Bow Match Women’s Strike

Debate between Baroness Clark of Kilwinning and Lord Vaizey of Didcot

Tuesday 8th October 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Vaizey]

I thank the hon. Lady for presenting me with the opportunity to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant), whom the Prime Minister yesterday appointed Minister for Sport. With your indulgence, Mrs Main, I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Hugh Robertson) for his extraordinary service in that role—service that, if we include his time as Opposition spokesman, spans almost a decade. He will be a sad loss to the Department. Our new Minister for Sport will read what the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland has said and will respond appropriately regarding the Government’s position.

I return to the question of equality in the workplace. The hon. Member for Bishop Auckland referred to “Made in Dagenham”, a film about equal pay by the brilliant British producer Stephen Woolley, which I would commend to anyone. The soundtrack to the film was sung by Sandie Shaw, who was a Dagenham Ford clerk but has moved on to greater things and is now my constituent. [Laughter.] It does not get any better than that. The hon. Lady mentioned that a period of more than a century did not seem like a long time, and it is interesting to note that 80 years after the match girls’ strike, it was still perfectly legal to pay a woman less than a man for doing the same work. The Equal Pay Act 1970 was introduced to tackle that discrepancy, but such inequalities still exist. Women now make up half of the work force in Britain, but they are under-represented in senior positions. If we want to harness the country’s full potential, we must remedy that imbalance and waste of talent. That is why the Government are committed to making Britain fairer.

[Katy Clark (North Ayrshire and Arran) (Lab)]

On that point, does the Minister agree with the statements made in the past few days by Ministers from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills about the lack of transparency in pay structures? Does he agree that we need to do far more to tackle the problem, and that we should consider, for example, mandatory equal pay audits and mandatory publication of information about pay scales so that we can see where people are still not being paid equally?

[Mr Vaizey]

I have not read those statements in detail; I have only read about them in the newspapers, and I hesitate to stray on to another Department’s policy area by expressing an opinion about whether new regulations should be introduced concerning transparency and mandatory reporting. As the hon. Lady knows, the Consumer Affairs Minister, the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson), is passionately committed to tackling the problem, which is why she spoke so vociferously about it. That goes to the heart of the point that I was making. The Government are committed to making Britain fairer and tackling the barriers to equal opportunities that hold so many people back.

We have launched a voluntary initiative on gender equality transparency called “Think, Act, Report”, which asks private sector and voluntary sector employers to make workplaces fairer for women through greater transparency on pay and other workplace issues. More than 120 leading businesses have signed up, and the initiative covers nearly 2 million employees, which is 16% of the targeted work force. We are also using a voluntary approach to increase the number of women on boards. Women now account for almost one in five of FTSE 100 board directorships, which is a significant increase from 12.5% in February 2011. Only six FTSE 100 companies still have all-male boards.

We want to strengthen the economy, so we are supporting more businesses to start up and employ more people. That is why we have set up the Work programme, announced 24 new enterprise zones and introduced the regional growth fund. The Government have created 1.4 million jobs in the private sector during the past three years. We have established the Women’s Business Council, which published its recommendations in June. We responded to the recommendations by welcoming them and announcing a series of actions. We have announced funding of £1.6 million over the next three years to support rural women’s enterprise, the introduction of 15,000 new mentors to support those setting up and growing their businesses—including 5,000 specifically targeted to women—and a new scheme that will make £2 million available in small grants of up to £500 to those who wish to set up new child care businesses.

The debate has been important and memorable, and it has commemorated an important event in our history. The quality of the speeches from Opposition Members demonstrates that that event raises many important issues on which people feel passionately—equal pay, employment rights and health and safety—and teaches us that events in our history still resonate today.