International Women’s Day: Progress on Global Gender Equality

Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts

Thursday 8th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)]

My Lords, this has been an absolutely fascinating afternoon. With so many wide-ranging and varied speeches, it is almost impossible to summarise them and I wish the Minister well in doing so. We have had speeches from “men Lords” as well as “women Lords”, according to the daughter of the noble Baroness, Lady Wyld. The noble Baroness talked about how we bring up our daughters and our sons. Several noble Lords mentioned that hugely important point and it is incumbent on all of us to be aware of it.

I apologise to any noble Lord whose speech I do not mention but I have enjoyed every single contribution this afternoon. They have all taught me something that I did not know before. We have had contributions from my noble friend Lady Hussein-Ece and the noble Baronesses, Lady Uddin and Lady Flather, who talked about the challenges facing BAME women. My noble friend Lady Barker talked about the challenges facing LGBT women. Young women and gender stereotypes, particularly as they affect young women taking up apprenticeships, were covered in great depth by the noble Baroness, Lady Gale. Several noble Lords mentioned sexual harassment and the fight back—the #MeToo movement—notably my noble friend Lady Northover.

Health and education have rightly featured strongly in the debate. The noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, talked about decriminalising abortion by updating the Abortion Act 1967 and the noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin, said that education was the key to health, happiness and wealth. The noble Baroness, Lady Healy, talked about the plight of detainees in Yarl’s Wood, and good for her in speaking up for some of the most disadvantaged people in the worst position in British society today.

There have been a lot of personal tributes to mothers, including from the noble Baroness, Lady Browning, and the noble Lord, Lord Brooke. I pay tribute to my mother, who encouraged me to believe that I could be anything that I wanted to be. However, I do not think she ever thought that I would end up in this place. She is still pinching herself.

The noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, spoke warmly of the contribution of the trade union movement in this area. I pay tribute to the long service that she has given to that movement and to this place. I also pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, in that respect. The noble Lord, Lord Loomba, talked about the work of his charity in helping widows and tackling violence against women and girls. Many noble Lords have spoken about that.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, talked about the work of the Inter-Parliamentary Union and the CPA. I will be interested to hear the Minister’s response to the noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson, who asked why the Government have not sent a nominee to the CEDAW meeting.

We have heard a lot about women’s sport. The noble Lord, Lord Addington, talked about the drama and professionalism exhibited in women’s sport and the soft power that it can wield. The noble Lord, Lord Pendry, talked about the This Girl Can campaign. My noble friend Lady Barker can, and I can too. I am still dead slow—but still lapping everybody on the sofa.

We have had a lot of discussions about other areas. The noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, talked about Albania and the noble Baroness, Lady Manzoor, about Pakistan. Last December I went as a volunteer to Karachi to support the work of VSO and its celebration of Women of the UN’s 16 days of activism against violence against women, working with the police and others to publicise efforts to encourage abused women to come forward and report their abusers. There is a whole culture change going on, particularly in Sindh province, where I was. I met some incredibly inspirational characters, such as Majida Rizvi, a Supreme Court judge who succeeded in getting the laws on rape changed. Before her long campaign to secure a conviction for rape, there had to be four male witnesses. That just shows how far they have come.

We in this place are in a highly privileged position. We can open doors and use our diplomatic skills to put pressure on those who have power over women’s lives, at home and abroad.

A country which is arguably much worse in its treatment of women is Papua New Guinea and the surrounding islands, where families who want marriage for a son are exhorted to pay the bride price. The presence of companies extracting mineral wealth has distorted and inflated the bride price market. Where once, payment would have been in shells—a beautiful way to trade before other forms of currency were introduced—today the monetary wealth that working for refineries has brought has caused the bride price to skyrocket. Leaving aside the lack of say that a girl is likely to have in the matter, many families, having laid out a huge amount of money to “buy” their bride, feel justified in treating her literally like a slave.

Our parliamentary group, extremely ably led by the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Bolton, was treated with great honour, but I fear our entreaties and remonstrations fell largely on deaf ears. What people say and what they do are sadly often different things when it comes to relinquishing power.

How bad are things in the world today? The noble Baroness, Lady Browning, referred to the international measure of the gender gap, which incorporates disparities in health, education, economy and politics. It has assessed the global gender gap at 68%. In Britain it is 33% and we are ranked 15th out of 144 countries for overall gender parity. Women in Britain are treated twice as well as in the average country but a third less well than the men here. If we are meant to be grateful for this statistic, I can tell you, we are not. Never mind for a moment about the rest of the planet. On this little part of it, which is under our control, we are failing women.

So what should we be doing about it? The first thing that I believe will effect change is to have as many women sitting around the table making the decisions as men. In Parliament we are making great strides in increasing the number of women parliamentarians, as several noble Lords have mentioned. Labour’s policy of all-women shortlists has helped enormously and I am delighted to say this is now being introduced in the Liberal Democrats—and about time too. However, despite the remarks of the Minister, currently there are still only six women in the Cabinet, including the Prime Minister, which is 26% of 23 Cabinet posts; so we have a way to go, is all I am saying, although I applaud all the strides that have been made. It would be very churlish not to do so. Having a woman as Prime Minister is not quite good enough when only a quarter of the Cabinet is female. I note that Mrs Thatcher did the same, with only one woman in her Cabinet apart from herself.

In the workplace, women are still severely underrepresented in any job that involves decision-making, and receive less pay than their male counterparts even when they do succeed—usually at great personal cost—at breaking through the glass ceiling. One piece of government legislation conceived in the coalition and implemented by this Conservative Government is making companies look very seriously at how they reward talent. I speak of the requirement to report on the gender pay gap, which has been mentioned several times. I am already being approached by companies that want to tell me all about their pay gap results and get them out there and justify them before being forced to publish them in April. Our overall gender pay gap stands at 18.4% in favour of men, but I know of at least one large construction company that has been prompted to fundamentally rethink its pay structures and how it values work.

What should Parliament do? Women are held back by the lack of affordable childcare—that is nothing new; we all know that—and that is probably the number one issue for us. In recent years strides have been made in the provision of free childcare and making fees tax deductible. However, that is still not enough. For women in lower-paid occupations, the economics of working while having small children just do not stack up—even when the children are of school age, the benefits can be marginal. We have to do something. It is the fundamental thing that would change the balance.

I have talked already about shared parental leave in the context of what business should do. Really, it is up to businesses to change their culture. Parliament, however, can give them a nudge, as has proved so successful in pay gap reporting. Naming, and by implication shaming, companies has two functions. First, it makes companies think about the policies they are operating compared with others, and a bit of healthy competition—“We’re a better, more compassionate and enlightened employer than you are”—works wonders. Secondly, of course, what you do not measure you cannot manage. For a start, what about requiring that companies over a certain size publish their maternity and paternity pay policy?

The Liberal Democrats have put forward several proposals, including that “upskirting” should be made a criminal offence. Several noble Lords have worked on proposals dealing with period poverty, and we look forward to a response from the Government on that. Other proposals include gender-neutral school clothing, making sexual harassment outside of work illegal and improving knowledge among employers—for example, it is illegal to ask women whether they plan to have children but a lot of employers do not know that. What about changing the rules so that men can register children’s births if they are not married to the mother? To me, that seems a sensible and sane thing to do, and it would be especially helpful if the mother is unwell—it is a partnership, after all. What about changing the name of this place from the House of Lords to the House of Peers? That would make it a lot more gender equal. Finally, we should set a date to look at the Gender Recognition Act, so that we can see changes and progress following the completion of the consultation.

If I can pray the patience of the House for one moment more, I want to talk about my lapel badge—for anyone who cannot see it, it is a spoon. My lot know all about it because I have been on about it for a while, but the charity Karma Nirvana works very hard against forced marriage. Part of its charitable work is to advise the police, airport authorities and schools. If someone is absolutely desperate and fear that they are being taken abroad for a forced marriage, they should pop a spoon in their underwear. That way, they will be stopped when going through security and taken into a separate room on their own where they will be able to express their concerns. If anyone would like to know more about Karma Nirvana and the wonderful work of Jasvinder Sanghera, please see me afterwards.