Local Government: Women in Leadership Roles

Baroness Hollis of Heigham Excerpts

Wednesday 8th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, the position in central government has been improving steadily. In local government, 25% of chief executives are women, while in my own department more than 50% of the workforce are women. The Permanent Secretary, Melanie Dawes, is the champion for women across government and has been doing things today for International Women’s Day and on a regular basis. Central government can set an example that we hope will be picked up in the private sector, although it has to be said that the private sector has improved significantly over the last five years.

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham (Lab)]

My Lords, I am sure the whole House wants to see the proper and appropriate representation of women in local government, in central government and in the professions. But would the Minister accept that with the increasing drive to larger and larger local government units, pushed by the Treasury, the proportion of women drops off? Women are more highly represented in the smaller authorities than in the larger ones, let alone LEPs and combined authorities. That is because of the cost, particularly in rural areas, of transport, childcare and so on, which falls in practice disproportionately on women and makes them unable to stand. The Minister has talked about indirect discrimination, but could he also look at institutional discrimination, in which the structures bear down more heavily and inappropriately on women?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I take issue with the noble Baroness in relation to some of that. I do not think there is anything inevitable about women not being encouraged or able to lead larger organisations. For example, we are looking in government at the FTSE 350 companies, where there has been considerable improvement on leadership over the last five years. I accept what she says about the challenges, which we have to address, but I do not think there is anything inevitable about women not leading larger organisations—although she perhaps did not mean to imply that. The Government need to look at some of the indirect measures that we can take.