town’s namesake, was England’s first patron saint. He was killed by invading Danes in 869. His head was severed and then protected by a wolf. Less gory and particularly auspicious this year is the fact that in 1214 the barons met in our abbey to plan Magna Carta, the document that enshrines our freedoms.
Let us fast forward some 800 years. Bury is the finest shopping destination in the east of England, a vibrant, dynamic constituency stretching along the A14. It includes Stowmarket and Needham Market, beautiful villages such as Walsham-le-Willows, Beyton and Thurston, great tea stops at Wortham and Alder Carr, and the most fabulous cricket club at Woolpit. In Suffolk’s glorious countryside the needs of farmers and environmentalists co-exist, as they should. Great farming to enhance our food security should be evidence-led, but care of our environment should also be evidence-led. These two objectives must not be mutually exclusive.
But what really makes my constituency special is the people—at the hospitals, in the schools and behind the front doors; quiet, determined and funny—such as the old boy I met while campaigning and asked, “Have you lived in the village all your life?” He looked at me and replied, “Not yet.” You see, people and fairness are my passions.
In this place, my thanks go to the staff, who have helped us all to settle in. They have been unfailingly lovely. Its traditions are quickly becoming part of the working day. For a start, getting the right Division Lobby is not always easy, as I am sure the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil) will confirm.
Fellow Members’ maiden speeches have moved and inspired me. Two young men on opposite sides of the House have brought recent military experience to help inform good decision making when providing for our servicemen and women. Teachers, postmen, business people, doctors, nurses and carers all bring their knowledge to this place, hopefully giving the electorate what they crave: a more representative Parliament.
My motivation to come to this place; sits on survival, resilience and possibility. As a double cancer survivor, I thank the nurse who in 1995 held my hand all night while we discussed the future for my one and two-year-old children. Her politics were irrelevant, but her care was essential. In 2010 it was a different cancer, but it was an amazing doctor who cared for me. By then, it was our four teenage daughters’ reaction to the news. The NHS is wonderful, with the drugs, technology and care provided by the health service and businesses, working efficiently when good leadership allows. But it cannot be immunised against change when that is required.
Raising our four daughters, all under five, while building a business, I have worked with their schools as a governor and friend. Between them they have 52 years of great state education. I want that for every child. Accountability and joint responsibility lead the way. Having run that business for over 20 years, I think that a lot of nonsense is spoken in this place about small and medium-sized enterprises in particular. I hope that the knowledge that has entered the House this time with colleagues will allow us to defend the owners and creators of our businesses.
The businesses in my constituency, like those up and down the country, work hard. They create the jobs. They pay the wages that allow a tax take. They hopefully pay corporation tax. Tax pays for what we need and want. Poor business practice should be penalised. Late payment and bank lending is still not perfect. Small businesses are the life blood of this economy—we employ 60% of the working population—but businesses need two things to invest and prosper: confidence and certainty.
In 2009 the banks said that they had closed lending to several sectors— construction, which is mine, being one of them. People are bemused at the lack of housing and infrastructure in this country, but they should not be—construction is not a tap that can be turned on and off. Financial mismanagement hurts us all; not just our businesses, but our hospitals, schools and welfare system.
Let me turn to today’s debate. I thank the hon. Member for Ashfield (Gloria De Piero) for bringing this issue to the Floor of the House. That the gender pay gap has shrunk since 2013 is great. That FTSE all-male boards now number zero is fantastic. That 35% of all start-ups are now owned or run by women is excellent. But it is not enough. The target for female representation on those FTSE boards was just 25%. Amusingly, there are more chief execs on FTSE boards called John than there are women, so, if we do not have a proliferation of men called John, we still have some work to do. Shamefully, as been pointed out, women are paid, on average, 19.1% less than men for doing the same job—and that is the best we have ever been. Who does not want to see parity of opportunity, representation and pay?
Women are survivors. They have resilience. More women are carers for disabled children and elderly relatives. Women have to balance careers and children. I look to them to inspire those children to become our engineers, our nurses and our business owners of the future. I speak to this House as a woman, obviously, and as a daughter, but most importantly as a mother—and a highly competitive mother. Earlier, I heard from an hon. Friend with two daughters and one with three; I have four. As the mother of those four daughters, I ask whether it is right that in 2015 their efforts, their diligence and their merit will be rewarded less than that of their male counterparts, or that their opportunities will be narrower. I think we all know the right answer to that.
I welcome this debate and the opportunity to work with all Members of Parliament, not least in my capacity on the Women and Equalities Committee, and the chance to champion the needs of my Bury St Edmunds constituents.
Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)
I congratulate the new hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill) on her maiden speech.
It is very hard to articulate how grateful I am to the voters who put their faith and trust in me on 7 May and how proud I am to stand before you as the new Member of Parliament for Bermondsey and Old Southwark. It is also a privilege to be able to join in this debate on equalities. Women in Bermondsey and Old Southwark can expect to earn only 83p for every £1 earned by men locally. My background experience in the past 10 years has been in the charity and public sectors tackling inequality, particularly disability inequality due to my family experience of growing up with a parent with a severe mental health problem.
Having had an unusual upbringing, I found it a little strange that the House of Commons Library described the seat as unusual also. It chose that adjective because, in researching the maiden speeches of previous Members, it found that I am only the third Member of Parliament for Bermondsey to make a maiden speech since the second world war. My predecessor, Simon Hughes, served for 32 years and his predecessor, the Labour MP Bob Mellish, served for 36 years. It has already been pointed out to me how hard I will have to work in order to sustain anything like that kind of average.
It has also been unfairly suggested that it would be difficult for me to say positive things about my predecessor because we come from different political parties. That is as untrue as it is inaccurate. Simon Hughes’s record speaks for itself. He took the seat by surprise in 1983 and put up with media intrusion into his personal life, but he held the seat for that long because of his hard work and diligence in helping thousands of local people every year. While other areas saw a slump in Liberal Democrat support this year, Simon Hughes secured more votes than he did in 2005. Indeed, he got more votes than five of the Liberal Democrat Members who were returned to this place. His personal contribution to so many local people’s lives was what helped him to gain and secure that support. I use this opportunity again to congratulate him on his knighthood. I wish Sir Simon very well. I would like to clarify, though, that I will be less visible than my predecessor within the constituency because I do not plan to adopt his mode of transport. There will be no red cab with my name on the side motoring around the constituency.
The first Labour MP for the constituency was Dr Alfred Salter, who was elected in 1922. It was a privilege to unveil a statue of him and his family last year along the riverside. There is a school and a road named after him locally. He is a genuine legend locally as a healthcare pioneer. He was delivering free medical treatment to local people well before the national health service was established. In an equalities debate it would be remiss of me not to mention his wife, Ada, who was the first Labour woman elected mayor anywhere in the UK, and that also happened in Bermondsey in 1922, which, as Members will know, was before the equal franchise. She is credited with greening the borough in her role as mayor. As patron of Southern park, and with my landscape architect wife, I hope we are continuing her legacy in some small way.
The Salters’ concern for health, wellbeing and the environment lives on in my local borough. Southwark’s Labour council is one of the most progressive in the country. We have the biggest council house building programme. A new park is being provided at the Elephant and Castle through a local development and there is also going to be a new leisure centre. The council will allow local residents to use the swimming pool and gym for free, and it introduced free healthy school meals well before it was central Government policy. I am proud to have served as a councillor on that council since 2010, alongside my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes).
Much has changed in the area since the Salters’ time. We are now far more diverse, but we are also, arguably, far more dynamic. The constituency has the third highest banking and financial sector employment of any constituency in the UK, and we bring more than 7 million tourists into the capital city every year. They come to see the fantastic attractions I am proud to have in my constituency, including Tate Modern, the Globe, the Imperial War Museum, Tower bridge and HMS Belfast.
It is an unusually young constituency. We have four fantastic universities with local bases: the London School of Economics, King’s College, South Bank University and the University of the Arts London. We are also making a massive contribution to house building and tackling the housing crisis locally. The average figure for new home starts in UK constituencies in 2013 was 200; the figure in Bermondsey and Old Southwark was 1,600. Some people have suggested that we would be better termed Bermondsey and New Southwark.
The attraction of living in the constituency is partly the amazing local food and drink industry. I am sure that many Members are familiar with Borough market—it has been there for 1,000 years, so I hope they have noticed it. Bermondsey has had the reputation of being the larder of London for many years. The first tinned food factory anywhere in the UK was opened in Bermondsey in the 1800s. More recently, a market has opened on Maltby Street—please visit—and there are no fewer than six breweries and a gin distillery open locally. I cannot promise to shout everyone a drink, but please do visit.
Despite the positives of such an amazing constituency, inequality is still a massive concern. Child poverty remains stubbornly high across Rotherhithe and Bermondsey in particular. Low pay and unequal gender pay are definitely a factor. It is no coincidence that the justice for cleaners campaign is based in the constituency and helping in particular women from the Latin American community who are working as cleaners.
Some local private sector companies have done very well to introduce the London living wage, including the Ministry of Sound and the Association of British Travel Agents, which is living-wage accredited. The council also delivers the living wage. It is a shame that that example is not being followed in Lanark and Hamilton East, but Southwark has pioneered that policy, including making sure that women who are disproportionately represented in low-paid care jobs are covered by the living wage. I would like central Government to deliver that better in their commissioning and procurement policies.
I am proud of the food and banking sectors locally, but I am less proud of my constituency’s growing food bank sector. This year, 7,000 people are expected to use this central London food bank, including 700 who are in work. Low pay is a very serious concern for me. The citizens advice bureau and Pecan, which provides the food bank, have outlined how Tory welfare waste, particularly over the past five years, has contributed to that food bank growth. I will be throwing myself at making sure that I address inequality in the constituency. Indeed, I have already outlined how I will donate this year’s increase in the MP’s salary to my local food bank.
I hope that the Government recognise that they cannot build one nation on such high levels of in-work poverty. One former Southwark resident, Charles Dickens, who lived just off what is now Marshalsea road, wrote about the best and worst of times, and it is very sad that he would probably still recognise those two cities in a constituency in the heart of London.
I would like to end with a note of thanks not only to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and the Speaker’s team more widely, but to all the staff across the Westminster estate, including those in the canteen and security, for the fantastic and warm welcome I have received as a new Member, no matter how many times I get lost. I am particularly grateful for their advice and support, as I am to the voters of Bermondsey and Old Southwark who put their faith and trust in me. I hope to serve with a degree of passion and diligence and, I hope, some small measure of success.
Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle) for his maiden speech. He is clearly a passionate champion for his constituents, and he gave a moving speech on their behalf. I know his constituency well from having staggered around it twice—on a marathon, I hasten to add—when I was not perhaps in the best of shape. Should matters deteriorate on my daily commute from London Bridge, I now know where I should go, and I look forward to so doing.
I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill), who made a very moving speech. I have got to know her well since we entered the House at the same time, and I have found her to be an inspirational person. She is an absolute winner in business, and she will no doubt be a winner in the House as well. I was moved by her description of the struggles that she has overcome.
I should perhaps follow my hon. Friend’s declaration of interests by declaring that I have three daughters. I say so not in any glib attempt to speak on behalf of their sex, but because the motion is incredibly important to us all. If we have daughters, we want them to be the best they can be, not to suffer any disadvantages or prejudice. That is also true for all of us, because if everybody reaches their true potential, we will be better off as a society and an economy.
I welcome the motion’s recognition of the steps that the Government have taken, including with their new data transparency initiative. I am sure Members from both sides of the House welcome what drives the motion and the sentiment behind its words—the attempt to close the gender pay gap. It should be noted that the direction of travel is heading the right way. Indeed, the current gender pay gap is the lowest on record. For all employees, it is less than 20%, and for full-time employees, it is less 10%. However, the UK still has only the sixth highest gender equality index score in the European Union. We should aspire to close the gap and to lead other European nations in this sphere.
I managed a legal team for many years before I entered the House, and I want to reflect on my 18 years of experience. I wish to highlight three areas that we need to focus on further as subjects for discussion in this debate on how to close the gap. The first area is flexible working, on which we have made hugely encouraging strides. In the legal profession, more women than men are qualifying. Yet, historically, women have found it harder to reach the senior status of partner, Queen’s counsel or managing director within their practice due, among other reasons, to their taking leave to start a family or, indeed, to their leaving the profession.
In my experience, however, employers increasingly recognise and embrace the upside of flexible working. The opportunity to hire an experienced lawyer for three or four days per week over set and fixed hours gave my department more productivity from that individual than it would have had from a full-time lawyer without the same level of experience. It therefore became the norm for members of my team to come in and work under flexible arrangements. Indeed, I had more people working on a flexible than on a fixed basis, and my team was better as a result. It also became the norm for members of my team to make the grade of managing director, notwithstanding the fact that they worked flexibly, either in their hours or from home.
Such hugely encouraging strides would not have occurred when I started out 18 years previously. In that regard, the market, following encouragement by the Government, is recognising the issue and closing the gender pay gap, via demand and supply in an increasingly competitive labour market.
The second area is quotas. If flexible working arrangements recognise talent and allow employers to take advantage of experience and talent, quotas for board members are a good example of how forcing the issue can have damaging consequences for those we are seeking to help. Seniority can be gained only by experience and endeavour. A voluntary approach to targets, with transparency and publication of data, is likely to encourage employers to see the positive benefits of having a diverse board of all talents. To fast-track any individual, male or female, to a board to meet a quota is unlikely to lead to good career practice for that inexperienced individual, and it is even less likely to benefit the workforce of the company.
I note that the latest figures show that the proportion of women on the boards of FTSE 100 members has increased from 12.5% in 2011 to 22.8% in 2014. That is a welcome change, but the figure remains too low. I encourage companies to use models that other companies have adopted. Some companies invest in senior staff and mentor and coach them to board level to escalate their progress and achievement. I encourage the Government to consider tax incentives for those who practise that approach. However, any Government quotas to force the issue on companies would not only amount to state interference, but do little to help individuals to enjoy a long and lasting career at the top.
The third area I wish to explore is data—not the most inspirational of words, but the key, in my view, to unlocking poor practices. By requiring companies with more than 250 employees to publish data on the difference between the average pay of men and women, it should be easier for individuals to assess why they lag behind the opposite sex and to work with their employer to take action. It should also ensure that companies review discrepancies. Hopefully, they will close any unjustifiable differences before publishing. Those who do not operate fairly will lose their talent. With an increasing need to retain top talent, the market should help to force best practice to the top. The number is fixed at 250 employees, but publishing data should encourage best practice for smaller companies and encourage them to adopt the same processes. Smaller companies should find it easier to get their hands on the data, so I hope the practice spreads all the way to them, too.
In conclusion, I welcome the drive behind the motion to recognise the improvements that have been made. The House should unite in encouraging employers to go further. I recognise the achievements my Government have delivered in this sphere and applaud the latest initiative to force data disclosure on companies. I reflect on the Government’s key deliverable to empower all genders in the workplace—namely, a state that creates the economic climate for growth. Our companies then increase the supply of jobs. Employees have options in the jobs market and can demand to be paid their worth, benchmarked against the new gender data, or they can exercise their rights in the labour market and move to a more enlightened employer who will pay them more, thereby bringing us closer to gender pay equality. There is a record number of women in the workplace. In my view, that is the key deliverable in tackling gender pay inequality.
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill) and my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle) on two outstanding maiden speeches. I believe they will do a tremendous job in this Parliament in standing up for their constituents.
I welcome the debate and the opportunity to speak, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Gloria De Piero) on calling it. It is an incredibly important issue. As we have heard from many hon. Members, it is an issue for men as much as women. It is an issue for our nation as much as it is for our economic benefit and local communities. As well as being an end in itself, the debate is important in sending a message that women’s labour is equal to men’s.
I was pleased to hear the Minister’s commitment and her words about the importance of transparency. However, it is a shame that it has taken the Government so long to recognise that transparency is a key step on the pathway to action. As has been mentioned, the previous Labour Government introduced rules on pay transparency in section 78 of the Equality Act 2010. It was only earlier this year, when Labour tabled an amendment to the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015, that the Government gave in, having voted down a proposal as recently as December 2014. That happened even after we had launched a campaign to implement pay transparency that was supported by Grazia. I was incredibly proud to be part of that.
I welcome the Government consultation that will be conducted over the summer. I will certainly contribute my thoughts to it.
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that it is only under Labour Governments that the equal pay issue has been pushed forward, and not under Conservative Governments?
Seema Malhotra
My hon. Friend makes a valid point. Labour’s commitment to pay transparency and equality, and to gender equality, has been second to none in the history of Parliament.
It is 45 years since we passed the Equal Pay Act 1970, but in my constituency there is still a 13.3% pay gap. Women earn 87p for every pound that a man earns. That will continue to come as a shock to the men and women in my constituency—the engineers, the shop workers, the public sector workers, the small business employees and carers—who are earning a wage. They will consider themselves to be treated equally until they realise that there is actually pay inequality.
A number of incredibly important issues have been raised in this debate, particularly on the perception of the causes of pay inequality, whether relating to careers advice, role models, social attitudes or care responsibilities that can impact on women’s ability to hold down a full-time job. My hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) raised important points about the impact that violence against women and girls can have on employment and on self-esteem. The ability to hold down a stable life has an impact on their experience in the workplace. I recognise and celebrate the work of the Women’s Business Council, which does a lot to tackle inequality in business.
I want to raise one issue in particular that I believe contributes to pay inequality: the perception of jobs in gender stereotypes. I want to ask where the agency of change is, because I do not want the debate to turn into a discussion about what women need to do differently. The debate needs to be about what business and society does and thinks, and how they need to change. Too often, pay has been set based on perceptions of whether something is a “woman’s job”. In a “man’s job” the perception will be that a woman might do it less well. In this Parliament, we have to break such perceptions. We need to say that there should be no glass ceilings and no no-go areas for women in any sector of employment.
Dawn Butler
My hon. Friend is making a compelling case for why Members on all sides of the House should support the motion. The Secretary of State said that she supports the motion in principle. Should we just urge Government Members to support us?
Seema Malhotra
I continue to urge the Government to follow our lead. They have a few hours in which to do that, and I am sure all Opposition Members would welcome it.
I want to share a couple of cases of stereotype-busting by women who have entered different professions or jobs, starting with my sister. I do not have daughters, so I may just talk about sisters. I have three sisters—perhaps that can be a new dimension of the competition today. My sister is an engineer. She works with racing cars in America and is often the only woman involved in any particular race. She started out life, as I did, at the Green School in Hounslow. Being a racing car engineer was not part of the careers advice. Being a politician was not part of my careers advice either. I remember asking whether we might invite a politician to speak at the school and was told that we did not really want to be political.
I want to share the story of someone I met yesterday, a young woman called Caitlin, who is on an apprenticeship. She is a fork-lift truck driver, among other things. When I was shown how to operate an electric forklift truck by her in Feltham, I can honestly say that she was an inspiration to me, as someone who is busting a stereotype in the work she is doing. She is setting a true example, leading and encouraging others to take the pathway to a career in logistics.
I welcome the Government’s consultation, and I look forward to continuing debate and dialogue on this issue. I also want to support today’s call from Opposition parties for an annual gender pay check for this simple reason: there is no point in having a target, as aspiration or a process without a method of delivery being put in place behind it. I believe that this is a proportionate measure—one that would fit in well with the work of the Equality and Human Rights Commission and one that would make a useful contribution to ensuring the achievement and the outcome of gender pay equality that we all wish to see.
Amanda Solloway (Derby North) (Con)
I would first like to congratulate the two Members who made their maiden speeches today. It was excellent to hear about Bury St Edmunds, and I like the idea of going shopping there. I am pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill) shares my delight in getting lost! I must come and visit the breweries, which sounded really good.
My Derby North constituency has often led the way when it comes to industry, manufacturing and business—and, once again, our city has shown that it is ahead of the curve when it comes to addressing inequalities. I share the concerns of Labour Members that we are still talking about a gender pay gap in 2015, but I know that this Government have made huge strides to decrease the gap across the country. In fact, in my own constituency, there is a disparity of 9.1% in the other direction—that is, women are paid 9.1% more on average than men! I am proud of the advances that my city has made when it comes to promoting women in the workplace. I am also rather proud of the advances that it made when it elected me as its first female MP. I would urge all right hon. and hon. Members to visit Derby and see just how we do it.
On a national level, the Government have made some good steps towards reducing the gender pay gap, although we need to do more, and I am very supportive of the action taken so far to maximise women’s contribution to economic growth and to address this disparity. I am sure that nobody on the Government Benches is talking about positive discrimination, as Conservatives base their beliefs on equality of opportunity for all. As a woman, I believe that we should be promoted and selected on our merit. I believe, too, and always have believed, that we should have equal pay for equal roles and equal opportunities for all.
This kind of equality in the workplace is vital, and I am passionate for everyone to have access to a fair and flexible labour market that draws on individual talents, skills and experience. In order to achieve that, we need to be working on increasing the confidence of all young people—especially that of young women, who should be encouraged at an early age to have high expectations for equal pay and high expectations for their achievements in the workforce.
One way to do this is by having meaningful work experience, so an organisation such as Young Enterprise adds value to the workplace. Campaigns such as the “This Girl Can” have done a fantastic job of boosting the morale of young females in particular, and should go some way to changing attitudes to girls and young women taking part in typically male-dominated activities such as football, boxing and engineering. One of my nieces plays football for Liverpool’s youth team and other nieces are kick-boxing champions!
On engineering, it is very telling that women make up 90% of secretaries and only 7% of engineers. This fact alone raises a whole host of questions that we do not have enough time to discuss today. However, I am sure that these questions will be addressed and will form the basis of the work of my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) in leading her Select Committee on Women and Equalities.
Encouraging girls into STEM careers is vital to our long-term future as a country. Fully to address gender-based pay differences, we need to encourage more women into male-dominated professions. At the moment, women make up only 20% of architects and 18% of actuaries and statisticians. Schemes such as the “Your Life” programme aim to double the proportion of technology degrees taken by women to 30% by 2030—and they have my full support.
Given Derby's rich engineering heritage, the £10 million investment in the “Developing Women Engineers” programme will be very welcome. Boosting local engineering in whatever way we can is one of the best measures we can take to improve our local economy and create jobs and skills. It is important that women play a key role in the engineering future of our city, and I thank the Secretary of State for her support in that regard.
Increasing transparency is also important, and I am pleased that the Secretary of State is to introduce changes that will require companies with more than 250 employees to publish information showing whether there are differences in the pay of men and women. A helpful tool for employers is the free online software that is now available to all companies, and can help them to calculate their own gender pay gaps.
Women in business play a vital role, but my background in business makes it very clear to me that men are still leading the way. I want more women to become involved in business. Although the Government have done great work so far, we cannot afford to rest on our laurels.
I know that many Members wish to speak, so let me end by saying that I am proud of the Government’s record on equality, which boasts more women in work than ever before, more women-led businesses than ever before, a woman on the board of every FTSE 100 company, and a gender pay gap that is now the lowest on record.
Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)
Reference has been made to one of my predecessors, a Member of Parliament for Islington East. Perhaps, as the first woman to represent Islington South and Finsbury, I should point out that my constituency incorporates Islington East. There was a time in the 1930s, I must confess, when the good people of Islington East were so keen on women MPs that it once had a Tory representative—and she was a woman. Given what she was up to, it seems that she was not necessarily a traditional 1930s Tory: she was very interested in women’s equality.
Let me turn to more general matters. Those who will read the report of our debate may not fully appreciate this, but a large group of female Conservatives have been sitting together throughout, although not all of them have spoken. They have made one mistake, however, and I urge them to think about it. They are sitting on the wrong side of the Gangway. I am told that in 1997, when a large number of new Members arrived in the House, those who sat on the Government side of the Gangway were promoted, while those who sat on the other side were not. So girls, move over there so that you can get yourselves promoted. I am just trying to be helpful.
Rebecca Pow
I have been wondering what a traditional Conservative woman is.
Emily Thornberry
I do not think it would be a good idea for me to rise to that question. I have only 10 minutes, and I want to make some important points about equality, particularly women’s equality.
I think that, when the Equal Pay Act 1970 was passed, Barbara Castle was right to describe it as a
“historic advance in the struggle against discrimination in our society”.—[Official Report, 9 February 1970; Vol. 795, c. 914.]
Unfortunately, however, it has not stood the test of time. In those days, there was blatant and obvious discrimination between the sexes. It was easy for an individual woman to take her case to a tribunal, point to the man who sat at the desk next to hers and who she had realised was being paid more than her, and prove that she had been discriminated against; but time has moved on, and we now need legislation that is not simply reactive. We cannot rely on individual women to root out evidence of discrimination and take their cases to a tribunal. Besides, the process has never been more difficult, not only because tribunal law has become so complex—many cases continue for as long as seven years—but because tribunal fees are at such a level that it is no surprise that there has been a 79% drop in the number of equal pay claims. Those fees have rightly been described as a tax on justice.
However, there are more fundamental problems. I think that we need to look at a new type of legislation that has begun to be introduced and that can be very effective. Conservative Members had better take a deep breath, because I am about to mention the Human Rights Act, a proactive piece of legislation with a beating heart which could be moved to the centre of our constitution and ensure that work was done properly. Another proactive piece of legislation is the Bribery Act 2010. Under that Act, a company has to prove that it has structures in place to manage things in such a way that, if a person is bribing someone else, they are acting as a lone wolf and the company has done everything it can to stop it. It has resulted in a culture change in our companies, which is very much to be recommended.
A new equality Act could do the same thing. Our current Equality Act does not do that. It has failed to foresee the fragmentation of pay-setting, even within an organisation. It has the most ridiculous loopholes. For example, if I as a woman were to leave a job because I felt that I was not being paid properly and was being discriminated against, but I did not want to take the matter to a tribunal, and then I realised that, to make matters worse, I had been replaced by a man, who was not being discriminated against and was being paid more than me for doing the same work, I could not use that as evidence that I had been discriminated against. How crazy is that. We need to look again at some of these ridiculous loopholes.
It is to be applauded that we are looking further at pay transparency, but that is not in itself sufficient. The Equality Act is up for its five-year review. The Government have said that they are looking again at whether the Act has achieved its stated aims. The Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equalities and Family Justice has said that
“Parliament will consider this information before deciding whether to gather further evidence on how the Act is operating.”
However, it seems to me that we should introduce a new Bill. As Barbara Castle rightly said:
“I have no doubt that some employers will try it on…undoubtedly, pockets of discrimination will remain—unless women organise to put a stop to it.”—[Official Report, 9 February 1970; Vol. 795, c. 928.]
So let us do that. Let us organise and stop it.
A new Act should be proactive and not reactive. I strongly suggest that successful claims should trigger a mandatory company-wide audit, including proper job evaluation studies. That does not just mean listing what the women get paid, what the men get paid and what the different jobs are. We should be drilling down into companies and looking at what skills are being used, what the women are doing compared with the men, and seeing whether there is systemic discrimination in a company. It would be right for tribunals to be able to trigger that. It could be done before the case even gets to the tribunal, where there are negotiations before the case officially kicks off. However, it should also happen afterwards if a claim against an individual is upheld.
There should be a flipside to that. If a company has done a proper, deep and profound voluntary audit, that should be a prima facie defence against any equal pay claim. We need to do this by way of carrot and stick.
Other things need to be done. There has been a chilling effect on some negotiations because of widely publicised cases in which trade unions have negotiated with an employer to try to get rid of discrimination within a company and to introduce equal pay, only to find that many of the women feel that the settlement has not been sufficiently fair, and the trade union has ended up being sued itself. New legislation could include guidance so that everyone knows where they stand and where their settlement should end up when trade unions and employers negotiate. That again could be a prima facie defence against any equal pay claim.
At the moment, legislation is too complicated, and the tribunal process is too obscure, too difficult and takes too long. It seems to me that many people are running away from using our tribunals and any legal process to enforce equal pay. Good as it was at the time, it seems that the 1970 Act is not fit for the 21st century, and we need to look at it.
Not only should we have new codes of practice so that the parties know what is expected of them, but we need to streamline our tribunal process and bring in experienced, senior judges to adjudicate more complex claims—those cases where preliminary issues get appealed and go back to the tribunal, and then another preliminary issue is taken up and appealed. For that reason, these cases can take seven years. It is not right. The current process is not fit to do what we want it to do.
We should look again at introducing questionnaires. Why have the Government stopped the process whereby, if a woman makes a claim against a company, the company is supposed to answer a questionnaire to give proper information on the practices within the company? The Government said that they were cutting red tape. That is one way of looking at it, but another way is that they disempowered women from taking their equal pay cases to tribunals. If we are looking again at what we should do with tribunals, we should reintroduce the questionnaire. We can make it two pages if we are worried about it being red tape, but we must ensure that that short-form questionnaire includes important information such as, “Has the company been sued before? Have you done a proper audit? When did you last do a proper audit?” Women will know exactly where they stand before they begin the process of taking a case to a tribunal.
I have talked about the ridiculous loophole whereby if I am replaced by a man I cannot use that as prima facie evidence to show that I was discriminated against. I feel very strongly about this issue. I have written extensively on it. For those who are interested, I have written on “Comment is free”, there is a long article in the New Statesman, and those who are really techie can go to my website.
A new Act will not, of course, solve all the problems. We cannot have equality without proper flexible working. I say that as a mother of a precious daughter, but also of two precious boys. I want my boys to be fathers and to be able to look after me when I get old, and to be able to balance their work and family life, and for their family life to be as important to them as it will be, I hope, to my daughter. When we talk about women’s liberation, we must not leave the men behind, because this should be about the liberation of all of us. Flexible working is very important for us all.
We should also look at the fact that women tend to cluster in certain professions. We may have left the kitchen, but we have not gone very far. The majority of us still do things like cleaning and cooking, secretarial work, nursing and looking after children. Those are the main sorts of work we do, and, guess what, it is seen as women’s work and, guess what, it is not paid as well as men’s work. We have to look at that if we are serious about equal pay. The importance of proper careers advice for boys and girls has been mentioned, and understanding the careers available in STEM subjects is particularly important.
These are long-term goals. Right now we need a new equal pay Act. Let us be radical; let us not be afraid; let us get on with it.
Mrs Flick Drummond (Portsmouth South) (Con)
I speak from the nursery Benches here at the far side of the Chamber, but I am sure I shall graduate to the other Benches in good time.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill) on her amazing and very moving maiden speech, and also on having four daughters, who have obviously been brought up very successfully. I also congratulate the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle). He is not in his place, but I often visit Borough market in his constituency when I visit my daughter who is training to be a doctor at King’s college and is often at Guy’s hospital.
I am pleased to see that equality in my area, certainly as far as this House is concerned, is progressing. We have the Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Caroline Dinenage), who is currently sitting on the Front Bench, my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt), who is the first woman to be Minister for the Armed Forces, my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Suella Fernandes), and myself, representing Portsmouth South. That is four strong women whose constituencies surround Portsmouth harbour, which is excellent. We also have seven female MPs representing Hampshire, which is almost 50%. We have a little more to do; we have another male to knock off his perch at some point.
We must keep driving progress outside this House as well. I would like the gender pay gap be much smaller in my constituency. At 22% it is fractionally above the average for the south-east region. We must look at how to close that gap, but we can only do that by boosting aspiration for all women to help them get better jobs, as well as equal pay for equal work.
A growing number of businesses in Portsmouth are led by women, particularly small and medium-sized businesses which they own and run. The Hampshire chamber of commerce and the Portsmouth Federation of Small Businesses are run by women as well, so it is an area where women are beginning to dominate, which is excellent.
In a city where the main source of employment was once the dockyard, a centre for heavy engineering and other trades traditionally dominated by men, we are making important strides—and I suspect that history is part of the reason why we still have a gender pay gap of 22%. Through the efforts of key employers such as British Aerospace and Airbus, a growing number of young people are going into technical and engineering trades, especially through apprenticeships. That is why I welcome the Government’s new initiative on the careers and enterprise company, which will show how young people can go into careers that have normally been dominated by men. A key aim of our university technical college will be to recruit students equally between the genders to drive this progress forward. Education has always been a main source of empowerment for women. That applies in industry, so the £10 million from the Government to help develop engineers will help. One of my daughters was going to go into engineering but has changed to medicine, and I would like much more proactive engineering courses for women, to make it much more interesting for them, so that they stick with it, rather than deciding to go into other careers.
We are backing all that up with our reforms to the childcare system, extending free access to it and helping mothers to get back into the employment market. I would also like greater recognition of the role of mothers and fathers who stay at home and look after the next generation. Their role is largely unrecognised, and we always try to push people back into work even though being at home looking after the children is equally important. Through my membership of the Select Committee on Women and Equalities, I look forward to working to find ways of encouraging and supporting all parents who stay at home to get back into work when they feel it is right to do so. Many of them lose confidence by being at home and find it difficult to get back the skills they need to return to the workplace. I ask employers to provide more flexible working opportunities for mothers and fathers who have taken time out of the workplace to bring up families. Employers should recognise them both in work and in pay, and give them the skills to get back into work, at whatever age they are.
Ronnie Cowan (Inverclyde) (SNP)
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to make my maiden speech today. I also thank all the previous speakers in this debate. Many of them have taken a trip through their constituencies, a good number of which, in my previous career, I dallied in—perhaps I should have stayed longer. I cannot compete with the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill); I have two daughters and one son. My election agent and my campaign manager were women, and I am a fully paid-up member of the gender balance club.
It is my privilege to represent the area in which I was born and grew up. Prior to me, Inverclyde was served by Iain McKenzie, who won the seat in a by-election after the death of David Cairns. I am sure that both Iain and David worked hard for their constituents and I am sure they shared my desire to improve many aspects of Inverclyde. Traditionally, it was the home to shipyards. Jobs were available, as were apprenticeships, too. An honest day’s labour produced an honest day’s wage, and that is what we are talking about here today. When I was a child, my late father owned a pub and one of my jobs was to stand at the end of the bar and shout, “Time gentlemen, please.” I never knew that in a few short years it would be the shipyards of the lower Clyde we were shouting time on, not the pubs. Inverclyde has never fully recovered, although I was delighted to visit Ferguson Marine last Friday and hear its visionary plans to revitalise the business, and I was heartened by its confidence in our local community. I am glad to note that, in a male-dominated environment, its apprentices are both male and female.
My constituency sits at the tail of the River Clyde. It encompasses part of Kilmacolm, and all of Port Glasgow, Greenock, Gourock, Inverkip and Wemyss Bay. Historically, Greenock has shown great innovation, including that of James Watt. Watt’s improvements in the design of the steam engine made such engines cost-effective, and radically enhanced their power and efficiency. The new engines fuelled the industrial revolution. In the early 1800s, Robert Thom designed a clean water- management system that drew water from the hills behind Greenock and powered a grain mill, a paper mill, a loom manufacturer, a sugar refinery, a cloth manufacturer and even a mill grinding clay for a local pottery works. Inverclyde led the way in clean renewable energy almost 200 years ago.
We enjoy our sport too, with vibrant tennis, cricket, golf, hockey and many other sporting clubs. I do not need to tell the House that we are home to the finest wee football team of them all, the original hoops—the mighty Greenock Morton. And close to my red, yellow and black heart is Greenock Wanderers rugby football club, including a very vibrant ladies team.
The stunning views across the water from Inverclyde to the constituency of Argyll and Bute are marred only by the obscenity of the Trident ballistic missile system being ferried to and fro by four Vanguard submarines. Sometimes I think that people’s approach to Trident is an abstract one, but in my constituency it is real; it is a real weapon with the very real capacity to murder hundreds of millions of men, women and children.
On the positive side, Inverclyde has great potential for growth. We have a major road that runs east to Glasgow and beyond, and west to Ayrshire. We have two railways that run from Wemyss Bay and Gourock into the heart of Glasgow city. We have a river that runs by us. We are situated between two international airports. Most importantly, we have a ready, willing and able workforce. It is my aim to represent Inverclyde to the best of my ability, so that once again we can declare that Inverclyde is truly open for business.
Since being elected, I have attended community events for autism, carers, Alzheimer’s disease, sea cadets, school choirs and brass bands. I am delighted to be included by those groups, and acknowledge that my job is back there in my community, but my challenge is to bring the voice of my community into this place and make it heard.
I grew up in the 1960s—the decade that formed me. We had the Beatles, the Stones, Carnaby Street and Woodstock. We also had the assassinations of John F Kennedy and Martin Luther King, and we had the Vietnam war, when America sent more than 300,000 young men—mostly conscripts—to die. I watched in awe as man walked on the moon. In his book, “The Lost Moon”, Jim Lovell says that going to the moon was not so remarkable—they just decided to go there. The Apollo missions proved that if a nation sets its sights high and is prepared to work hard to achieve its end goal, great things can and will be achieved.
I watched the American civil rights movement, massive and dignified, march across America, and, through peaceful protest and civil engagement, change the psyche of a nation. I remember 1967 when Winnie Ewing—Madame Ecosse—was elected to this Chamber. No one ever suggested to Winnie that she should be paid less than her male counterparts.
By the age of 11, my political identity was forming. In 1971, I stood in my primary school election on an SNP ticket and won. My teacher said that she wondered whether it was an indication of where my generation would take our country. As I walked home, I felt 10 feet tall. Surely, it was only a matter of time before my country was independent. As a child, I never knew how slowly time could crawl forward. But standing here today, as the result of a monumental SNP victory—among so many SNP victories—I know that if it is the will of the citizens of Scotland then that day will come, and from that, I hope, greater self-determination for all of the regions and countries in the UK.
During the Scottish referendum, I had the conversation with many people; some did not agree with me, but some did. As it turns out, more disagreed with me than agreed, but 87% of the electorate turned out to vote. People engaged with the political system. People talked politics in bars, restaurants, cafés and hairdressers, at the school gate and at sporting venues. One of the great benefits of that is that politicians in Scotland are now more accountable. I have a dialogue with my constituents. They text me, email me, use Facebook, tweet me, phone me and stop me in the street, and that is how it should be. The viewing figures for Parliament TV must have gone through the roof. Our maiden speeches are followed and critiqued.
My wish for Scotland is that we can take our place as a modern, diverse, inclusive and equal nation. We should not be afraid to question ourselves, because in doing that, we will come up with stronger solutions. But frankly, as a small northern European country in the 21st century, we are not doing well enough. Lesley Riddoch put it eloquently in her fabulous book, “Blossom”. She wrote:
“Generally life today for the majority of Scots is not bad, it just isn’t as long, healthy, productive, reproductive, literate, wealthy, sustainable or creative as it could be. That either bothers you or it doesn’t.”
Well, it bothers me. In a country that is not blighted by natural disasters, enjoys a temperate climate, has an abundance of fresh water and arable land, we still have one in four children living in poverty. In some areas of Inverclyde, that figure is an even more disgraceful one in two. We need to understand that as we sit in these cosseted surroundings, shouting, “Hear, hear,” it is out there that the austerity cuts are hurting the most vulnerable in our society. In this place, we make the choices that can improve that. We can choose to invest in our children or we can choose to invest in weapons of mass destruction. I am still saying bairns, not bombs.
In Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s “Smeddum”, he berates historians for trashing Scotland’s history, including depicting Jacobites as dashing rebels and romanticising the Stuart queens, when they should have been focusing on the poverty and injustice wreaked on the people. I can do nothing about the history books, but my fellow SNP MPs and I can at least be a footnote in a brave new future where we are inspired by hope and not restrained by fear.
Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Inverclyde (Ronnie Cowan). I am so pleased to hear that his constituency is open for business and I am delighted that he is living out his early dreams by finally getting into politics. He speaks passionately about his area and I know that he will speak up for it well while he is here. I also want to congratulate the other Members who made maiden speeches today. We had two excellent speeches from the two Bs, Bermondsey and Bury St Edmunds—the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle) and my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill). I know that they will both be a working part of the operation of this Chamber and I welcome them.
I also want to congratulate everyone who has contributed to today’s debate. I speak as a woman who not only set up my own small business in my constituency some 12 years ago but has juggled work for large companies and corporations, including the National Farmers Union, the BBC and ITV, with family life since leaving university. Yes, that was a long time ago, but all that has happened since. I am now the first female Conservative MP for Taunton Deane, so I have a particular interest in today’s debate, as do many other Members.
I particularly want not to be negative but to highlight that although there might be a long way to go with differences in pay between men and women, we have made enormous strides. More women are in work than ever before, 14.4 million nationally, and there are more women-led businesses than ever before. To prove that point, in Somerset there are 1,957 women members of the Federation of Small Businesses, with 577 of them within the Taunton postcode area.
I want to focus especially on the growing surge in women running their own businesses, which, of course, puts them in control of their own pay. Some 20% of small and medium-sized enterprises are either run by women or are women-heavy—and by that I do not mean anything about weight: I mean, of course, that they are predominantly run by women. SMEs led by women contributed £75 billion to the economy in 2012, which was the latest figure I could find.
In my experience in Taunton Deane and through joining and working with a range of women’s business groups, women-centric businesses are growing and they are successful. The Government must do all they can to enable and encourage those businesses to grow. Let me give just one example of a very successful small business in Taunton Deane. It is called Mastergen and is in a very rural location, in the village of West Bagborough. It is a women-only company made up of six women. The managing director is Alison Dunphy, and I spoke to her earlier for an update on how they are doing. I am pleased to report that the company is doing well. It specialises in supplying quality dairy and beef genetics to farmers throughout the UK. To the uninitiated, that means bull semen, and very important it is too. So successful is the company that turnover has doubled in under nine months and the company won the Taunton business incentive award last year.
Mrs Anne-Marie Trevelyan (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (Con)
My hon. Friend’s comments bring me on to an issue that I want to raise. In my constituency of Berwick-upon-Tweed—another B—we are all to a man very proud to support the Bronze family, who have spent years travelling hundreds of miles each week to help their daughter Lucy fulfil her passion for football. That young woman is now kicking winning goals for our England women’s team and hopefully will do so again tonight against Japan. I hope that Members will keep their fingers crossed. Does my hon. Friend agree that we should encourage the lottery sports fund to focus on investing in sports clubs and facilities that are committed to investing in girls’ sports such as cricket and football? I ask because the subject of bull semen leads us to the male sports, and in cricket and football we are seeing spectacular results from our female players—
Rebecca Pow
I thank my hon. Friend for her interesting intervention. I do not know whether she knows this, but my daughter played cricket for Somerset, so I am very keen to promote women’s sports. Indeed, during my campaign, I became very involved in promoting women’s sports down at the football ground with our Taunton football club. I urge the Government to do exactly as my hon. Friend suggests as much is to be gained from incentivising and encouraging women’s sports.
The women in that bull semen company, many of whom have children, work effectively, intensively and flexibly. Flexibility is the key for women in the working world, and we need to give them the tools to get the job done. I am pleased that a number of my hon. Friends mentioned flexibility earlier in the day and I am confident that the Government are supplying the tools in an increasingly thoughtful and practical way to enable that to happen.
Women, with their talent, are a key to driving this country’s economic success. Obviously, the more successful the economy, the more pay will rise and the more women will benefit. Of course, women’s pay must always be equal to that of men across the board, and our female children—to join the team, I have two girls aged 23 and 20—should never have to think about whether they might be paid less than men. We really do need to get those girls, who are so good at taking their exams, into science, engineering and even manufacturing—all areas that have been highlighted today.
I praise the Government’s recent moves to modernise the workplace by introducing rights to more flexible working for employees, which will increasingly help women, and I also very much welcome the 20% support for childcare costs for up to £10,000 a year for each child.
Angela Crawley
Does the hon. Lady accept the point made earlier by one of my colleagues about the Fawcett Society’s research suggesting that 85% of cuts to benefits, tax credits, pay and pensions have a greater impact on female members of the household than on their male counterparts, and that that has a substantial impact on child poverty figures and women’s ability to move on in the workplace?
Rebecca Pow
That is why we need to get the economy moving to improve all those areas and why childcare support is so important in helping to top them up. That support is very much welcomed by all the women I speak to.
I welcome the introduction of 15 hours a week of state-funded early education for three and four-year-olds. Although I welcome that support, I know from speaking to a range of women in work that many of them are calling for it to be introduced when children are even younger, to enable those women who want to do so to get back to work sooner. I support my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth South (Mrs Drummond), who said that we must recognise those women and even fathers who want to stay at home to bring up their children, because nothing is more important than what we do for our children in bringing up the next generation.
Emily Thornberry
Of course, the hon. Lady is absolutely right: such decisions—whoever makes them on behalf of their family—should be in their family’s best interests. Some women may wish to work part time and take advantage of tax credits. The difficulty is that they need to work 16 hours a week to get tax credits. Is there not a problem therefore with offering only 15 hours childcare, particularly as children have to be dropped off and picked up again?
Rebecca Pow
The hon. Lady makes an exceedingly good point, and it is something that we should throw into the mix.
In my constituency, the gender pay gap is the lowest on record, due largely to the progress made during the last Government, because the economy in Taunton Deane has really improved. The disparity between men’s and women’s pay is relatively small at 11% and, with the actions being taken by this Government, is coming down all the time, which, of course, I welcome.
I am pleased that the Government are taking this issue seriously. I see some people shaking their heads. The figure is still too high, but I am confident that, with the measures that the Government are putting in place, the gender pay gap in my constituency and elsewhere will continue to come down, and I shall be pressing to ensure that that happens. I have an all-women political team, both in London and in Taunton, and they are of mixed ages—some older, like me—so we are addressing the issue that was raised earlier. Indeed, with the glorious flood of new, young—and not so young—female blood coming into the House, I am sure that we will all work on this very important issue together.
Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Inverclyde (Ronnie Cowan) on an excellent maiden speech and on raising some good points around austerity.
I am proud to speak in support of this important motion. It is 45 years since we passed the Equal Pay Act 1970, but in my constituency of Lancaster and Fleetwood women still earn just 87p for every male pound. I am pleased to note, however, that that is above the national average of 81p, but any gap is too large.
There is a saying that what counts is measured, and what is measured counts. That is why the motion to task the Equality and Human Rights Commission to perform an annual equal pay check to collate and analyse published information, and to make recommendations for action, is so important.
The Equality Act 2010 included rules on pay transparency that would have required employers of more than 250 employees to publish details of the average pay of men and women in their workforce and the gender pay gap. However, when the coalition came to government, it announced that it would not implement the provisions for mandatory reporting, which seems to be a clear indication that the gender pay gap is not important to those on the Government Benches because they did not think that it was important to measure it.
The coalition Government did, however, invite companies to report voluntarily—a policy adopted by only a fraction of companies. Perhaps that explains why the UK performs so poorly on measures of gender pay inequality globally. We have the sixth highest gender pay gap in the EU, and in 2014 slipped out of the top 20 in the global gender gap index for the first time, with the high gender pay gap cited as a significant reason for that.
While Labour was in government, there was a clear focus on closing the gender pay gap and real progress was made. In the five years before 2010, under a Labour Government, the gender pay gap narrowed by 2.4%, but in the past five years, under a Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition Government, progress slowed and the gap closed by only a further 0.7%.
It would seem not unreasonable, therefore, to argue that the Government, in telling companies that they were not interested in measuring the gender pay gap, were also telling companies that the gender pay gap did not matter. The incentive of public disclosure represented by the reporting measures that Labour included in section 78 of the Equality Act was removed by the coalition Government, the focus on closing the gender pay gap was lost and progress slowed.
Pay transparency works, and it is not a new idea. Countries such as Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Belgium and Australia have gender pay reporting requirements, and they all score better than the UK on the global gender equality index.
The Office for National Statistics reports a rolled-up figure for the gender pay gap, but, as we know, women are over-represented in low-pay sectors and more likely to work part-time than men, so disaggregating the information is vital if we are to understand the problem properly and work out how to address it.
An equal day’s pay for an equal day’s work has been an idea long at the heart of the Labour movement and the campaign for women’s pay equity has crossed into popular culture, with the story of the campaign of the women workers at the Ford car factory in Dagenham being made into not only a film, but, more recently, a west end musical. The story from Dagenham illustrates some of the complexities of equal pay, for it is about not only women being paid the same as men when they do the same job, but recognising that those trades and professions that have traditionally been occupied by women are generally paid less.
Women’s work across the economy is undervalued. We see that in the gender pay gap, but also in the austerity measures of this Government—cutting the funding for public services and then pushing services from the public sector into the charity and voluntary sector, where employees are more likely to be women, wages are more likely to be lower and more work will be unpaid.
This situation only highlights the contradictions inherent in Government policy. Introducing his plans to cut working tax credits, the Prime Minister made the argument that the Government should not be subsidising large companies to underpay their workforce. This is a position I agree with, but for me it has two logical consequences—first, that the minimum wage must be a living wage, and secondly, that organisations funded by any level of government to provide public services must be funded at a level that ensures that each of their workers receives at least a living wage, and preferably one that reflects the skill and centrality of public services to our community.
In conclusion, the UN says that at the current rate of progress it will take Britain another 70 years to close the gender pay gap. That would be another 70 years on top of the 45 years since the Equal Pay Act was passed. Surely 115 years is just too long. It certainly is for the women of my constituency, which is why I support the motion and call on all Members to do so.
Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)
I congratulate those who made the excellent maiden speeches that we have heard this afternoon—my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill) the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle), and the hon. Member for Inverclyde (Ronnie Cowan), who reminded me of what I might have experienced if I had been a child of the 1960s, as opposed to a child of the 1970s.
I appreciate it when maiden speeches highlight the experience that many of my colleagues bring to this House. One of the things that has struck me since being here is what a huge wealth of experience there is in this place, which we can all contribute to the debate and to the work of Parliament and Government.
I welcome the debate on gender pay equality. I declare that I have only two daughters, unlike others who have claimed more, and I should mention that I have a son, in case he thinks he was forgotten, should he ever look back at this debate in years to come. There is an interesting change in the dynamic in the House during this debate, whether as a consequence of the topic or of the relatively female-dominated Benches.
I appreciate the contribution from the men who have chosen to speak in the debate. We have heard a couple of maiden speeches by men, and the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman). In this debate about women’s equality and gender pay, the role of men cannot be overestimated. In the big picture, men need to change and be a bit more understanding. I have seen some data recently showing that men commonly underestimate the confidence gap between men and women. Women recognise that they are not very confident about what they can achieve; men seem to underestimate women’s lack of confidence so men need to develop some sympathy.
For me personally, men have made a huge difference in my life and even to the fact that I am here today. My father always encouraged and believed in me. My husband, who makes it possible for me to be here, and several male mentors in my career before politics have been incredibly important in giving me confidence, courage and support. Men are essential, as well as what we women bring to this debate.
The debate is not just about pay. For example, some recent research that I read examined the gender bias in the media. The ratio of men to women in films is 3:1. Of characters with jobs in films, 81% are male. Think of the unconscious effect on boys and girls, women and men absorbing that media influence. That must affect the life chances and ambitions of young people.
On gender equality and the progress that has been made in recent years, we must recognise that the gender pay gap is the narrowest ever. A huge amount of progress has been made, thanks to a huge amount of effort. The gap in full-time pay has fallen from 17.4% in 1997 to 9.4% in 2014. The gap is greater for high-paid than for low-paid employment. It is interesting to note that, if I understand correctly the data from the House of Commons Library, the part-time pay gap has been reversed: men are worse paid than women for part-time work, with a 5.5% pay gap.
Stephen Phillips
In fact, that is not the only discrepancy. There is a negative pay gap between men and women in favour of women in the age groups 22 to 29 and 30 to 39. Other than the fact that in all aspects of life women are more successful than men, can my hon. Friend think why that might be the case?
Helen Whately
My hon. and learned Friend makes an important point. While many of us here and outside this place are fighting for more opportunities and support for women, we must not forget how difficult life can be for young men, who have much higher rates of mental health problems and suicide, and for young boys who are not doing so well in school. We need to think about both genders when considering how people can achieve their potential in life. As he suggests, there is no longer a pay gap for women under 40, so we must take care not to try to solve a problem that no longer exists. We must now ensure that that achievement is extended to women over 40 so that there is no gender pay gap at all, because there certainly is today.
When looking at the progress made in recent years, we should look beyond pay and consider the success of women on boards. The work of the 30% Club has been very influential in that area. In 2010 only 12.5% of FTSE 100 board members were women, but now the figure is up to 24.7%. The UK leads many countries around the world in that regard, including America, Canada and Australia. We should also appreciate the increasing number of women in leadership positions in both the private and public sectors.
It might be helpful to reflect on what has worked so far and how we have achieved that progress. Legislation has certainly played a role, going all the way back to the Equal Pay Act 1970, which the motion refers to, and the Equality Act 2010, which, beyond the pay problem, ended the gap in contractual terms so that other terms do not favour men over women. That also put a stop to confidentiality clauses getting in the way of fair pay. There is huge support for childcare, with the introduction of breakfast clubs and after-school clubs making a big difference for working parents. Hon. Members have also mentioned flexibility for women in the workplace, and for men.
Corporate organisations such as the 30% Club have worked to make data available on the pay gap. One thing that has made a difference in the decisions of big businesses is the fact that the data show that companies that have women on their boards do better. Companies have then said, “Okay, in order to do better we need to ensure that we have women coming through the organisation and on our board.”
As many case studies show, private and public sector organisations often do well through informal methods, such as supporting women with mentoring, networking and coaching, recognising the challenges they face—often they relate to mindset—and helping them overcome them. The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, which has focused on supporting women in the workplace over the past couple of years, makes a very good case study: unlike the civil service as a whole, in which women fill only 38% of leadership positions, more than 50% of its senior leaders are now women. Progress really is being made.
Martin John Docherty (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)
The hon. Lady is raising many important points for the House to take on board. Does she agree that it is not just the private and public sectors, but the charitable bodies that work with the Charity Commission for England and Wales, the new Charity Commission for Northern Ireland and those under the regulation of the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator—I am sorry about the long names—that should take cognisance of this debate, because they are substantial employers and should also be setting an example in their charitable works and management?
Helen Whately
I support that; I do not know the data for the charitable sector, but it makes sense. I wonder whether the charitable sector might be like the healthcare sector and the NHS, where women make up a greater proportion of the workforce as a whole but the top tier of leadership is still male-dominated. Any organisation in which that is the case cannot simply say, “We have more women across our workforce. Aren’t we doing well?” There should be an equal proportion of women at the top as across the whole organisation.
Things are happening and more needs to happen. On the increase in transparency, the Government will rightly make the reporting of gender pay information for companies with more than 250 employees mandatory and give employment tribunals the power to require employers to conduct a pay audit. Those things are really important. I am a huge advocate of transparency in healthcare, which was my area of expertise before coming here. I also want to see more voluntary transparency. Companies that are competing for top women graduates and school leavers should surely publicise their effectiveness and success in supporting women in work. They should be transparent about their pay and the progress they are making for women in the workplace.
Making the workplace more supportive of women and family life, for women and men, is incredibly important. I am proud that my Government are moving forward on the equal right to request flexible working and the opportunity to have shared parental leave, tax-free childcare, and state-funded early education. I know the difference that having state-funded early education makes in enabling women to go back to work earlier, as they are more often the primary child carer. I have heard women say that they would like to be able to go back to work sooner and ask that that support therefore be provided earlier. It is incredibly important that we encourage men to take up the opportunity to have shared parental leave so that there is genuine equality in the workplace. Children need their father figures just as much as they need mothers in their lives.
I am getting an indication from the Speaker that I should move towards the conclusion of my comments, so I shall do so. We are rightly supporting women and girls to make choices that enable them to make the most of their potential. The Your Life campaign aims to increase the number of girls and young women taking up careers in science and technology. Beyond that, we need to encourage girls to study STEM subjects and to aim higher.
On the confidence gap, 69% of women executives surveyed expected to reach board level compared with 81% of men. There is a persistent gap in women’s confidence in their ability to succeed. Fabulous research is being done on centred leadership and what works for women. We should encourage companies and organisations to draw on that, and schools could also use it to ensure that girls are supported in taking the approach to their life that they need to take to be successful. Being a woman leader is different from being a male leader—we now understand that.
We all have a part to play in our constituencies and in our work with our colleagues to ensure that the improvement seen for the under-40s continues for people who are over 40. Pay is important, but let us recognise that this debate is broader than that and look at all the ways to improve opportunities and achievements for women.
Mr Speaker
Order. The Chair richly enjoyed the hon. Lady’s contribution, so I hope she will not take the slightly concerned look on my face as a criticism; I am just concerned that everybody should get in. It might be helpful if I say to the House that I have seven people on my list still seeking to contribute. I expect the Chair to call the Front-Bench speakers at approximately 20 minutes to 7, or certainly no later than that, so if people can think in terms of eight minutes each, then we should be fine. I call Steven Paterson.
Steven Paterson (Stirling) (SNP)
Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is a great pleasure to be called to give my maiden speech in the House of Commons. I stand here as the Member of Parliament for the Stirling constituency, and I am privileged and humbled to be so. I am from the village of Cambusbarron; I was born and raised in the area.
I begin by following many of my colleagues in thanking the members of staff here in the House of Commons, who have helped us new Members to get to grips with the bamboozling workings, traditions and conventions of this place. They have displayed remarkable patience and been a great help. The staff here are a credit to this place.
I next want to put on record my appreciation of my predecessor as MP—Anne McGuire. Anne was elected in 1997. In that election, she defeated, as part of the new Labour landslide, one Michael Forsyth MP, who was Secretary of State for Scotland at the time, so it was quite an achievement. Michael Forsyth had won two elections previously by a very narrow margin, so it was a win that Anne should be proud of. Anne held a number of ministerial positions under the Blair and Brown Governments, most notably as Minister for disabled people. I wish her well in the future.
Given the maiden speeches I have heard in recent weeks, I can only conclude that there are a great many beautiful constituencies in the country, especially in the country of Scotland. However, I contend that, for spectacular scenic beauty, the Stirling constituency takes some beating. It covers approximately 800 square miles and stretches from Tyndrum, Crianlarich and Killin in the highland north, and down the Loch Lomond side to Blanefield, Strathblane and Mugdock. East along the Carron valley and the Gargunnock hills are the former mining villages of Plean, Cowie and Fallin and the historic city of Stirling, and back to the north-west are the old burghs of Bridge of Allan, Dunblane and Callander, with many other villages in between. There is incredible scenic beauty to be found in the constituency, including the majesty of Loch Lomond, the Trossachs, the towering peaks of Ben Ledi and Ben More, and the Ochil hills.
The constituency also boasts excellence in education, including Stirling University—of which I am a graduate—and Forth Valley College. Tourism is a major industry. I used to work at the National Wallace monument and I will work hard to support that industry.
There is remarkable history to be found in the Stirling constituency. The geographic position of the town—it is now a city—at the lowest crossing point of the River Forth meant that, in historic times, Stirling was of vital strategic importance, and through the royal palace and fortress of Stirling castle it has had a long history of being the administrative capital of Scotland. If it becomes necessary for this House of Commons to up sticks and move, the Stirling constituency is more than capable of hosting it and being the capital once again.
Stirling was also the site of many important battles that turned the political tides of their day. The confrontation between the Picts and the Scots that led to the unifying of Scotland as one nation is reputed to have taken place where the university now stands. Wallace and Murray’s famous victory at Stirling bridge, the civil war at Sauchieburn and the Jacobite clash at Sheriffmuir bear witness to Stirling’s importance in Scotland’s story.
The most famous, of course, is the battle of Bannockburn, where a force superior only in numbers was defeated by a skilful and determined force with superior tactics and better knowledge of the terrain. I know that many in this House are keen on parliamentary history, so I should say that, following that battle, Robert the Bruce convened a Parliament in my constituency, at Cambuskenneth Abbey. It was a fine example of a powerful and independent Scottish Parliament.
In more modern history, just a few years ago Stirling was remarkable for having a local council controlled by a formal coalition between Labour and the Tories. Alas, such an alliance is no surprise whatsoever to anyone in Scotland these days. It is a sad fact that the sleekit connivance between Labour and Tory that I witnessed routinely as a Stirling councillor is also too often shown here in Westminster when Scottish issues are being debated.
In preparing for this speech I looked at the maiden speeches of some of my predecessors as representatives of the Stirling area. Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman was MP for the Stirling Burghs from 1868 to 1908. His first recorded speech was in May 1873 during a debate about complaints received from military authorities about the then system for punishing drunkenness. Apparently, fines for drunkenness among soldiers had accrued an enormous sum of £60,000 and the authorities did not know what to do with it. It was originally supposed to reward the “sober and well-living soldier”, but apparently not enough of them could be found. The House appears to have deferred the decision on that occasion, although it is thought that the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the day wanted to get his hands on the money.
After 37 years as an MP for Stirling, Campbell-Bannerman became Prime Minister in 1905 and held the position for his last three years as a Member of this House. He is the only representative of Stirling to become Prime Minister—and so he will remain, because I have no desire whatsoever to serve either for 40 years or as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. In all seriousness, the people of Scotland returned 56 SNP MPs from a possible 59. They gave us a job of work to do and that is what we will do.
Turning to the subject of today’s debate, I share the disappointment expressed by many Members that we have to debate the fact that there is a gender pay gap at all in this day and age, in 2015. The Scottish Government have led the way, as some of my hon. Friends have said, and I hope that, in summing up, the Minister will give an undertaking to look at what has been achieved in Scotland under its current powers and to see whether best practice can be found there. As hon. Members would expect, I fully support the devolution of further powers in this area as in many others, because the Scottish Government are making a difference in areas where they have powers.
Finally, it is my honour to be the MP for the Stirling constituency and to represent the people of that constituency, and I will do that to the best of my ability. I will, if I may, paraphrase Mr Speaker himself by saying that the voice of the Stirling constituency in this Parliament will be heard.
Stephen Phillips (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
It is an enormous pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stirling (Steven Paterson), who has made an excellent maiden speech. I fully echo the tribute he paid to his predecessor, Dame Anne McGuire. Hers are big shoes to fill, as he knows, although I suspect that his shoes will not be the same type and will have a somewhat smaller heel.
Before you took the Chair this afternoon, Madam Deputy Speaker, there was what can only be described as a form of daughter inflation, at least on the Government Benches, at the start of this debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Richmond (Yorks) (Rishi Sunak) and my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) appeared to be competing to establish who had the greater number of daughters. I declare at the outset that I have two daughters and one son, like my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately), although I should perhaps make it clear to the House that they are not the same two daughters and one son.
Joking apart, there is of course a serious point: the issue of equal pay and the gender pay gap, which has rightly been brought before the House by the hon. Member for Ashfield (Gloria De Piero), affects all of us. It affects fathers of daughters, husbands and sons, and it also affects all of us as members of an equal civil society in which we want everyone to rise and use their abilities without regard to gender, disability or any other characteristic which is irrelevant to their ability to do a job for which they are fitted.
There is much good news and, rightly, there is a great deal of common ground across the House. The gender pay gap is now at the lowest level on record. As a result of changes in the law that have received support from across the House in the last few decades, no woman can any longer be paid less than a man for the same job, for that is rightly illegal. I must, however, say to the Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty), that that distinction has evidently eluded the drafters of the motion. The legal requirement for equal pay, which is well enforced, is very different from the gender pay gap. That gap arises as a result of any number of structural features from the moment of birth, and it is now the mission of society to tackle that gap.
It falls to us to tackle the subtle differences in pay between the genders—largely, it has to be said, for those over the age of 35—not the overt discrimination of yesteryear that, rightly, we have largely consigned to the history books. That battle has been won. Many factors affect women over the course of their school and working lives with which men simply do not have to deal, not least, as every male Member of the House ought to recognise, the gender imbalance in most families when it comes to children and childcare.
Some of that has been addressed, or at least it has begun to be addressed. For example, the gender pay gap used to have strong roots in educational attainment. The traditional boys’ science subjects used to lead to more lucrative careers, while girls were steered into studying arts and the humanities, and thereafter worked in the less profitable roles into which they were too often pushed by careers staff focused on gender stereotypes. Even when I was growing up, boys did better at school, received degrees more valued by employers and saw that translated into more pay over their career lifetimes.
The dominance of boys at school and of young men at university is largely no longer apparent. An OECD report in March found that although boys’ dominance just about endures in maths, it is no longer present in science subjects. As everyone who has both sons and daughters knows anecdotally, girls are racing ahead in literacy. In all 64 countries and economies in the OECD study, girls outperformed boys at reading, with the mean gap equivalent to an extra year of schooling. Since literacy is of course the foundation of further learning, that gap means that teenage boys are 50% more likely than girls to fail to achieve basic proficiency in maths, reading or science. I hope that the House will have equal time to debate that subject, because if equality means anything, it must mean equality for both sexes.
Equally, girls’ educational dominance now persists after school as well as at school. Until a few decades ago, there was a clear male majority at university almost everywhere in the world but, as higher education has boomed, women’s enrolment has increased faster than men’s. In the OECD, women now make up 56% of students enrolled at university, which is up from 46% in 1985. Women who go to university are more likely than their male peers to graduate and they typically get better grades.
Hon. Gentlemen on both sides of the House need to beware, for just as there are more women in this place, there are still not enough. It is clear that women are not only closing the gap, but doing so on merit and largely without any form of positive discrimination. To my mind, that is important. For the most part, we do not allow of positive discrimination in this country, despite what I understood the hon. Member for Ashfield to indicate in response to an intervention in her speech at the outset of the debate. That is important not only because all appointments should be based on merit, irrespective of gender, disability, race, sexual orientation, religion or any other protected characteristic, but because positive discrimination runs the risk of undermining the equality that we all strive to achieve. If appointments are made other than on merit, there exists the risk that those who are unsuccessful will point the finger, saying that so-and-so got their job only because of gender, race or whatever. To my mind, that is a dangerous and slippery slope that it is best to avoid.
Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)
Does the hon. and learned Gentleman recognise that positive discrimination has existed in this country since the beginning of time immemorial—for white men?
Stephen Phillips
I acknowledge the hon. Lady’s point to this extent: she is absolutely right that, throughout history at least until now, white men, of whom I am one, have had a much easier ride in life. Even to this day, with all the laws that we have designed to ensure equality, women in every single walk of life have a much harder time than any man ever does.
To return to the university story, many women continue to choose courses in so-called traditionally female subjects such as education, health, arts and the humanities, but in mathematics, women are drawing level, and in the life sciences, social sciences, business and law, they have moved ahead. That means that women are moving closer to equal pay when they start their working lives. However, we still see a gap, which widens to a chasm when women reach the point at which they want to have children. No end of studies have shown the impact of motherhood on women’s pay, with hourly pay dropping relative to men’s. Just a few years ago, the Institute for Public Policy Research estimated that a woman with middling skills who has a baby at the age of 24 loses more than £500,000 in lifetime earnings compared with one who remains childless. That is simply unacceptable. It is far too often the case that women must see motherhood as a choice that will affect their entire careers—an irreversible move either to the mummy track or the career track.
Mothers’ average hourly pay recovers slightly by the time their children leave home, and their employment rate increases steadily as their children grow older, but it never returns to the level it would have been had they not had children, much less to the same level as a man’s. That is something of which all hon. Members should be aware, and something of which, as a society, we should be deeply ashamed.
Martin John Docherty
Given what the hon. and learned Gentleman says, does he recognise that, even in this Chamber, we perpetuate stereotypes of gender? Hon. Gentlemen are not allowed to bring a bag into the Chamber, and yet hon. Ladies are more than delighted to bring in a small handbag. That perpetuates stigma and gender stereotypes.
Stephen Phillips
As one of the few Members of the House who has a man bag, I will stage a protest with the hon. Gentleman. We will both bring in our bags and see whether we are upbraided by the Chair and receive some sort of censure for doing so.
There is much debate over whether women should be protected from the consequences of their reproductive choices, but improving things is good not just for the women concerned, but for the economy. We need more women in the workforce to pick up the demographic slack as our society ages, and more families rely solely on women’s earnings to live these days. Low pay for women increases child poverty, it makes families more vulnerable to sudden shocks and it costs the taxpayer in benefits and other supports. Low rates of female employment also contribute to socioeconomic marginalisation among immigrant communities.
Social change has done more to encourage women to enter higher education and the workforce than any deliberate policy. The contraceptive pill and a decline in the average number of children, together with later marriage and childbearing, have made it easier for women to join the workforce. As more women went out to work, discrimination became less severe. Girls saw the point of studying once they were expected to have careers, and once they saw that careers in all sectors were open to them and that they had the same opportunities as their male colleagues. These days, girls nearly everywhere seem more ambitious than boys, both academically and in their careers.
Given the impact of motherhood on earnings, the Government can do a lot of good by supporting women in the workforce. I am pleased that they are doing just that. Flexible working, childcare provision, shared parental leave and better careers advice will all help women who want to have children and to be able to do so without such a huge impact on their careers. We now have the highest number of women in work and in self-employment on record, the highest ever employment rate for women and record numbers of women-led enterprises.
John Mc Nally (Falkirk) (SNP)
Will the hon. and learned Gentleman give way?
Stephen Phillips
I am drawing to a conclusion and am conscious of the time.
I fully support the Government’s actions, and any action that continues this trend. As the father of those two daughters, I want to be able to look them in the eye as they grow up and go to university. I want to be able to say to them not only that we ensured they would be paid the same amount for the same job that a man did, but that over the course of their lives they had every opportunity to earn the same amount of money as men do.
Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)
Before I speak to the motion, I would like to congratulate the hon. Member for Stirling (Steven Paterson) on his impressive first speech. He mentioned a skilful, determined force and superior tactics. I am sure he will be skilful and determined, but I hope that his party will not have too many superior tactics.
I speak today on behalf of the women in my constituency, who earn just 81p for every pound my male constituents earn. It is 45 years since the pioneering Equal Pay Act 1970 and women in Cardiff Central are still paid less than their male counterparts simply because of their gender. I have listened to the debate and I have to say that I do not accept the Secretary of State’s assertion that the wording of the motion conflates equal pay and the gender pay gap. It is the lack of pay equality that leads directly to the gender pay gap itself.
Tackling unequal pay should be at the top of the Government’s agenda, but looking at their record with the Liberal Democrats over the past five years I do not hold out much hope. Pay discrimination is still an everyday experience for women in Cardiff Central and across the UK. Employers who discriminate against women by paying them less know they can do so without condemnation, let alone any concrete action. Those employers’ actions are unlawful, not illegal, but opportunities for remedying this are, as we have heard today many times, being reduced.
We know that despite the progressive intentions of those who pioneered equal pay legislation 45 years ago, the law has not achieved what it intended. With many colleagues from the Labour Benches past and present, I have championed the campaign for equal pay. During my law degree in the mid 1980s, I wrote a thesis on the equal pay legislation, analysing how, and in my view why, it had not succeeded at that time in delivering pay equality for women. After graduating, I practised as a solicitor in a UK-wide law firm that has represented tens of thousands of working women who have suffered pay discrimination. As a director of that law firm, I led equal pay auditing and pay transparency reporting. I can say that it is an easy thing to do. It beggars belief that only 300 companies have chosen to do the same.
Despite progressive intentions in the late 1960s, the law still does not deliver pay equality for women. The previous Labour Government delivered the Equality Act 2010, providing an opportunity for those on the Government Benches to implement pay transparency. However, the Conservative party has never prioritised pay transparency, never mind pay equality. The coalition Government had to be dragged kicking and screaming earlier this year, by my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Gloria De Piero), to agree to implement a pay transparency requirement for employers with more than 250 employees. At the same time, however, the Conservatives, along with their Liberal Democrat colleagues, ensured it was made even more difficult for women to fight equal pay claims by introducing prohibitive employment tribunal fees. As with much else that the Conservative party does—public spending cuts, welfare cuts, pension reform—it is always women who seem to bear the brunt. The figures on employment tribunal claims speak for themselves, with a 68% drop in claims being brought since fees were introduced.
For those women who can afford to bring tribunal claims and for those women who are trade union members and are lucky enough to have the backing of their trade unions, equal pay cases, as my hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) so eloquently explained, take far too long to litigate because of the evidential burden. Cases take years rather than months, and they require a woman to prove that her job is of equal value to that of a male comparator. Even job evaluation experts, however, cannot and very often do not agree on that requirement, and the result is no change for women and no change in pay inequality. That is why we need the Government to support this motion. We urgently need reform of equal pay legislation, and we must have employment tribunal fees abolished.
It is clear that pay discrimination is institutionalised across the UK. The Government need to listen and to act, because even in circumstances where equal pay is achieved, it does not deal with the underlying issue of unfair pay. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield has said, the headline figure published by the Office for National Statistics is the full-time pay gap rather than the pay gap for full and part-time workers together. So, for example, in Wales, men hold nearly two thirds of all available full-time jobs and women hold 80% of the part-time jobs. Those part-time jobs are not only lower paid, but tend to be jobs that are under-valued compared to others. I am sure that Members across the House will agree that specific action to tackle institutionalised pay discrimination in this country is long overdue. By supporting this motion, the Government could demonstrate their commitment to action—rather than simply words.
Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)
In a feminist debate, I am going to say, Ms Deputy Speaker, that I congratulate all those who have made their maiden speeches, and I remind Members that when we say “maiden”, what we mean is someone who is inexperienced. So that is another example of sexist language that gets used.
I wonder whether Ms Deputy Speaker has read Caitlin Moran’s book, “How to be a Woman”. In it, she compels people to stand on their chairs and shout, “I am a feminist”. If the motion is carried today, perhaps the Speaker would allow us the indulgence of standing on these Green Benches altogether to shout those very words. If it passes throughout the House, we will have done something really feminist. I proudly say that I am a feminist and that a bit of feminist marauding would be a welcome relief from some of the groaning we normally get.
Taking the title of Ms Moran’s book, “How to be a Woman”, it seems that the answer before us today is very simple. It is to get paid less. In my constituency, for every pound a man earns, a woman earns 83p. This is not always because women are simply being paid less for the same job, although that is obviously a feature; it is because we simply value less the work that women do.
I went to university and I have two degrees. After leaving university, I had the misfortune of having two children—both sons, incidentally, so I cannot ring the daughter bell. I went back to work quite quickly, thanks to the tax credits I received, which enabled me to do that. For the first seven years of my career, I earned less than my husband. I am sure he will not mind my saying that I am not sure that he even has a GCSE. The work he did was what is considered to be man’s work—he is a lift engineer—and, after all, I was working only in a charity, helping victims of domestic and sexual violence. The value is there for all to see.
Like so many local authorities across the country, Birmingham has paid the price for the lack of equal pay in exceptionally costly—and, I am afraid to say, bankrupting—court settlements, with care workers, social workers, cleaners and dinner ladies paid less than bin men. After all, why should we value those who look after our elderly relatives and feed our children? However, Birmingham City Council is trying to settle that score, and the Labour council’s work around paying all staff a living wage and demanding that all contractors, including care contractors, do the same is a huge step forward in equalising some of the public and private sector pay in the city I love.
I commend any advance towards payment of a living wage, but I bet that if I were to look into what is paid to those working for the two large public sector contractors in the city I would find that there was still a stark disparity between the pay of the men who are highways engineers, ground staff members and building contractors, and the pay of the mainly female work force who are caring, nursing, cleaning and feeding.
Chris Stephens
I am sure that there is systemic discrimination, in that bonuses have been paid to those in supposedly male-dominated workplaces, but not to the “cleaning and caring” staff. Did central Government help Birmingham City Council to settle the claims?
Jess Phillips
To the best of my knowledge, the answer is no. I believe that the council is selling the family silver, including the National Exhibition Centre, to settle those claims. I will not criticise it for that. The council should have paid the women more in the first place.
The hon. Gentleman is right about overtime. The reason my husband earned so much more than me was that his overtime was paid, whereas mine was just part of my job.
To add insult to injury, the vast majority of unpaid work is done by us, the very much fairer sex. I sometimes fantasise about all the women in the country going on strike for just one day. They would stop doing everything that they do for free: caring for children, caring for grandchildren, and caring for relatives, friends and neighbours. Imagine the cost to social services if we withdrew our labour! Perhaps women’s jobs are paid so poorly because we forgot the bit of the business model that says, “You will devalue it if you give it away.” The constant rhetoric about hard-working families seems to forget that the hardest work of all is that which pays nothing. I challenge anyone to stay at home permanently with a couple of kids, delivering meals, care and company to a dying mother, and then tell me that that is not hard work. I have lots of caring responsibilities, and I can assure Members that coming to this place, or going to any work, is like being on holiday.
Having worked for years with women who have been beaten and abused because of their gender, perhaps I am less keen than others to herald how far we have come. I know that a good, honest and decent society we can all be proud of must value its women. There is a well-evidenced and reliable link between violence against women and their general standing in society. This debate is not just about money and pound signs; it is about value and worth.
We have a chance to do something good here today—to push companies and the country to place equal value on the work of half the population. We have a chance to show our mothers, wives, daughters and constituents that they matter and their rights matter. If we do that today, I will gladly stand on these Benches, or the chairs in the bar later, with any Member from any party, so that we can declare in unison that we are feminists.
Jess Phillips
I cannot afford to.
Should the motion not be passed, I shall know, like so many before me, that I should not have bothered to speak up, because, after all, “I’m just a girl.”
Christina Rees (Neath) (Lab)
I congratulate all Members who have made their maiden speeches today. I shall be taking up some of the themes that have featured in the debate so far.
I am proud to be the first female Member of Parliament for Neath. I have only one daughter, but she is the apple of my eye. I have no sisters, but I have a wonderful brother who is definitely in touch with his feminine side, although he does not have a man bag—not to my knowledge, at least.
Let me begin by taking up the sporting theme. Before I came here, I was proud to be the only female national coach for Squash Wales. I introduced many women and girls to sport, whether they wanted to engage in it merely for recreational purposes or to fulfil their potential and go on to represent Wales, as I did many times.
It is 45 years since a Labour Government passed the Equal Pay Act in response to the proactive campaign of the women in Dagenham, yet, on average, women still earn just 81p for every pound earned by men. Progress to close that gap has slowed dramatically, with the rate falling from 2.4% between 2006 and 2010 to 0.7% during the coalition Government’s period in office.
One of the first acts of the coalition Government was to abolish the Women’s National Commission, which was established in 1979 by Harold Wilson and Barbara Castle. It was an equality body advising and informing the Government on issues facing women, such as the lack of women in key jobs. A renewed focus on those issues is needed now more than ever.
In my constituency women earn 86p for every pound earned by a man. That is slightly above the UK average, but in Neath the median weekly income for all workers, including men, is just £460, which is £20 lower than the rest of Wales, and £60 less than the UK median. The gender gap is less pronounced when the issue of equal pay is analysed through the prism of older industrial areas and the economic disparities faced by all the people of Neath.
The public sector, which has been severely hit by the Government’s austerity programme, is critical to women’s employment in Wales. It accounts for 40% of women’s employment, compared with 20% of men’s, and nearly two thirds of public sector employees are women. Here, the gap has increased from 9.5% to 11%.
The impact of the recession on work in Neath is stark. Wage rates for women in Wales are depressed compared with other regions, with women full-time employees in Wales’s public sector the second lowest paid in the UK, and in the private sector the lowest paid of all. In the service, retail and operative sectors, more than one in 20 jobs have been lost in just two years after the recession, with the total number of semi-skilled and unskilled jobs still less than in 2005. The recovery in these jobs is only coming in the shape of insecure, poorly paid employment.
The Bevan Foundation examined the issue in its report “Women, work and the recession in Wales”. It suggests that women in occupations at the bottom of the labour market have borne the brunt of job losses, with administrative and secretarial roles and process and plant operatives seeing significant decreases in numbers. The report also suggests that women are very much more likely to be employed part time than men— 42% of women’s employment is part time, compared with just 12% of men’s employment in June 2012. Crucially, the average part-time hourly rate is a third less than it is for full-time work. Those registered as self-employed, which accounts for 30% of female jobs since 2010, similarly earn less—in fact, they earn less than half what self-employed men earn. Then there are the punitive zero-hour contracts, which should be abolished.
In Wales in 2009, only 55.7% of lone parents were in employment and 26.7% of all children were living in households of in-work poverty. According to the Office for National Statistics, in 2014 there were 2 million lone parents with dependent children in the UK. Women accounted for 91% of lone parents with dependent children.
Women earning less in Wales, and in Neath, where the situation is exacerbated, has a direct effect on child poverty and children living in poor households. All that paints a grim picture for working women in our country. The broader effects on families and on children are clear. The United Nations predicts that at the current rate of progress it will take 70 years to achieve gender parity in Britain and to close the pay gap. It is of paramount importance that the annual equal pay check is implemented so that the information can be used to ensure that the gender pay gap is closed.
Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)
I join others in congratulating the hon. Members for Stirling (Steven Paterson) and for Inverclyde (Ronnie Cowan), my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle), and the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill) on their powerful initial contributions to the House. I also associate myself with the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) on the use of language here. I also pay tribute to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) because whenever I meet women’s organisations in Cambridge I am struck by how quickly they tell me about the work done by them when they were in government and how they were such powerful champions for women. I suspect my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Gloria De Piero) is well on the way to being spoken of in similar terms.
As others have pointed out, this has been a long battle and it is a long way from being won, and, sadly, progress has slowed since 2010. I will try not to repeat the points others have made, but before I entered Parliament I was very proud to work for Unison, Britain’s biggest public service union with over 1 million women members, many in low-paid public service jobs. Unsurprisingly, much of Unison’s time was spent campaigning to tackle the unfair gender pay gap.
As has been pointed out, that is not easy because the causes are complex. It is worth recalling that a decade ago another inestimable champion of women’s causes, Margaret Prosser, was asked by the then Government to look at these issues in detail. She concluded that it is
“a many faceted and multidimensional issue. The pay gap is affected by issues such as outdated work practices; expectations and stereotypes that are ingrained in us from a young age; differences in working patterns because of women’s role as ‘carer’; and a lack of quality part-time work”.
Sadly, in the decade since then these issues remain as real as ever, and the progress that was being made has slowed.
I am reminded of a book whose title has stuck with me over many years: “How working-class kids get working-class jobs.” It is always useful for those of us with time management problems to have a book where the entire message is summed up in the title. I think that same cycle applies to women’s jobs. The positive attempts to break that cycle have been undermined in recent years. For instance, the crisis in our careers service means that young women are again more likely to be directed down the traditional low-pay routes. There is a risk that the depressing funding cuts to many of our further education colleges will have the same effect.
Change comes when we make it happen, and Labour Governments have a proud record. We are particularly proud of the Equality Act which will for ever be associated with my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham. It is sad that the coalition Government chose not to implement some of the proposals, but I believe when they are finally implemented—I do believe they will be at some point—the impact will be far reaching.
In the meantime, the Government’s belated conversion to the cause of tackling unequal pay is welcome, as is their stated intention to implement section 78 of the Equality Act, but it is vital that this is done in a way that reflects what actually happens in the workplace, and is not used to hide what is really happening. I am grateful to former colleagues at Unison for bringing some of these points to my attention. For example, perhaps the Minister will be able to tell us whether bonus payments and overtime will be included. Men are typically far more likely to receive both. By not including them, comparisons will be seriously distorted and it will look as if pay in the workplace is more equal than it really is.
We also have to watch out for attempts to game the system. In the public sector, if a company wants to skew the results it will simply outsource the lower-paid, predominantly female part of the workforce so that their salaries are not included in the pay comparison figures.
Chris Stephens
I will call the hon. Gentleman my Unison comrade, if that is in order. Will he confirm that many public bodies now have legal advice which says that if they outsource they are no longer liable for equal pay claims?
Daniel Zeichner
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comradely intervention. I am afraid I am not expert enough to be able to give advice on that, but I am sure others will be able to do so.
On the matter of sanctions for companies that fail to comply and whether that should be a criminal or civil matter, whatever sanction is applied has to be meaningful, or else we will be stuck in the same position that we were in for many years, when local authorities refused to implement equality-proofed equal pay because it was cheaper for them just not to do so at the time. It is perhaps worth considering whether publishing the results should be done as part of the annual auditing process, for which sanctions for non-compliance are already in place. This would work in tandem with Labour’s sensible proposals for an annual equal pay check to be carried out by the EHRC.
It is also worth pointing out that the EHRC has under this Government suffered drastic cuts to its funding and staffing with consequent effects on the level of service it can provide. It will need to be better resourced to take on the challenge of monitoring and supporting employers to do the right things. Other things could be done, including introducing mandatory pay audits for all employers, regardless of size. If we are serious about equal pay, that has to be the ultimate goal, and there must be a requirement to act on the audit. Failure to do so should, in itself, be an act of unlawful discrimination. Any protective award made in such circumstances should be proportionate to the scale of the problem and the number of women affected.
Let me finish by mentioning one sector that has suffered consistently from low pay for many years: local government. It is worth noting that, according to the Local Government Association, the gender pay gap in that sector has widened by 3% since 2010. Women’s pay for full-time equivalent posts in 2010-11 was 83.2% that of men’s whereas it is now 80.8%, so they are almost 20% worse off. It is worth pointing out that the local government workforce is 78% women and that 61% of jobs are part time, but more than 90% of those are done by women. Local government is undergoing constant reorganisation, with many people doing far more complex jobs. I fear that some councils are not undertaking the kind of job evaluation that should be going on, and there is a danger that after paying out some £2 billion in equal pay settlements, councils are again becoming vulnerable to a new wave of equal pay claims. There has to be a better way of doing it.
There are clearly ways forward and clearly things that can be done. As ever, the question is: is there the political will to do it? Sadly, I have to say that the signs from the Government are not encouraging—but we live in hope.
Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)
First, I must congratulate those who made maiden speeches today: the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill), my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle) and the hon. Members for Inverclyde (Ronnie Cowan) and for Stirling (Steven Paterson). Their speeches were all passionate, personal and interesting.
Let me follow up on the point my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) made about local government pay. It is not just about the job evaluations; the requirement to undertake equality impact assessments has been removed. As a Unison member, I know it has long been an issue that local government has tended to shy away from, and the Government have now given councils licence to wriggle out of that requirement. That is disappointing, as are the empty Government Benches as we draw this important debate to a close.
Major progress was made on closing the gap between men’s and women’s pay under the last Labour Government. We have heard Government Members talk about the fact that the gender pay gap is at its lowest level ever, but the progress in tackling it over the past five years has slowed inordinately under this Government and the former coalition Government. That is incredibly disappointing. The progress has slowed, along with pay, across the board.
Looking to other countries, we know that much more can be done. This should not be up for debate, and I concur with the many colleagues who have shared that sentiment. We should not be here today, in 2015, having this debate about whether anything more should be done, because the answer is clear: yes, of course it should. The Equal Pay Act was passed 10 years before I was born, yet we are still here today arguing for parity between the sexes. That Act put into law the basic principle that we should all receive the same treatment on pay and employment conditions. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Gloria De Piero) mentioned, it allows women to take their employer to a tribunal if a man doing similar work to her is being paid more, although now that is only possible if you can afford it, thanks to the barriers to accessing justice that the coalition saw fit to introduce. I remind everyone of the statistics: the number of equal pay claims has fallen by 68% but the number of claims going to tribunal has fallen by 79%, as my hon. Friend the Member for Finsbury—[Interruption.] I have entirely forgotten the name of her constituency, I am so sorry. [Interruption.] Yes, it was one of the London ones.
Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)
Will my hon. Friend give way?
Melanie Onn
Absolutely, while I try to remember the name of the constituency.
Barbara Keeley
I wish to raise with my hon. Friend the point that was made in our debate on sport and the Olympic legacy last week: the gross inequality between men and women in relation to payment and sponsorship in sport. That is one of the worst areas. America has the wonderful Title IX legislation, which ensures equal funding if and when it comes from the public purse, which is another thing to bear in mind. Not only is this so unequal, but, worse still, it is unequal to people such as our football team that will play in Canada tonight.
Melanie Onn
I could not agree more. Low pay concerns me, particularly as it is in all areas. If those who are public facing, with whom people interact more, can demonstrate the necessity of closing the gender pay gap, it will become a more prioritised issue among the general public.
I can now confirm that I was referring to my hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry). I thank my colleagues for reminding me. It is quite embarrassing to have such a public brain fade.
Melanie Onn
Yes, how can I be expected to remember such complicated information?
I was just reflecting on accessing justice, and the difficulties faced by people from across the board. This is about not just women finding it difficult to access justice through the employment tribunal system, but those who are suffering from any kind of discrimination, particularly that relating to their pay. The Equal Pay Act was a milestone in the fight for equal pay, but, clearly, the Act in itself is not sufficient to close that gap altogether, especially in today’s world of casual employment, of people working multiple jobs and of increasing levels of self-employment. I am incredibly proud that the previous Labour Government made equal pay a priority and closed the pay gap by one third during their time in office. I say again that, over the past five years, we have seen almost no progress on this issue. In their manifesto, the Conservatives made no mention of putting in place any measures to try to tackle the pay gap, even though they have accepted that it exists. Today is about Labour challenging the Government on this important issue and trying to get them to change their mind.
We have heard quite a lot today with regard to how much women earn. In my constituency of Grimsby, women earn just 77p for every £1 brought home by men. I heard today that the figure in Coventry is as low as 60p. That is a significant difference. If we do not think that that affects the home lives of the children in our country, we are deluding ourselves.
Why is this such a significant problem in my constituency compared with some other areas in the country? As I noted earlier, there has been a surge of low pay and insecure work in this country over the past few years, and that has particularly been the case in my constituency. I know, from speaking to my constituents, that it tends to be women who have to work two or three different jobs, often on casual or zero-hours contracts, because they receive such low pay. Since 2010, one in three women’s jobs has come from women registering as self-employed. That is a problem that, again, the Equal Pay Act cannot address. On average, self-employed women earn less than half the money earned by self-employed men. Women are far more likely to be in jobs that pay less than the living wage. We heard my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) talking at length and most passionately about the fact that the labour undertaken by women is given such scant value by our society.
Chris Stephens
The hon. Lady has made a number of excellent points, but another factor in decreasing wages has been the substantial reduction in collective bargaining in the UK since 1979. In Scotland, for example, 81% of workers’ pay was decided by collective bargaining in 1979, whereas that figure is now 23%.
Melanie Onn
I agree absolutely. We have seen the demise of collective bargaining in many different areas and employers are now moving further away from those agreements.
Previously, for example, the Labour Government had agreed a national arrangement for teaching assistants, but the coalition decided not to continue with the national pay negotiating body. Teaching assistants are, obviously, largely women, largely part time and largely low paid, and on term-time-only contracts. I know from my constituency and from people I have represented as an official of Unison that some earn as little as £5,000 or £7,000 a year, working in our schools and supporting our children when they most need additional support. That problem is being exacerbated by the move away from collective bargaining and those people are more prone to being exploited and having their wages squeezed.
Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making some powerful points in a strong speech. She has mentioned the living wage and many local authorities are trying to elevate the circumstances for low-paid workers, particularly the women workers about whom we have heard, by becoming living wage councils. Surely that is a step forward that all councils should look to take.
Melanie Onn
I shall come to that point shortly.
If I can just make some progress—I have been dying to say that—to tackle unequal pay, it is imperative that we tackle the low-skill, low-wage economy that is particularly detrimental to women. Much of the success of the previous Labour Government was down to the introduction of the minimum wage. With 27% of women earning less than the living wage, the Government must do more to raise wages. If they will not do that by raising the minimum wage, they must commit actively to support SME businesses to pay the living wage and legislate for FTSE 100 companies to do the same. The forthcoming cuts to tax credits will only make the problem of low pay worse. If the Government want tax credits to be replaced by higher wages, they need to be active in making that happen and should not simply cut, and cross their fingers.
I completely concur with the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hyndburn (Graham Jones) about living wage councils. I have been active in securing living wage agreements in four different local authorities. That needs to be championed across the board and we must ensure that when those councils make arrangements for any contractors to undertake services on their behalf those companies should also be living wage employers.
The Government need to accept that many zero-hours contracts are exploitative and that people cannot properly manage their household budget if they do not know what they will be earning from one week to the next. The change to exclusivity clauses is welcome, but it ignores the wider problem. Something needs to be done to make the lives of people in insecure work more manageable. I will always believe that when a job exists, a proper contract of employment should be provided. The Conservative Government claim to be on the side of working people, yet when they are presented with an opportunity such as this genuinely to improve people’s working lives, they squirm about like a worm at the end of a line.
It is simply not good enough. People need change and they need it now. Take the Government’s commitment to 30 hours of free childcare for working parents. First, I am pleased to see that they have adopted another of the previous Labour Government’s pledges to support working families. In the race to win votes ahead of the general election, they made a commitment they cannot afford. It is massively underfunded. It costs on average £4.53 an hour to provide the care, but the Government are offering only £3.88 an hour. Perhaps the Minister can tell us where the rest of the money is coming from. If it comes at the expense of child tax credit or working families tax credit, the Government are merely giving with one hand but taking away with the other.
I want to finish by saying that I recently met representatives of a local charity in my constituency called Care, which provides emergency food aid in Grimsby, and they told me that the number of meals that they provide to children has increased by 27% this year alone. Unfair wages for women is a problem of basic fairness, but the fact that working women are being pushed into poverty and insecurity to the extent that they can no longer afford to feed their children is a crisis that surely demands urgent action.
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
First, I welcome the new Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equalities and Family Justice, the hon. Member for Gosport (Caroline Dinenage) to her place and look forward to hearing from her shortly.
It has been an excellent debate today and we have heard many thoughtful and passionate contributions, on which I will reflect shortly, but I begin by paying tribute to all those in the House and in our country more broadly who have fought for gender justice, equality and equal pay. I refer to the former Member for Blackburn, Barbara Castle, whom I was privileged to meet a number of times—in fact, I wrote my first political letter to her when I was eight or nine years old—and to those who have campaigned in recent years on pay transparency, particularly my hon. Friends the Members for Ashfield (Gloria De Piero), for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) and for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra), and many others.
We have heard some shocking statistics today that show us just how far we have to go 45 years after the Equal Pay Act: the 81p on average that women earn for every male £1, the disparity in the proportion of women who study the law yet do not end up as judges and the 68% fall in the number of equal pay claims since the introduction of the new tribunal fees. Given that we are at the start of Wimbledon, which has had its own equal pay concerns over many years, and the fantastic football match that we are all expecting this evening—I wish my very best to the women’s England football team—we have heard from many hon. Members about the disparity in sport. We heard a number of such contributions just a few moments ago. It is a sad fact, as a recent BBC study showed, that men get more prize money than women in 30% of sports—the disparity could not be shown more starkly.
I want to turn to some of the excellent speeches that we have heard today, including a number of excellent maiden speeches. First, the SNP spokesperson, the hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley), was clearly passionate about and committed to these issues. There seemed to be a dispute about the statistics on Scotland. They are from the Office for National Statistics and show that the gender pay gap in Scotland has grown from 17.2% in 2011 to 17.4% to 2014. We all need to do a lot better, whatever part of the United Kingdom we are from, and we all need to take a good look at ourselves given that we have so much progress to make 45 years on from the Equal Pay Act.
The right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), who is not in her place but is the new Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, spoke of the irony of girls outperforming boys for many years and said that, effectively, we were selling the country short, as she put it, by not using their talents, and I could not agree more.
We heard a very passionate speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham, who introduced a ten-minute rule Bill on the gender pay gap last year. She quite rightly asked why companies are scared to make pay information more readily available. That is the question we all ought to ask. She powerfully said that equality is not a women’s issue; it is an issue for society and we must do much better.
The hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill) made an excellent maiden speech, which I found particularly interesting as my family is historically linked to her constituency. She was the first of three hon. Members who spoke today who are the first female Members of Parliament for their constituencies. She spoke powerfully about Magna Carta’s link to her constituency. I was proud to join her recently on the armed forces parliamentary scheme—another area of our society where the progress of women has been slower than we would have liked. Progress is now being made, and it will be great to work with her on that scheme in the months ahead.
We had another maiden speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle), who spoke about the position of women in his constituency, particularly the justice for cleaners campaign, and the fight against inequality in his career and his family experience before coming to this place. Like him, I am only the third MP from my constituency since world war two to have made a maiden speech. I look forward to going to Borough market again shortly; I very much like the coffee there, as well as the many other delights that are on offer.
We heard an excellent speech from the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman), who spoke about his three daughters, but also, powerfully, from his legal experience—the challenges for women in the legal profession. The tone of the debate has been that we need to unite as a House around the issue and perhaps not look for some of the semantic differences, which I shall come to.
My hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston, who is an experienced advocate on these issues, proudly spoke about our party’s record and the pressure we applied during consideration of the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill—I was a member of the Committee—on the issue of transparency. She also spoke powerfully about the perception of jobs and gender stereotypes, on which a number of hon. Members touched.
The hon. Member for Derby North (Amanda Solloway), who is also the first female MP for that constituency, spoke authoritatively, and my hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) spoke powerfully about the potential need for a new Act. She said that the 1970 Act simply has not stood the test of time and that we cannot have reactive legislation, especially in the context of fees and the changes in tribunal law. That needs to be considered holistically: as my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Vicky Foxcroft) said, we cannot deny people access to justice on this crucial issue through the imposition of those fees. She also powerfully said that women might have left the kitchen, but many have not gone very far. That is a stark reminder to us all.
The hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Mrs Drummond) spoke about the four strong women who now represent constituencies around Portsmouth harbour. She spoke passionately about the prospects of women in her constituency and, like the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds, has joined the armed forces parliamentary scheme. I know she will do her best to speak up for the role of women in the armed forces.
The hon. Member for Inverclyde (Ronnie Cowan) made an excellent maiden speech. Clearly, he is incredibly passionate about the people and the industrial history of his constituency. There are many links between my constituency and the Clyde’s industries, and I share the inspiration he has taken from the Apollo programme.
The hon. Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow) spoke strongly from her experience as a woman in business. Again, she is the first female Member of Parliament for her constituency. That is a significant reflection of how things are starting to change in this Chamber, although, as we have all said, that has not gone far enough.
My hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith) essentially asked us the question, “How long do we have to wait?” We have had 45 years since the Equal Pay Act, so how long will it be before we close the gender pay gap? The hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately) asked the good question, “Is there a different dynamic in the debate today?” That is an important point to raise, and one that I note.
It is also important that men have spoken up in the debate. I am proud to be speaking today. As my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham said, this is not a women’s issue; it is an issue for all society and all Members of the House.
The hon. Member for Stirling (Steven Paterson) made an excellent maiden speech and spoke warmly of his illustrious predecessors, whether it was Campbell-Bannerman or my former friend in this place, Anne McGuire, who did such an incredible job championing the cause of equality for disabled people. The hon. Gentleman also spoke passionately about his history and the history of his constituency.
We heard a strong speech, which perhaps struck a more discordant tone, from the hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Stephen Phillips), but he took it in his stride. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff Central (Jo Stevens) followed up with an excellent speech, made from her experience as a director of a major company, in which she highlighted the situation of part-time workers.
My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) spoke honestly about her own marital pay gap and, importantly, about the recent history of the gender pay gap in Birmingham. She challenged us all, quite rightly, about our commitment to feminism and standing up for equalities in this place. I will certainly join her later and declare that I am a feminist, whether in this place or in the bar.
We also heard powerful speeches from my hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Christina Rees), who was an advocate for women in sport before coming to this place, and my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner), who spoke about the widening gender pay gap in local government since 2010. My hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) rightly highlighted the fact that progress is slowing down, which should ring alarm bells with us all and which is disappointing, given the progress we have seen in recent years.
I do not disagree with the Secretary of State that the causes of the gender pay gap are complex. That is all the more reason why we need the comprehensive report that we call for in the motion to identify the key trends and what we might do about them, particularly as the welcome progress that was made has slowed. Given the common ground and the support that has been expressed on all sides for the principles of the motion, I implore the right hon. Lady not to let semantics get in the way of allowing the motion to pass. She commented on the technicality of the use of the term “equal pay” in the motion and in the law, as opposed to the term “gender pay gap”, but I gently remind her that she has used the terms interchangeably herself, most recently in an article in The Guardian in November last year, when she stressed the importance of equal pay day which, as we all know, is the day in the year when women start working for free compared with men—a shocking indictment.
Although the terms may be used interchangeably in the motion, they expose the same injustice to women across the country which, for many and diverse reasons, still blights our economy and society. The facts are clear. It is 45 years since the Equal Pay Act, yet women still earn on average 81p for every pound earned by men. The average woman will lose more than £200,000 in the course of her working life as a result of the gender pay gap. Women’s wages fell by around £30 a year last year before inflation. The pay gap exists not only in low-wage jobs—we heard much about that today—but across the board, especially at higher levels of management. We have seen a shocking fall in the number of equal pay claims.
The gender pay gap is not only morally wrong and an affront to our sense of equality in this House and in the country, but bad for our economy. If women were paid the same as men across the board, our GDP, on one projection, would be up by 13%. There is also an impact on parents and families. The unequal pay challenge means that parental leave will always be seen as primarily for women, even when men want to be with their children, because of the cost of raising children, even with a partner. We need to recognise the moral and economic costs and the costs for families.
I cannot participate in the daughters race as I do not have any daughters, but I have three goddaughters and I want them to have the same opportunities and chances in life as my godsons. As a man I am honoured to wind up the debate today. As my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham said, this is an issue for all of us, so we need to get on and deal with it. Let us have the transparency, assess the data properly, remove the barriers to justice from tribunal fees, take action on childcare, education, elderly care, low wages and representation in board rooms, and let us get equal. I commend the motion to the House.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equalities and Family Justice (Caroline Dinenage)
It is a great pleasure to take part in the debate. I start by thanking the hon. Member for Ashfield (Gloria De Piero) for securing this important debate on equal pay and the gender pay gap. It has been a fantastic debate and we have had some excellent contributions from across the House and some outstanding maiden speeches. I have listened with great interest to all the points that were made. I thank the hon. Member for Ashfield and the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) for their kind words of welcome.
We all know that equal pay and the gender pay gap are entirely different but equally important. Discrimination is, sadly, just one of a number of factors behind the gender pay gap. Even if there was never a single incident in which a woman was paid less than a man for the same job, there would still be a gender pay gap. That is why this debate is so important, as it gives me the chance to remind the House how much progress we have made, and how this Government strive to continue to tackle all the causes of disparity between what men and women earn.
Hon. Members asked lots of questions in the debate today and made many specific points. The hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley) said that she regretted that a debate on this subject was needed in this day and age—a sentiment we all share across the House.
I am proud that my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), who will be the first Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, was able to speak today. She speaks with great power and authority on these matters. She said that every woman has the right to a job that does not marginalise them because of their gender or penalise them because they have caring responsibilities, which I think we can all unite behind. She also mentioned the importance of flexible skilled working and asked about the progress on collecting data. The recent extension of the right to request flexible working means that more than 20 million employees will now have that right. We know that total requests just before the extension were running at about 182,000 a year, with about 144,000 agreed to. We will of course be monitoring the post-extension data.
The hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), who has long been a great champion of this important issue, spoke about the importance of tackling the pay gap nationally and internationally. She also talked about the devastating impact that violence against women and girls can have, both at home and overseas, on their ability to reach their full potential, both in the workplace and in the rest of their lives.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill) made a fantastic maiden speech, taking us on a sumptuous and spellbinding tour of the places and people of her constituency. Her remarkable life and business experience made quite an impression and, I think, will make her not only an excellent champion for her corner of Suffolk, but a first-class addition to the House.
The hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle) spoke generously about his predecessor, who incidentally is also my predecessor in the Ministry of Justice. He spoke with enormous knowledge about his constituency and made all our mouths water as he talked about the delights of Borough market and the plethora of breweries and gin distilleries in his patch. Indeed, he might need his predecessor’s taxi to get us all home.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) spoke with experience about the economic benefits of flexible working and highlighted the importance of data collection, echoing what many business people have said: what gets measured gets managed, and what gets published gets managed even better.
The hon. Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra) rightly pointed out that we need to tackle the jobs that are deemed to be either men’s jobs or women’s jobs. We need to get rid of that myth from our everyday parlance and everyday thinking. Unfortunately, she also felt the need, along with the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith), to criticise the coalition Government for being slow to move away from a voluntary reporting system. She should remember that, contrary to what has been said, the previous Labour Government had no plans to move forward with section 78 of the Equality Act 2010; they proposed three years of voluntary compliance first, although I completely understand why the Labour party might want to erase parts of its more recent political history.
My hon. Friend the Member for Derby North (Amanda Solloway) represents one of the 20 or so seats where there is actually a positive gender pay gap. We should certainly be hotfooting it to the streets of Derby to find out how they are making such magnificent progress.
The hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry), who is no longer here—[Interruption.] Oh, she is here but has moved, just to try to fool me on my first day out of the blocks. I welcome her contribution. She always speaks with enormous knowledge and conviction on this subject. She led a Westminster Hall debate in March in which she called for a new equal pay Act, and now she is proposing a new equality Act. We expect shortly to publish a post-legislative scrutiny memorandum on the 2010 Act as a Command Paper, and we now have the Women and Equalities Committee to receive it. It strikes me that the Committee, ably chaired by my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke, might wish to consider the important issues that the hon. Lady raised in relation to the need for a new Act.
It was particularly great to hear from my hon. Friend and neighbour, the Member for Portsmouth South (Mrs Drummond), who rightly pointed out the importance of encouraging girls to fill the skilled engineering and defence jobs that our neck of the woods, with such a proud Navy heritage, always demands. She makes it 100% female representation for the Portsmouth harbour area, and that is to be celebrated.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Inverclyde (Ronnie Cowan) on an educational and enlightening maiden speech that brought his constituency to life as the birthplace of James Watt, with a remarkable geography, and highlighted his long history of winning elections for the SNP.
My hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow) spoke about the success of women in SMEs, not least in her constituency, which has an award-winning bull semen business—the mind boggles. That reminds me that if women were starting businesses at the same rate as men, we would have 1 million more small businesses in this country. My hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately) highlighted the importance of the role of men in addressing this issue and how powerful they can be as agents of change.
The hon. Member for Stirling (Steven Paterson) made an excellent maiden speech giving a brief summary of his area’s history and making an early pitch for Stirling castle as an alternative location should we ever have to leave this building; I hope everybody has noted that.
My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Stephen Phillips) spoke with his trademark eloquence about girls’ educational dominance and rightly urged us not to forget their male peers who sometimes get left behind. He highlighted the impact of motherhood on women’s ability to fulfil their career ambitions and abilities.
The hon. Members for Cardiff Central (Jo Stevens), for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) and for Neath (Christina Rees) made a series of powerful, passionate and engaging speeches that underlined the importance of tackling this issue for a whole host of reasons. I note carefully what the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley said about the travails of Birmingham City Council in the face of equal pay claims, although I find it hard to square that evidence with the statements made by others in her party that equal pay law is ineffective and should be replaced.
The hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) spoke about the local government pay gap, as did the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn). The Government do not seek to set pay rates for local government, as all local authorities are covered by the public sector equality duty, which requires them to have due regard to equality considerations in carrying out their functions, including decisions about their own workplaces. The hon. Member for Cambridge asked whether bonuses will be covered in the regulations. The great thing about the consultation is that it will explore exactly what should be published, how it should be published, and what more can be done to tackle this issue.
The hon. Member for Great Grimsby asked how we will fund 30 hours of free childcare. We will talk to the childcare sector and conduct a review of funding for this entitlement. We must strike the right balance between being fair to providers and delivering value for money for the taxpayer. I would gently say to her that as a mother of two children that I put through childcare under the previous Government, when it was the most expensive in Europe, anything we can do to improve opportunities for parents in this regard is very important.
The good news is that there are more women in work than ever before, and we have one of the highest women’s employment rates in the EU, with 14.5 million women employed, 8.3 million of whom are working full time. It is encouraging to see that there are now no all-male FTSE 100 boards. We have strongly promoted and championed the work of the Women’s Business Council and implemented Lord Davies’s review of women on boards. As a result, women now make up 23% of FTSE 100 boards and 34% of managing directors and senior officials. Let us not forget that 20% of SMEs are now majority led by women—that is nearly 1 million small businesses.
Too many women have told us that they were unable to develop their careers due to lack of affordable childcare and limited flexibility in balancing work and family responsibilities. We have taken action to ensure that the workplace meets women’s needs and to give them a fair chance to get to the top by extending to all the right to request flexible working, introducing shared parental leave, and extending free childcare to 30 hours a week for working families with three and four-year-olds, with a tax-free childcare scheme that will save a working family up to £2,000 per child.
We need to break down the barriers that say that one sort of job is more suitable for women and another for men. That needs to start with our young people, which is why we are broadening the career aspirations for girls and young women by encouraging them to consider careers in science, technology, engineering and maths through the “Your Life” campaign.
Many hon. Members have mentioned the great ladies from the Ford Motor Company in Dagenham—the spiritual home of the fight for equal pay—and I was there last week, seeing how they are inspiring the next generation of female engineers. Opening up those highly skilled and better paid careers ensures that women are less concentrated in sectors that offer narrower scope for reward and career progression.
As my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke has said, we need to make sure that older women are supported to reach their full potential. We have built on the success of the older workers champion by rolling out a regional scheme across the country. We have also started a project with a £1.6 million pot, exploring how carers can be supported to remain in employment if they wish by using flexible working arrangements and improving technological access to information and resources.
Under this Government, the gender pay gap is the narrowest it has ever been, but at 19.1% we still have work to do. All parties agreed in the last Parliament that the way forward was to introduce section 78 of the Equality Act 2010, requiring mandatory pay reporting by employers with at least 250 employees. Our manifesto underlined our commitment to that. We are serious about reducing the gender pay gap further, and because we understand business we want to bring business with us as we do so. We are delivering that as a priority. In line with our commitments from the last Parliament, we will shortly launch a public consultation on gender pay reporting and introduce regulations in due course.
The Opposition’s motion mentions the Equality and Human Rights Commission and the Low Pay Commission. Of course, we are already working closely with the EHRC on equal pay, and there is nothing to stop it, as an independent body, analysing pay gap information in any way it likes. The EHRC is already under a duty to monitor the effectiveness of the equality enactments, which include regulations made under section 78, and to give advice and recommendations to the Government about them. Therefore, the EHRC will already be under a under a duty to monitor the effectiveness of section 78. Given that the EHRC will already be under such a duty, and given that the only way it could be mandated would be by Parliament changing the Equality Act 2006, which sets out its functions and remits, the Opposition’s motion seems a little muddled. Where there is evidence of actual pay discrimination, we introduced legislation requiring employment tribunals to order the employer to complete an equal pay audit.
Caroline Dinenage
I have very little time left, so I am going to try to get to the end of my speech, if the hon. Gentleman does not mind. [Interruption.] If the hon. Gentleman will give me time, I will offer a full explanation.
In conclusion, this Government are already strongly building on the record of the coalition, both in tackling the gender pay gap and, more widely, in promoting policies that will ensure that women can play their full part in our economic growth. I am proud to be a member of this Government—we are taking forward that work—and delighted to have this opportunity so early in the new Parliament to present our record to the House. However, we should never be complacent about equal pay and addressing the gender pay gap.
Sadly, although I share so much of the sentiment of the motion, all of its suggestions, apart from a formal laying of the annual document before Parliament, could already be done by the EHRC without any change to legislation or any instruction by Government, which we could not in any case give to an independent body. I therefore call upon the House to reject the motion as a muddled and unnecessary add-on to what this Government are already committed to taking very seriously.
Question put.
Business without Debate
Sub-Saharan Africa (Corruption and the Economy)
(8 years, 10 months ago)
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Stephen Phillips (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
Let us begin our journey in almost any country—certainly far too many countries—on the world’s poorest continent, a continent bordering Europe: that of Africa. We sit in the office of the procurement manager of a Government Department—it matters not which one, for they are all much the same. Outside, not 100 feet away, a mother sits in the stifling heat with her children engaged in whatever business she has, selling mangoes, or coconuts, or smoked fish to passers-by perhaps. She survives and provides for her family on an income of less than a dollar a day. There is no father, for he passed away some time ago from a virus with which many in the developed world live full and long lives. Whether the mother has HIV, whether she will survive to see her sons grow to manhood, neither she nor we know. But our world, and even the world of our procurement manager, is a world wholly unknown to her experience.
In the office in which we sit, the procurement manager, who is tasked with spending donor funds from the developed world, is negotiating a contract for the supply of expensive photocopiers to the Department in which the brother who appointed him is the Minister. His salary is a few thousand dollars a year, a fortune to the vast majority of the citizens he is supposed to serve. Yet below the cuff of his crisp white shirt, we find the essential element of the uniform of the Government procurement manager in any sub-Saharan African country: the gold, diamond-encrusted Rolex, yours for only $40,000 at any good airport en route to the nation in which we find ourselves. How on earth was it paid for? Was it perhaps a gift? No. It was paid for by the official himself from cash given to him, which secured another lucrative Government contract for another supplier—funds paid not to the Government, but to the official himself. It is, we are told, something we must accept; it is the way things are. But it is the way things have been for far, far too long.
Across sub-Saharan Africa, if you want to do business, you must pay to oil the wheels. You must pay if you want to avoid the consequences of laws designed to protect the most vulnerable from the exploitation of the natural resources that lie adjacent to homes. You must pay if you want to drive unmolested past makeshift roadblocks manned by real police officers employed by the state. You must pay for almost any interaction with the officials of the state. For if you do not, you will find your life much more difficult than it needs to be—if, that is, you are fortunate enough to have the cash to ease your path.
If you are rich enough, you can change that; if you are rich enough and you want to—and many businesses do—you can change the laws that inconveniently prevent you from exploiting the resources Africa possesses and, even better, from paying tax on your profits. If you are rich enough, you can always buy yourself out of any trouble you find yourself in.
Corruption in sub-Saharan Africa is therefore endemic; it is part of the way of life; it is how things are. But—and this is the point with which the House needs to be troubled—corruption stifles legitimate investment, kills economic growth, maintains and supports poverty, and because it does all those things, it also threatens the security of this country and of the developed world as a whole.
The poorest people—and it is the very poorest and the most vulnerable in our world that we are talking about—will risk all in an attempt to make their way to the developed world. And some of them, seeing the quality of life we have and they do not, are also ripe for a radicalisation that endangers the security of our citizens overseas and, as we have seen, here at home as well.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I sought permission beforehand to intervene. Does the hon. and learned Gentleman feel that there is perhaps a need for Department for International Development projects that come from the backing of this Government—my and his Government—to be monitored in respect of project delivery for the people on the ground to ensure that they are correct? Does there need to be oversight of DFID projects by the Government to stop corruption?
Stephen Phillips
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and he is absolutely right. I shall come on to his point in due course.
Corruption in the developing world has been a hidden problem for too long, though it is now beginning to be brought home to us by the constant threat to our security and by an untrammelled immigration that sees fires set at the entrance to the channel tunnel in France. It is something that requires effort from every Government across the world to challenge, but it is also something that I fear is still too far down the political agenda across the world to be effectively tackled.
Nothing much is changing in terms of advancing the anti-corruption agenda. On 9 December 2013, on international anti-corruption day, the UN Secretary-General pointed out that
“corruption suppresses economic growth by driving up costs, and undermines the sustainable management of the environment and natural resources. It breaches fundamental human rights, exacerbates poverty and increases inequality by diverting funds from health care, education and other essential services. The malignant effects of corruption are felt by billions of people everywhere.”
Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)
Does my hon. and learned Friend agree that until all Governments have zero tolerance of corruption, they will never be able to invest what they need to invest in health and education, as he said? They should take a leaf out of Rwanda’s book, as that is what it has done, and it is investing consistently, which other countries are not.
Stephen Phillips
My hon. Friend is right. I cannot speak specifically about Rwanda, but unless and until all countries bear down on corruption, this will be a problem that endures.
Very little progress has been made since the Secretary-General made those remarks two years ago. Still the procurement managers sit in their air-conditioned offices marking the passage of time on their gold Rolexes; still corporate interests buy their way out of laws designed to protect the environment and to ensure that they pay proper amounts of taxation; still wealthy individuals and businesses ease their passage through difficult lawsuits by ensuring that the judiciary across Africa knows which side is more likely to pay more for the “right” result.
Let us take but one area. In its report “Making a Killing”, published this year, Save the Children estimated that the lost tax revenues to developing countries in sub-Saharan Africa due to illicit financial flows was in the order of $15 billion—a figure that dwarfs this country’s annual aid budget and would pay for 1.8 million healthcare workers. That is a loss of revenue to sub-Saharan Africa in just one area, which is largely made possible by a corruption that allows the maintaining of tax laws and treaties that favour rich corporations which are prepared to bribe Governments and parliamentarians to secure their favoured status. The report fails to take account of perhaps even larger revenues that are lost because a blind eye is turned—once it has been paid for—to direct tax evasion. That is morally wrong. It sustains endemic poverty, and, as I have said, it threatens our own security.
We are not without an international framework within which to deal with the issue. In 2003, the United Nations opened for signature the international anti-corruption convention, which the majority of countries in the world have now ratified. It established some common standards in relation to, for example, criminalisation and law enforcement in chapter III, and international co-operation in chapter IV. However, although monitoring finally began in about 2010, it has been patchy and inconsistent. It also suffers from the major failing that review takes place principally “in region”, thus opening up a whole new field to corruption as non-compliant countries with mutual interests are able to score one another for compliance. One issue that the Minister could usefully discuss with his counterparts in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office is how the convention can be updated to ensure proper monitoring.
I believe that the OECD anti-bribery convention has been ratified by only 41 countries. What efforts are the Government making to ensure not only that it is more broadly adopted, but that it is actually enforced by those who have signed it? In its most recent report on the implementation of the convention in 2015, Transparency International found that there was “little or no enforcement” of it in many states, including the Republic of Ireland. There was “active enforcement” only in the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany and Switzerland.
The conventions are, however, only part of the solution. They assist in establishing common international standards, but without enforcement—or, for that matter, the institutions that are necessary to ensure enforcement—they are essentially meaningless.
Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)
My hon. and learned Friend has mentioned the Foreign Office and other Departments. Is he satisfied with the current position, or does he believe there is an opportunity for greater understanding and co-operation between the Foreign Office and the Department for International Development when it comes to tackling some of the problems that he is outlining?
Stephen Phillips
Co-operation between the two Departments is obviously critical. Indeed, the Government as a whole must focus on the need to bear down on corruption where it exists, whether here or anywhere else in the world.
One of the problems is that very little effort appears to have been devoted to ensuring that institution building is carried out by donors who too often prefer to focus on the sexier aspects of development, such as education and health—funding areas that are, in any event, losing more money than they are receiving because of the corruption that pervades the region. So it is, although he may not know it, that the Minister is funding education programmes which pay teachers who do not exist; so it is that he is paying for the planting of crops which cannot grow in soil that cannot be maintained; and so it is that he funds programmes as a result of which money routinely finds itself in the hands of the governing class, despite the best efforts of those in his Department who work so hard to ensure that that does not happen.
Unless and until there is an unrelenting focus on changing the institutional environment throughout sub-Saharan Africa, which at present there is not, very little will change. As Dr John Mukum Mbaku argued in his 2007 book on corruption in Africa,
“the institutional environment, not cultural norms, determine a society’s propensity to engage in corruption and other forms of opportunism ...The incentive structures that a country’s market participants face—which are determined by the country’s institutional arrangements, may create opportunities for corruption and provide an environment in which even honest and highly ethical individuals may be forced to engage in corrupt activities in order to survive. Such perverse incentive structures can be changed or modified through democratic constitutional reforms.”
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
May I take up that point about “getting our own house in order”? Does the hon. and learned Gentleman accept that, while some of the corruption that he is describing may not exist in this country, we operate certain systems of patronage about which we must be very careful in view of the example that they might set developing countries?
Stephen Phillips
I think that I agree with the hon. Gentleman, although unless he gives some specific examples it is a bit difficult for me to know. However, corruption plainly does not exist in this country to the extent that it exists in large parts of Africa. I would not want to equate the two, or, indeed, give solace to those who engage in corruption in Africa on the basis that there is anything similar going on here, for the simple reason that there is not.
What steps is the Minister taking in this area—not just because it is the right thing to do, but because it is essential for our own security—to ensure there is institution building within sub-Saharan Africa to discourage individual Government officials from engaging in corruption? What structural reforms do the Government intend to make our aid dependent on, in order to root out those who enrich themselves at the expense of those they are supposed to serve? To what extent is our international aid delivered in a manner designed to ensure that it does not find itself in the wrong places and, more importantly, in the wrong pockets?
DFID’s role is crucial. Having met, indeed enshrined in law, our commitment to spend 0.7% of GNI on international aid—a decision not always popular, but again essential for our national security—DFID’s efforts in stamping out corruption, while well meaning, none the less give cause for concern in some areas. As the Independent Commission for Aid Impact pointed out in its 2014 report “DFID’s Approach to Anti-Corruption and its Impact on the Poor”,
“DFID’s anti-corruption activities have demonstrated certain achievements but have had little success in reducing the effects of corruption, especially as directly experienced by the poor.”
The report went on to point out that DFID had
“little understanding of what is working with respect to its anti-corruption activities”
and
“does not fully understand which of its activities are addressing corruption or how they will make a difference.”
I appreciate that the Minister is new to his job, and that the Department is always well meaning and more often than not effective in delivering its objectives, but he has to tell the House how it is that, rather than merely paying lip service to the anti-corruption agenda, he now intends to bear down on something that hits the very poorest people in the world the hardest. More bilateral aid must, I say to him, go to the anti-corruption effort. All bilateral aid must be conditional on corruption, in all its forms, being stamped out in the countries to which it is given. If we really want to tackle poverty in the developing world and improve our security, adopting the sustainable development goals this year is all well and good, but part of that effort has to focus, in a way in which it has seemingly not to date, on the eradication of corruption as a way of life, and as a way of government, across the whole of Africa.
Why is that? Let me end where I began, for I must tell the House that the procurement manager and the mother with whom I began my speech are real people. I have spoken to them. I have witnessed the wealth of one and the poverty of the other, and I have played football with the sons. Like other boys across the developing world, theirs will not be an easy life, but it will be a great deal easier and more likely to be worth while if, in growing up, they do not need to bribe their way through school, university and into a job, paying teachers, university professors, lawyers, policemen, judges, healthcare workers and managers to perform the functions for which the state in which they live is already paying on their behalf.
Morally, we owe such boys an obligation to do all we can to stamp out the corruption that robs them and their fellows of their futures, and keeps them in poverty. Lest it be thought that it is not in our interests or not our problem, I end merely by pointing out that, if we do not act, it is they a future Home Secretary will be dealing with at Calais or, worse, on the beaches of some foreign shore where a poverty of existence made possible by corruption has given rise to a radicalisation which is at once both perverse and avoidable.
The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Grant Shapps)
I congratulate my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Stephen Phillips) on securing the debate on this important subject and on the incredibly powerful way in which he has framed his arguments. He is absolutely right to say that corruption, fraud, tax avoidance and evasion pose serious challenges in the developing world. They put an economic brake on development and help to ensure that nations fail to develop at the speed that we would all want to see. What is more, they are matters of direct interest to this House because of our impressive record in international development. However, he is right to highlight the issue of corruption. I want to turn to his speech and to other comments made in the debate.
As my hon. and learned Friend will know, the Department for International Development works in some of the poorest countries in the world, where governance arrangements are often extremely weak. He highlighted that in his passionate speech. Corruption and fraud are often commonplace. Often, there is a highly sophisticated patronage network of elite engagement. I want to outline DFID’s approach to combating corruption and fraud in sub-Saharan Africa while trying to achieve our development goals for some of the poorest people in the world.
First, however, I want to highlight the extent of the challenge facing us. My hon. and learned Friend is absolutely right that in some countries and locations the problem is endemic. That can even be the case in really good countries. Last week I was in Malawi, a functioning democracy that has been free of war for the last 51 years. Even there the President was telling me that it is difficult to get things done and the state moves at a slow pace. Although he did not mention this, we know corruption is part of that problem.
Although there is evidence that some countries in east Asia have achieved high levels of growth in spite of high levels of corruption, the evidence for sub-Saharan Africa reinforces what our common sense tells us: that corruption has a hugely negative effect on investor confidence in a country. My hon. and learned Friend mentioned $15 billion in lost revenue. In fact the World Economic Forum reported that corruption undermines prosperity by imposing a cost equivalent to 5% of global GDP, or $2.6 trillion, every year.
Corruption is ranked as one of the top two barriers to doing business in two thirds of DFID’s main partner countries, so this is a massive problem. It creates barriers to market entry. Two thirds of foreign bribery cases occurred in just four sectors related to infrastructure: 19% in the extractives sector; 15% in construction; 15% in transport and storage; and 10% in information and communication. That illustrates that corruption is huddled around specific sectors.
There is also increasing uncertainty for investors, to the detriment of long-term investment. The World Bank reports that bribery can add up to 10% to business costs globally. Corruption also limits the potential of business. It limits the growth and productivity of private sector firms, with small and medium-sized enterprises experiencing the most difficulties. Many do not even bother to show up in the first place because it is just too difficult to operate in those markets.
A corrupt society and state puts an unduly negative burden on the poorest. That is why the Prime Minister has gone to such lengths to talk about what he calls the golden thread of development. The idea is that a country can try to do everything else—build the infrastructure, put the right processes in place, sort out its health and education systems—but if it does not deal with corruption, it will never enfranchise its citizens, thereby making them all better off.
The scale and breadth of the challenge is enormous. DFID does three things to stop corruption: we work in countries to help Governments track and trace activities and funds; we build the capacity of institutions to stop behaviours; and we apply pressure on our international partners to ensure they raise their game. Most importantly—this is possibly the one respect in which I diverge from what my hon. and learned Friend said in his excellent speech—we would be wrong to inadvertently characterise the DFID budget as disappearing into some hole of corruption, for one simple reason. In the year 2013-14, DFID spent £9.791 billion—nearly £10 billion—on international development. Of that, 4% was what is known as sector support—it might be for education, for example—whereas just 1% was to general support. In other words, although my hon. and learned Friend is right to point out these problems, we are engaged in the task of making sure we do not give money to Governments who cannot, through their own procurement, be trusted to spend it.
Stephen Phillips
I understand that point, but let us consider the 4% we spend on education. When we build a school, DFID rightly secures three tenders, but they are essentially agreed between the tendering companies, and the British taxpayer ends up paying probably 10 times more than the actual cost. That form of corruption is hidden in the DFID budget.
Grant Shapps
Once again, my hon. and learned Friend is right to point out these problems, which indeed exist in many places in the world, and particularly in some of these markets. Last week, however, I was in a school in Zomba in Malawi announcing £11.6 million in DFID budget. In that case we have chosen to work with USAID, because it has an established programme. It has the contractors in place and we can be certain, as it is properly audited, that the money is being well spent. He is right to point out these issues and it is right that the Department works to clamp down on all these practices. Clearly, we must protect British taxpayers’ funds and we must, for the reasons he outlined, ensure that the worst-off people in the world—Malawi is in the world’s bottom five for income, with an average income of £179 a year—are not being subsidised, through corruption, by one of the wealthiest countries in the world, which we are fortunate enough to live in.
Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
Does the Minister agree that some of the most effective international development work is often done by small, local, community organisations? We may be talking about building schools, working in community health centres or other such things. One problem they find is accessing the funds that DFID or others provide. We often hear people say, “We would like to work with these people but we cannot do so because the grant size is too small.” Yet these organisations are probably the least corrupt and often the most effective.
Grant Shapps
My hon. Friend will be interested to hear that we were having that conversation in the Department only yesterday, and he is right to highlight it.
Let me turn to some of the things we are doing to combat these problems of corruption. First, we track and trace activities and funds. DFID works in and with developing countries to ensure that public bodies and public funds are serving the people. Over recent months, DFID country teams have been undertaking analyses of some of the constraints to growth, and the message is clear: corruption negatively influences investor confidence, as we have already established. To address that, we fund track and trace activities to shine a light on corruption and recover stolen assets. DFID has been supporting the extractives industry transparency initiative since 2002, working in 23 sub-Saharan African countries. DFID supports the International Centre for Asset Recovery, which provides practical legal assistance to countries trying to track, trace and recover funds; it has cases worth potentially $235 million in Kenya, $227 million in Tanzania, which I visited and where I discussed some of this just a few weeks ago, and $30 million in Malawi, which I was in last week. An awful lot of work is going on in track and trace.
We have also built capacity to stop behaviours and reduce the opportunities for corruption. We work with partners on the ground to build the capacity of civil society organisations and partner agencies. For example, in Nigeria, DFID has worked to reduce government funds being lost or stolen. That has resulted in some £1.5 billion of assets being recovered, and DFID is supporting 2,670 investigation cases. My hon. and learned Friend will rightly point out that that must have something to do with the scale of the problem, but none the less he will be pleased to know that UK-based police and intelligence units, and many other organs of the British state, are helping in the swift recovery of assets.
Thirdly, we are applying pressure to our international partners, and that is at the heart of this matter. We are working on that UN convention against corruption in partner countries and with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund on strengthening financial action taskforces around the globe. We have been taking real leadership in these areas. DFID works with other G8 and G20 members, and through the UN, to strengthen the international architecture to combat corruption and illicit financial flows. I remind the House that the United Kingdom took the lead when we chaired the G8 in 2013, implementing a number of measures which have put the UK in a leadership position.
It is, however, important to continue raising our game and it goes without saying that we also take our responsibilities very seriously. All DFID offices must complete and regularly refresh anti-corruption and counter-fraud country strategies that highlight the critical barriers. I can provide my hon. and learned Friend with the assurance that as a result of this evening’s debate I will be taking even more interest in that matter over the coming weeks and months.
My hon. and learned Friend mentioned the ICAI report on DFID’s work in this area in 2014, when DFID’s resources on counter-fraud and anti-corruption were said to have been “fragmented”. We have taken a number of steps since then to address these things, but because of a lack of time I will not produce the entire list.
I want to touch on tax—the issue of tackling tax avoidance and tax evasion in developing countries—to which my hon. and learned Friend referred. As I mentioned, the UK led on the issue during its G8 presidency. What I did not mention was that more than 90 countries have now signed up to principles such as automatic tax information exchange and helping to tackle offshore tax evasion. We are working to champion the OECD’s base erosion and profit-shifting project. This is in relation to multinational companies moving profits in order not to pay tax where it should be paid.
A huge amount of work is going on across Whitehall. The Minister of State, Department for International Development, my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest West (Mr Swayne), sits on a body that is responsible, across Whitehall, for trying to build the capacity to monitor these areas. The body has done a huge amount of work already in Britain to prevent corruption, and it is now turning its attention internationally.
Tackling global poverty is the right thing to do, and it is also in Britain’s interests. We will continue to insist that every Department and organisation that we fund adopts a zero-tolerance approach to corruption. We will also continue with our focus on tackling tax avoidance and tax evasion in the developing world. As I mentioned to the House a moment ago, as a product of this debate, my own attention will be more highly focused on the matter.
Question put and agreed to.