Women: Economic Policies

Debate between Baroness Massey of Darwen and Baroness Verma

Thursday 16th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact on women of their economic policies.

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, all departments will assess the impact on gender, race and disability of our economic policies as required by the equality duty laid down in legislation. This is the first time that has been done. The Treasury published an overview of the impact of the spending review on equalities alongside the main spending review announcement.

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

I thank the noble Baroness for that response. It is all well and good, but has she read the Women’s Budget Group report on the impact of the CSR on women? Will she accept that there are different kinds of fairness and that women often lose out due to their caring responsibilities, among other things? Will she also accept that this impacts on their employment opportunities, and say whether an assessment has been made of that?

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, I have read the report. I am very keen to support the fact that this Government are making fairness a key priority. I do not accept that the report sets out exactly what the Government are doing. Therefore, it is only right that noble Lords are informed that we have taken out of income tax 880,000 of the lowest paid workers, who are predominantly women. We are also protecting the lowest paid public sector workers from the pay freeze. Added to that, we are including and increasing flexible working for all people, rather than for just mothers and carers, so that we can enable women to enter a workplace that suits their needs rather than the needs always of employers.

Pakistan: Child Welfare

Debate between Baroness Massey of Darwen and Baroness Verma

Thursday 14th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how their development policies support child welfare in Pakistan.

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, for all the hard work she does in ensuring that the welfare of children across the world is raised continuously. The UK Government’s development programme promotes child welfare in Pakistan in several ways. Our support in education will help 5 million more children to attend primary school by 2013. Our support to the national health facility has helped to save 200,000 children’s lives, stopped 800,000 children from becoming malnourished and prevented 15,000 mothers from dying. Our humanitarian support after the recent flooding has provided more than half a million malnourished children with food supplements.

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

I thank the noble Baroness for her kind words and for her response. In doing so, I declare an interest as a trustee of UNICEF UK. How are those efforts by so many organisations in Pakistan being co-ordinated with respect to children’s welfare?

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, the UN is responsible for co-ordinating the international humanitarian response. All of DfID’s humanitarian aid is directed through UN agencies or established NGOs, in line with standard humanitarian practice. Each key area—health, water, sanitation, shelter and food—has a separate cluster, with members including the Government of Pakistan, various UN agencies, NGOs, DfID and other donors. Members, including officials from the Department for International Development, meet regularly to share information within and across clusters to ensure a co-ordinated and efficient response. The Secretary of State said in his ministerial Statement on 12 October that the “scale and shifting patterns” of the crisis make it a challenging situation.