18:59 - The House divided: - Ayes: 243 / Noes: 290 - Question accordingly negatived.
Kate Green
It is certainly not a record to be proud of.
Worryingly, the Young Women’s Trust says that young women are considerably more likely than women over the age of 31 to think that many traditionally male roles are out of their reach. Just 15% of university places for computer science and engineering are taken by women students. Although, as the hon. and learned Member for South East Cambridgeshire noted, the majority of apprenticeships are taken up by women, two thirds of women apprentices are in the five lowest paid industry sectors, and after completing an apprenticeship, 16% of women are out of work, compared with only 6% of male apprentices.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equalities and Family Justice (Caroline Dinenage)
Does the hon. Lady agree that those ladies who are today starting apprenticeships and completing university are the women who were educated or who started their education when her party was in government, and that it is actually Labour’s lack of careers advice and lack of engendering ambition and aspiration that has resulted in some of the statistics she has cited?
Kate Green
No, I do not accept that at all. The CBI did not ask about the careers advice offered under the Labour Government, who had a proper careers system in schools. The CBI asked about the careers advice that is on offer now, at a time when the Government have scrapped a decent careers service and are leaving it to the discretion of schools and asking people to go online to get it.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equalities and Family Justice (Caroline Dinenage)
It is an enormous pleasure to respond to this debate on an incredibly important subject. I start with a note of sadness, which I direct to the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green). Nothing that she said this afternoon, not a word that came out of her mouth, championed or celebrated the achievements of women every day throughout the country. Even those who start their own businesses, create jobs and generate the economic recovery that we are seeing, she could not celebrate. She sees that as a negative, which underlines how Labour sees small businesses up and down the country.
Caroline Dinenage
I will make progress, if I may.
A vibrant economy, where everyone can fulfil their potential and play their part, is at the heart of this Government’s mission to govern as one nation. As the Prime Minister said,
“you can’t have true opportunity without equality”.
That message goes to the heart of what the Government want to achieve for women.
This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Sex Discrimination Act and I am very pleased to say that we have seen significant economic progress for women during those 40 years. Over the past five years in particular, we have made huge strides. We have more women in work than ever before. Female employment has increased, with 14.6 million women now working. There are over a million small businesses with women at the helm. We have helped to achieve the lowest ever gender pay gap on record, and we have more than doubled women’s representation on FTSE 100 boards since 2011.
Debbie Abrahams
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way so early. She mentioned women running their own businesses. Does she consider it a success that women are likely to have an average income of £9,800, compared with self-employed men, who earn an average of £17,000?
Caroline Dinenage
I like to champion everyone who goes out there and starts her own business, pursues her passion and creates employment. There are many obstacles that prevent women from starting and growing their own businesses, and as a Government we are seeking to overcome those obstacles. I shall come to that later in my comments. [Interruption.] We do have a long way to go. We are by no means complacent. There is so much more we can do to make sure women can play their full part in this economy, and the Government want to make sure that all women can fulfil their potential.
Over 1.5 million women already in work say that they would like to do more hours if they could. If they each worked just one extra hour each week, that would contribute 80 million more hours a year in productivity. As a country, we cannot afford to waste the talents of a single person, let alone those of half of our population. Although such economic arguments are of course very important and very powerful, frankly, gender equality is also just the right thing to do.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
In the previous Government, I—along with the Minister’s predecessor as Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equalities, Jo Swinson—commissioned a report on womenomics, which was produced by Professor Lesley Sawers of Glasgow Caledonian University. What are the Government doing about that report?
Caroline Dinenage
I will come on to that a little later in my speech, but I join the right hon. Gentleman in paying tribute to Jo Swinson, my predecessor in this role, who did an excellent job.
This commitment to gender equality informs the difficult decisions that we have had to make to return the country to surplus and ensure that we no longer depend on debt. We must not forget, despite the mass amnesia that seems to have broken out on the Opposition side of the House, that we are in this position because of Labour’s financial mismanagement, which meant that we have had to take very difficult and unpleasant decisions to balance the books and live within our means. We know that women still earn less, own less and retire with less than their male counterparts.
Caroline Dinenage
Where do I start with the motion before us? I will have a little sit down while I think about it.
Mrs Drummond
Is the Minister appalled, as I am, by the fact that the number of women claimants for jobseeker’s allowance went up by 740,000 during the last two years of the Labour Government, between 2008 and 2010? That nearly doubled the previous number of claimants, but the number has now been reduced by 746,000 under our Government.
Caroline Dinenage
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. We will not take any lessons about female employment from the Labour party.
Alison McGovern
In our house, when I was growing up, if it rained, we used to say, “We blame the Tories”, so I am no stranger to the Minister’s political strategy. She commenced her speech with remarks about celebrating the contribution of women. Does she think that it pays tribute to the hard work of women in our economy to bang on in the way she is about what happened under the previous Labour Government?
Caroline Dinenage
I am sure the hon. Lady feels it is very convenient to forget about what happened under the previous Labour Government. When it rains, we talk about fixing the roof before that happens—when the sun is shining—
Caroline Dinenage
Give me a couple of minutes to make a little progress.
I want to talk about the motion. Where do I start? The evidence is deeply flawed. Unfortunately—I am sad about this—it is the typical back-of-a-fag-packet stuff we have come to expect from Labour Members. Frankly, they have made bizarre and outdated assumptions about how households divide their money. There is even an implication that lower fuel prices somehow do not help women. The pink battle bus may have run on something other than petrol, but the rest of us fill up in the normal way.
Caroline Dinenage
I will make a little more progress. [Interruption.] I will give way in a moment.
Labour Members assume that any savings will immediately mean a poorer service, which we know is not true. They have made bizarre and outdated assumptions about how households divide their money, and we know it is not true that savings will immediately mean a poorer service. What they do not understand is that the British public know that too.
Kate Green
The Minister is making assertions, but I am sorry to tell her that the academic research belies what she is saying. It is true that women manage the household budget in many households, but increasingly, it is not their income to manage. With the married couple’s tax break, more money is being put into the wallets of men, and women are dependent on men to fund them. Moreover—this point relates to what she said about fuel—the number of women who own and drive cars is significantly lower than the number of men. That is why it matters that benefits and tax policies should address what actually happens and the way in which families live their lives.
Caroline Dinenage
The hon. Lady makes a number of sweeping assumptions. The fact is that child tax credits and child benefit all go into the pockets of women. Her assumptions are very outdated. Families work as a unit: they work together and pool their income. Frankly, it is quite a sexist allegation.
Simon Hoare
Does my hon. Friend agree that although the Labour party may spend its time reading or commissioning academic studies, the Government are getting on with delivering policies for strengthening our economy to the betterment of all?
Caroline Dinenage
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Inheriting an economy that was riddled with debt did nothing for women in this country, and not tackling the deficit would have been the real crime and created an unacceptable risk for our economy and people’s lives and futures. Not tackling the deficit would have put at risk the very jobs and services that women depend on. It would have risked their children’s education and security, and for those of us who want to ensure that everyone is able to fulfil their potential, such risks are unacceptable.
Barbara Keeley
The Minister is talking about competence, and I have already quoted from a former Pensions Minister who admitted to a bad decision that cost millions of women who were born in this country in the 1950s £30 billion. That was a mistake. The Pensions Minister now admits that he was not properly briefed, and he added two years to the pension age of millions of women without even realising what he was doing. Does the Minister really claim competence for a Government who do things like that?
Caroline Dinenage
The hon. Lady fails to recognise that in the new pension changes, women who have taken time out to raise children will now not be penalised by the system. She is being a little unfair. Thanks to the Government, we are able to increase support for childcare costs, and protect key Government services.
The commitment to supporting women in work is a priority for the Government, which is why the Prime Minister pledged earlier this year to end the gender pay gap within a generation. Let me be clear: there is no place for a pay gap in today’s society. That is why we committed to requiring employers to publish information on the difference between men and women’s pay and bonuses. We will shortly be consulting on the regulations needed for gender pay reporting, and I urge all employers to consider those carefully.
Jo Stevens
One way that the gender gap could be closed is by addressing public procurement and requiring anyone tendering for a Government contract to have made an equal pay audit. Why not take that step?
Caroline Dinenage
We have had that conversation many times in recent months, and I say gently that the Labour Government had 13 years to introduce such a measure. We are not asking employers to do this on their own; we are trying to bring them with us because that is the right thing to do. We will provide extensive guidance, case studies and toolkits. By working in partnership with businesses and employees, we will see results. We will also extend those reporting requirements to the public sector. Labour had 13 years to do that, and it failed.
Jo Stevens
Equal pay audits are not difficult to do—I ran them in the firm that I was part of before I came to this House. Why will the Government not take steps now?
Caroline Dinenage
Our work requiring companies to publish gender pay information will go a long way—much further than the Labour party did in government. The Government are working with businesses to make that a reality.
Seema Kennedy (South Ribble) (Con)
I have been following the debate, and I am sure the Minister knows that the gender pay gap has almost been eliminated for women under 40. The hon. Member for Cardiff Central (Jo Stevens) mentioned audits and public procurement, but we want more small and medium-sized enterprises to bid for public contracts, and they do not have the scale to do such things. We would therefore be eliminating such businesses from bidding for any Government contracts.
Caroline Dinenage
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, and record numbers of small and medium-sized enterprises are gaining public contracts. We cannot have our young women growing up in a country where they get paid less because of their gender, rather than how good they are at their job. One of the most important ways to ensure long-term economic security is to break down the barriers that still hold too many women back, which is why we have given working parents greater choice by enabling more than 20 million employees to request flexible working; why we have introduced shared parental leave; and why we will extend shared parental leave and pay to working grandparents. This will support parents with the cost of childcare and help the 2 million grandparents—unsung heroes such as my mum—who give up work, reduce their hours or take time off to help with childcare.
At the same time, nearly one quarter of women between the ages of 50 and 64 provide unpaid care for a relative or friend. We have invested £1.6 million to help carers who wish to stay in work to balance their different roles. We are doing this using flexible working and innovative technology, and there are now nine pilots around the country exploring ways to help carers manage their paid work while looking after their loved ones.
One of the most important issues affecting parents—both men and women—is childcare, which is why we are investing more than £1 billion more each year in free childcare places, including by doubling the free childcare entitlement from 15 hours to 30 hours a week for working families with three and four-year-olds in 2017. In addition, from early 2017, we will offer tax-free childcare to provide up to £2,000 of childcare support per child per year for working families with children up to 12 years old. This will take the total Government spend on childcare from £5 billion in 2015 to more than £6 billion by 2020.
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
Is the Minister aware that the Government’s funding offer for the additional 15 hours is inadequate and at best confusing, and that there is a risk that most childcare places will be underfunded and that many might be lost as a result, thus reducing the availability of suitable childcare?
Caroline Dinenage
Of course, we are raising the funding, but I will not take any lessons from Labour. I might be slightly older than many here, but I was a mum putting two children through childcare under the Labour Government, and I watched childcare prices become the most expensive in Europe. I was one of those women working to pay my childcare bill.
Mims Davies (Eastleigh) (Con)
The Government have a fine record on supporting women at work. Will the Minister welcome meetings I have had with the Department for Work and Pensions and other Departments about supporting carers with responsibilities beyond children? Will the Government ensure that people can stay in work by working more flexibly and continue to support local communities and local government with the work they do alongside their employment?
Caroline Dinenage
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. These people make an incredible contribution to our economy and need to be supported in everything they do.
Not only are more women in work than ever before, but we are taking steps to ensure that work always pays. The national living wage, beginning next April and reaching more than £9 by 2020, will disproportionately benefit women. We expect that 65% of the beneficiaries made financially better off will be women. Further increases in the personal allowance will lift 660,000 people out of income tax by 2018, and 60% of them will be women. This reform, too, will make women financially better off.
We also have more women than ever right at the top of business. These fantastic role models are inspiring others to follow in their footsteps. Thanks to the business-led, Government-backed approach and the passion of business leaders such as Lord Davies, we have doubled the number of women on FTSE 100 boards since 2011.
Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)
The Minister trumpets the fact that women will disproportionately benefit from the higher so-called living wage that the Government are bringing in. Does she not recognise that the reason more women will benefit from an increase in the minimum wage is that there are more low-paid women?
Caroline Dinenage
The hon. Gentleman could not have put it better. These are the women who, as I have said, were educated under the last Labour Government. Under our education reforms, these are the women who will be aspiring to higher paid work in the future. When Labour left power, there were more than 20 all-male boards in our FTSE 100 companies. Now, there are none.
Jo Stevens
On that point, the women on boards are in non-executive director roles. Anyone who has sat on a board of directors knows that decisions are made by executive directors, not non-executive directors.
Caroline Dinenage
The women are not all in non-executive director roles. Again, we are criticising women, which is negative. The hon. Lady is right that we would like to see more women coming up through the executive pipeline. We would like to see women who have worked their way up without quotas or token gestures, which is why we are making the changes we are making.
Women are playing their part and businesses are benefiting from their immense skills. Every single woman on those boards knows she is there on merit as the best person for the job, regardless of gender, and the men know it too. We want to go further, however. We are building on this through a new target of 33% female representation on FTSE 350 boards by 2020 and a review supporting more women into executive positions so that we develop that pipeline of female talent. We have also called for an end to all-male boards in the FTSE 350.
We want to inspire women everywhere, from the classroom to the boardroom and every stage in between. We know that education is one of the most fundamental ways of driving lasting change and raising aspirations. If we are to ensure women’s economic equality, we must start with the youngest generation. This is an area where having a Secretary of State for Education who is also Minister for Women and Equalities is especially valuable. No child should ever feel that a career is off limits because of their gender, race or background. There is no place in our society for stereotypes about some jobs being suitable for girls and some for boys. In this, we have made important strides. There are now more girls than ever taking physics and maths A-level, with 12,000 more entries in maths and science in England since 2010.
The Opposition spokesman asked me about the difference between men and women entering apprenticeships in different sectors. Since 2009, the number of women starting engineering and manufacturing apprenticeships has increased threefold. This is not a new problem, of course, and I would be very keen to know, in a different conversation, what Labour did about it. The Government will go further. The science, technology, engineering and maths workforce is vital to the growth of the economy. The UK needs to recruit 83,000 engineers a year and they cannot all be blokes. That is why the Government have set up the new Careers & Enterprise Company. We have heard Members complaining about careers advice. The company will inspire and inform young people about the opportunities available to them, in parallel with business.
I welcome the one-year anniversary of the independent Your Life campaign, which aims to ensure that young people have the maths and science skills the economy needs. It was great for me to visit the Ford motor company in Dagenham, the spiritual home of the fight for gender pay equality, to see Your Life in action. A group of local schoolgirls had been invited to race cars around the car test track, and to experience how varied and exciting STEM careers can be.
A strong economy, where women are encouraged to fulfil their potential, also means that we are able to deliver the services society needs. We must make sure that everyone is given the support they need. In this year’s spending review, the Chancellor announced that the Government would provide £40 million for domestic abuse services, including refuges, between 2016 and 2020. Prosecutions and convictions for domestic violence have also risen to their highest levels ever. Last weekend, we launched a consultation on new measures to better protect victims of “stranger stalking” and to help to deter perpetrators. We also announced an additional £3.85 million to develop a new phase of the campaign to tackle teenage abuse within relationships. Since 2010, the “This is Abuse” campaign has encouraged teenagers to rethink their views of violence, controlling behaviour and what consent means within their relationships. This is helping to change attitudes that can underpin violence against women and girls. Our updated violence against women and girls strategy will be published shortly, and will set out how we will continue to support all victims of this abhorrent abuse.
Debbie Abrahams
Disabled women are twice as likely as non-disabled women to be victims of domestic abuse, so how is the Welfare Reform and Work Bill, with its cuts to the employment and support allowance work-related activity group, going to help disabled women?
Caroline Dinenage
If we are talking about the autumn statement, the Chancellor pledged even more money for refuges and charities that support victims of domestic violence. Ukrefugesonline data show that bed spaces rose from 3,216 in 2013 to 3,472 in 2015. All these things are important.
The Government are committed to making sure that everyone, regardless of their gender, ethnicity, age or background, is able to fulfil their potential, and this approach to equality spans right across Government. In helping women to fulfil their potential, we must thank and acknowledge the efforts of stakeholders, charities and businesses who are leading the charge and working with the Government to finish the fight for equality in our country.
The facts speak for themselves. Since 2010, there are more women in work; more women-led businesses; more women on boards; and our reforms to support the lowest paid will disproportionately benefit women. A commitment to equality runs right through this Government, as the Prime Minister has made clear. Plans are being made across every Department to continue the excellent progress already made. As I say, the facts speak for themselves. We will continue to drive this agenda forward, so that we finish the fight for equality.
At the same time, it is important to take a moment to recognise the great things women have achieved. Every day in my job I meet amazing women from every walk of life: scientists, teachers, chief executive officers, mums, writers—all great role models. These women are our mothers, our daughters, our friends and our colleagues. It is they who have made this huge progress to date; it is they who are breaking down the barriers and achieving greater heights all the time and every day.
My message today is this: can we stop depicting women as victims, as people who are “done to” rather than “doing”? For Government and Opposition alike, it is our job to support them and it is our job to encourage them. Above all, today and every day, we should also celebrate them.
Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)
Before I start my speech, I want to mention two fantastic women from the Wirral. My hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) made us all proud deputising for the leader of the Labour party at Prime Minister’s questions. She, more than most, has done great things for women’s role in the economy. I am absolutely proud to be a Wirral woman today, not least in speaking in this debate on my daughter’s birthday—I hope she will be a future fantastic woman from the Wirral.
I want to say three things: about younger women, mums and older women. First, one of the most important measures for the future of younger women has been the apprenticeship levy. Although it is good that there is support for apprenticeships across the House, unfortunately, the reality of life for young women going into apprenticeships is that they will have less chance than their male counterparts of getting one that will pay them well. As has been said on several occasions, young women work in sectors that pay less. That is just a fact.
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Harriett Baldwin)
The hon. Lady is making a very important speech about apprenticeships. Will she join me in welcoming the fact that more than half of apprenticeships in this country are now being taken by women?
Alison McGovern
I would welcome that wholeheartedly if those apprenticeships paid women equally to men, but the fact is that they do not. We ought not to rest until they do, because women face a dual problem: the work they have traditionally done is valued less; and they are barred from better-paid sectors. We need both to get women into highly paid parts of our industry and to ask ourselves why highly skilled women end up with low pay in areas such as social care. Over the past week or so, I have had quite a bit of grief on social media. Lots of people are campaigning about this sort of thing, which is fine, but I would argue that the primary feminist cause in Britain today is the position of women working in social care. They are paid far too little for the important work they do, including younger women who want to make their career in social care.
Secondly, I want to turn to the place of mums. In interventions, I have already raised the problem that lone parents will face with universal credit. I am afraid I take issue with the Tory view of the world which says that any state support for the cost of children is somehow undignified, that it is somehow welfare and that people cannot feel proud of themselves and their ability to look after their family if they in any way receive a cash transfer from the state.
Beveridge himself recognised that the cost of having children increases the amount people have to pay out. Our social security system should smooth people’s income across the period of their lives when they have children and their costs are higher, and they will pay into the system when they are in work without children and their costs are lower. That is how our system has always worked. It is an absolute myth to think that we have ever had a perfect situation when there was no poverty, people could just earn their wages and that was enough to pay for the cost of bringing up children. Basically, the Beveridge system was introduced precisely because people get poor at two points in their lives—with the cost of their kids, and with the cost of old age. We must accept that tax credits are an important part of the system and settlement we have had in our country for a long time. As I have already said, wages have an important role to play in the financial fortunes of women, but they will never fully resolve such problems.
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Harriett Baldwin)
This has been an historic debate, because it has been a debate with women at the Dispatch Box, by women in the Chamber, chaired for most of the time by a woman—and we also had some contributions from men.
The first duty of a Government is certainty to protect economic and national security, extending opportunity and aspiration to every girl and boy, allowing every woman and man to fulfil their potential, and giving older people dignity in retirement. The Government are managing the economy and the public finances properly, and as a result, we are enabling job creation, increasing wages, increasing job security, cutting income tax and helping parents with more free childcare in an economy that is 12% larger than when we took office in 2010.
Do women have economic equality yet? They do not. Women in our country still earn less, own less and retire with less than men. We can agree that all political parties seek to make progress on those issues.
Barbara Keeley
The Minister recognises that women retire with less. That really affects the women we have heard about in this debate who were born in the 1950s, who had to wait six more years to retire and are now living on very little. Has she heard what has been said in this debate? Will she take it away and talk to colleagues about it?
Harriett Baldwin
I will, of course, come on to address some of the points raised in the debate. Although there is political consensus that we must make progress on women’s economic issues, our parties will approach that progress differently. My party will stress more equal opportunity, more aspiration, higher skills and higher standards in education, while the Labour party will seek to tax women more, borrow more debt on behalf of women, their children and their grandchildren, and create more welfare poverty traps for women.
Today’s Opposition motion shows why the Labour party can never again be trusted to run our economy. In their motion on the Order Paper, the Opposition assume that mixed-gender households do not share incomes. That is quite an assumption. They assume that spending less on public services invariably leads to poorer services—something that we have comprehensively disproved over the past five years. They even imply that the billions and billions of pounds of tax cuts that have led to lower petrol prices at the pump do not help women. I have heard it said before that Labour wants to take us back to the 1970s, but this is more like the Harry Enfield sketch about the 1930s. I will try to imitate him: “Women, know your limits and, for pity’s sake, don’t drive!”
At best, the motion shows unconscious bias. At worst, it shows the latent sexism of a sexist Labour leadership. The motion says, “Don’t invest in infrastructure, because it’s not women who build things.” Where do I start with that?
Kate Green
Of course women drive cars and of course income is shared in many households, but we know that when income is in the hands of women, they make different choices in the interests of their families and their children. The Minister must recognise that fact. It is asserted by the United Nations and has been understood by social policy research going back many decades. I wish she would acknowledge it.
Harriett Baldwin
I wish the hon. Lady would acknowledge a few of the facts that I am about to share about women in the economy. The calculations that she has been citing all afternoon do not include these basic facts. There are more women in work than ever before in this country. We have the highest female employment rate ever. We also have the lowest gender pay gap since records began.
Harriett Baldwin
I will make some progress. We want to make sure that the pay gap narrows further and faster. From next year, we will require large companies to publish differences in pay.
Harriett Baldwin
I do not have much time, so I will make a bit of progress. Some 56% of the people who have been taken out of income tax altogether—in other words, who have had a 100% reduction in their income tax—through our increases to the personal allowance are women. Some 58% of those who receive the state pension are women—I will address the point made by the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) in a moment—and we have protected that under the triple lock. Almost two thirds of the people who will benefit from our introduction of the national living wage are women. Since 2010, women’s employment has increased faster than in the three previous Parliaments combined.
Let us compare and contrast that with the record of the previous Labour Government, under which the number of unemployed women rose by more than 200,000, or 25%. The fastest way to damage the livelihoods of hard-working women and families is to lose control of the public finances. That is the damage that we have had to fix, and we are making sure that that catastrophic situation does not happen again.
I want to address some of the important points raised today in a range of speeches—speeches from the hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley), my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), the hon. Member for Sunderland Central (Julie Elliott), my hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble (Seema Kennedy), the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mhairi Black), my hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh (Mims Davies), the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh), my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley South (Mike Wood), the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern), my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield), the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley), my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth South (Mrs Drummond), the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) and the hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford).
A number of people have mentioned part-time work. It is worth remembering that 80% of the people who work part time do so because they want to. However, I agree wholeheartedly with the Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke, who said that she wanted greater equality in the form of more men working part time. There is evidence that that is beginning to happen, enabling parental leave opportunities to be shared more equally.
Harriett Baldwin
I want to address the points raised in the debate. A number of people mentioned the importance of women choosing STEM subjects at school. I am sure that Members on both sides of the House will welcome the sharp increase in the number of young women taking physics and chemistry at A-level. Careers advice was also mentioned, and it is certainly important to explain to women that a range of opportunities exist for them, and that everything should be open to them.
The women’s state pension age was mentioned a number of times, but no one pointed out that all the women affected by the change in the state pension age will benefit from the new higher state pension, or that the simplified state pension will enable women to take into account many more years that they may have spent engaged in caring responsibilities.
I would not want the Members who talked about the incredibly important issue of domestic violence to create the perception that there has not been an increase in domestic violence refuge provision, because there has. There are 13 new domestic violence refuges in this country, and the number of beds that refuges have available has increased from 3,216 in 2013 to 3,472 in 2015. [Interruption.]
Seema Malhotra
Would the Minister like to comment on the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) has just made from a sedentary position on those refuge figures, which was that the Minister was making them up?
Harriett Baldwin
I can give the hon. Lady the source, which is the online system, and I will write to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) about this.
I am proud to serve in a Government who have done so much to help women of working age, and who have improved the state pension for women in retirement. The foundations of this improvement are, of course, our sound management of the economy, which is delivering growth, jobs, security and a higher standard of living. The previous Labour Government failed to provide women with greater financial security, and Labour Members have opposed our economic reforms at every stage. They failed to support giving girls the best possible education. They failed to support women in work. They failed to address the lack of women at the top in business, just as they have failed to address the lack of women in top jobs in their party today.
The Labour party is determined to fight the 1983 general election all over again. A woman won that election, and thanks to the result of that election we are once again winning economic security, economic opportunity and real economic aspiration for women. I urge my colleagues—
Mr Alan Campbell (Tynemouth) (Lab)
claimed to move the closure (Standing Order No.36).
Question put forthwith, That the Question be now put.
Question agreed to.
Main Question accordingly put.