International Women’s Day

Baroness Goudie Excerpts

Friday 8th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goudie (Lab)]

My Lords, I am so pleased to be here celebrating International Women’s Day with all my friends and colleagues in this House. I welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, whose work I have admired for many years. I look forward to her maiden speech so much.

I am delighted that this year’s International Women’s Day theme centres on investing in women, a topic close to my heart. It is gratifying to see the House focus its attention on this crucial subject. We are all aware of the benefits associated with investing in women’s health, education and economic opportunities. Women’s increased economic participation in their ownership and management of productive assets not only accelerates development but alleviates poverty, diminishes inequalities and enhances children’s well-being. Women typically invest a larger portion of their earnings in their families and communities compared to men. Moreover, providing girls with even a few years of primary education improves economic prospects, reduces family size and boosts children’s access to education.

However, realising these benefits hinges on robust investment. Women, particularly in developing nations, require access to comprehensive credit, banking and financial services to fully develop their assets. This, again, was promised at the meeting of Finance Ministers of the G20. While formal education empowers girls, ensuring they have equitable access to educational opportunities is paramount, especially considering the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on girls’ education.

Recent reports from reputable institutions such as the World Bank and the World Economic Forum underscore persistent global gender inequalities. The widening gender pay gap in the UK between 2022 and 2023—reports have recently been published on this, including this morning—and the projected 131 years to achieve global gender parity, according to the Global Gender Gap Report 2023, are alarming. These statistics signal regression rather than progress in women’s rights worldwide.

Yet for women in conflicted areas, time is of the essence. Their lives are endangered daily by violence, displacement, poverty and disease. On this International Women’s Day, I pay homage to the remarkable women serving as human rights defenders, despite facing repressive regimes and violent actors. We have to fight harder for those in Afghanistan, where women protesting against the Taliban are being detained, silenced and subject to abuse. Can you imagine never being able to go out, week after week, nor let your children out? Similarly, women on both sides of the Israel-Palestine conflict are advocating for peace amid bloodshed.

In Ukraine, women like Oleksandra Matviichuk are trying to expose Russian aggression. They are taking notes and going to war-torn areas so that people can be prosecuted. Ukrainian women are on the front line, from soldiers to grass-roots activists. There are 50,000 women in Ukraine on the front line, in one way and another, playing a pivotal role in countering Vladimir Putin’s aggression.

Three years since the last military coup in Myanmar, women have intensified their involvement in the pro-democracy movement, challenging patriarchal structures and advocating for gender equality. In Iran, women continue to face brutal repression for their peaceful dissent, exemplified by the courage of those who protested against the death of Mahsa Amini.

Women worldwide endure double jeopardy, for their gender and their convictions, yet remain undeterred. I urge this House to join me in honouring the resistance and bravery of women affected by conflict, and those fighting against the odds for a more equitable world. Women’s economic equality is central to realising and protecting women’s rights. When women work, economies grow; when women in emergency settings are held back, the entire process of peacebuilding and reconstruction is in jeopardy. Women think about health and investment; they think about education. Stable economies are paramount to the transition that a country makes from war to peace and can help prevent conflict breaking out in the first place. A number of indexes show that if those women were listened to, it would stop many wars.

The private sector plays a crucial role in bridging the gaps after war and is potentially positioned to accelerate economic resilience for women and girls. Various companies have created initiatives to better support women at local level, from skills training on how to fully utilise their farmed crops to bank account creation and financial courses.

I urge that schools should not be used during a time of war for offices, because it is when people are not being educated that the economy of a country goes down, and it is impossible to assist in bringing it forward. I have worked with two great organisations but, because of the war, children have not been taught to read or write, so they are not able to be employed as they get older in even the most basic tasks, such as hotel trades. Then, labour comes in from outside, which damages the economy terribly. I also urge the Government to encourage greater investment in conflict-affected countries and ask them to promise that no discussions about investment in women or in those countries are held without local women at the table.

I have one other point, on today’s report from the Commons Treasury Select Committee. One of its recommendations is that we should have no NDAs in future. I hope that this and other Governments will put that in legislation as quickly as possible.

Financial Services

Baroness Goudie Excerpts

Thursday 20th June 2013 Grand Committee

[Baroness Goudie]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, for arranging for this debate. Like the noble Lord, I say that it would be a great mistake for Great Britain to leave Europe. We should not consider this at all. I hope that, in the long term, it will not happen.

On the issue that Europe matters today, we have to move on from the disaster of 2008. We cannot look back at what it was; we can never go back so we have to move on. The key issue is that the prospects for the financial services industry are good. Last year’s Kay review on equality markets and the recent report of the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards demonstrate that the UK is leading Europe in the debate on the direction of domestic and international financial reforms. Negative perceptions of the industry remain largely based around the lack of diversity, both in terms of gender and ethnicity, as well as remuneration, on which the Government have published a report of the Commons committee. No doubt we will debate the whole question of diversity, women on boards and equal pay in the next year. I do not need to go down that road today, but economies cannot prosper if half of the population is behind. Research from the World Economic Forum in 2012 said that women now represent 40% of the global market force, which is a little higher in this country, and that more than half of the world’s university students are women—again, it is higher in this country. For a functioning economy, its full potential of women’s skills and talents is very important—including the export and import of those who are educated here and who then go back home. The GDP they bring to those countries is vital for a stable world.

Coming back to this country, across the domestic and international activities, financial and professional services have contributed more than £200 billion to the UK economy since 2012. In aggregate terms, the contribution of the financial services industry represents some 15% of UK GDP. Exports made up a substantial share of the contribution, of up to 40%, of the financial services to the GDP, arising from the sector’s exports and those services provided to overseas clients. We should also be aware that when people require something we sell, like law and education, our financial services are very much sought-after in the Middle East and other countries. That is one of our soft powers that we should be looking to.

The trade surpluses of the financial and professional service sectors are roughly the same as the combined services of all other net industries in the UK. Some of our specific contributions are that our insurance business is the best and largest in Europe. We have 251 or more different banks working in the UK, including those based here. The UK has the second-largest pensions industry in the world, with total investments of £1.9 trillion. That is a huge sum of money; it is inconceivable, but it is vital to Britain. In 2012, the UK private equity and venture capital sectors managed assets of £200 billion.

UK private equity funds invested in more than 800 companies. People talk about hedge funds and different instruments of finance, but they do not realise that without them and that investment, we would not have the companies we have, because no longer do the real banks want to invest. The real problem we are having is for SMEs, 40% of which are now run by women, employing men and women, which are having great difficulties. Although the banks have promised to lend to them, they have not been able to get funding. That is not because they do not have order books or money coming in, it is because they just need that extra couple of hundred thousand pounds to tide them over for a year, but there is no one to talk to, because you do not have banks any more. Metro Bank has started up locally in the high street, but we do not have our usual banks to go to.

I know that this is old-fashioned, but some people need to talk to someone, not a call centre but somebody to talk to. Standard Chartered, for example, which is working in Asia, has people in middle management there to meet you and to offer to look after you. It is the same in Hong Kong and Singapore: if you want to go to the bank, there is someone to meet you who wants to talk to you. Whatever deal we finally do with the Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds—we do not know what will happen with one or two others yet; I hope nothing—if they will not open places, which cost money, there should be the availability to talk to somebody, because talking to a call centre or an individual who does not know you or your industry and has never been to your factory is not the same. That is vital to today’s economy. Those of us who live in London or Scotland know that the back-office industry there is huge, but in the middle of the country, there is nothing. There are no banks, there is nowhere for people to go to talk to someone. We must encourage building societies and those other banks to open up, even if they are opening up in a mall, so that there is a place where people can make an appointment to see someone. They do not have to be there permanently, but people need to be able to make an appointment to come from wherever they are working.

For our economy to function, we need to use the full potential of women’s skills—coming back to SMEs—and they need someone to go to talk to. We do not want them going to get the money, not from payday loans, but from other companies which will lend money to SMEs at high interest rates. Those companies are too big to take microfinance. We know that microfinance, because it loans the money from the banks, is charging higher interest.

I hope that the Government will consider those ideas and what we have managed to tackle together since 2008, and move forward. We must move forward to take our place in the world, and enable the potential of people in university and in school and ensure that they are not left on the heap.