Women: Contribution to Economic Life

Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, I join other noble Lords in congratulating my noble friend Lady Northover on leading the debate. She is a role model herself, both in what she has done for the development of her party, and as a working mother.

My area of focus today is women’s contribution to the UK economy. I will start with some general principles. I suspect that the first will command general agreement. No one should be excluded from achieving their ambition at work just because they are female. That is, as it were, the overarching principle.

My second point is that we should not be surprised if women choose to operate in some spheres more than others. The Library circulated figures showing the distribution of the male and female workforces between sectors. These showed females featuring especially strongly in health, education and real estate. The figures may reflect some lingering results of past discrimination, but do not expect any great change in future. Women are not identical to men and do not need to have identical ambitions.

My third principle is less commonly accepted. Not all women have to be out at work. Children need love and attention, and stay-at-home mothers provide these needs often making an enormous contribution elsewhere, for example to the voluntary sector—everything from organising school events to raising money for good causes.

My fourth principle, perhaps the most contentious, is that if you allow for the proportion of women who do not want to work full time, it would be unwise to expect the numbers of women at the top to be 50% in every sector. The key thing is that women should have the opportunity to get on. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Holmes on his cheering illustrations of what can be done by providing opportunities. I suggest that speakers in debates such as this one would do well to heed such principles, some of which are frequently ignored.

I welcome the steps that government and Parliament are taking to help women—and I entirely support the noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin of Kennington, whom I look forward to hearing from.

I now turn now to some more specific issues. The Government are right to encourage flexible working and make it both possible and economic for women who want to be in the workplace to be there while they bring up their children. I am very pleased that our forthcoming reforms will allow both parents to share up to a year’s leave to look after their newborn children. The changes will allow fathers to play a greater role in raising their children and help mothers to return to work at a time that is right. We are also increasing childcare support to ensure that parents can work. The Government are investing an extra £200 million of support for families on low incomes. In addition, the tax-free childcare scheme will contribute 20% of working parents’ childcare for parents not receiving universal credit, as announced in March. Other support is also available.

Some of your Lordships will know of my passion for enterprise and for encouraging small business. I have spoken before about the array of support that this Government are giving our 4.9 million small businesses, such as the £2,000 off national insurance that will boost jobs from next month and the increase in rates relief for small businesses. All this will help the growing number of women running and playing a pivotal role in such businesses. Less well known is the childcare business grants scheme. If a person intends to set up a new childcare business, they can get a small grant to help with the costs of getting trained and registered, to access a business mentor for support and advice on starting up a business, and to access business advice on the childcare sector. All this encouragement of family-friendly enterprise is to be commended. As my noble friend Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville has already said, the Federation of Small Businesses has reported an encouraging trend, with nearly half of businesses created in the last two years in retail, hotels and catering being primarily owned by women.

Our economic recovery is fuelling growth and innovation, and it is exciting to see the contribution of women entrepreneurs. But we also need to give women the opportunity to contribute to the workforce in middle life and even into their 60s. This is an issue about which I feel especially keenly. I have been struck as a new Peer both by the contribution women Members make in all parts of the House and how often they demonstrate slightly different strengths and skills. This House has a key role in scrutinising and revising legislation. Women are very good at thinking about the practical application of new rules and looking at them through consumers’, administrators’ or business eyes. I have been trying to do just this during our debates on the Water Bill.

When I go on radio or TV to talk about the role of women, I am asked about quotas and discrimination and what can be done to achieve equality in the workplace. Attention is focused on the perceived need for high-profile female figures in the Cabinet, running top companies or running the BBC. This is an obsession of the chattering classes. Elite women, many present in this House, who might fill such roles, can usually look after themselves to a great extent. Very little attention is given in these interviews to the needs of the great majority of working women, some of whom will provide the pipeline for top roles in future. These women want help with finding opportunities for a better life and to be able to combine a family and the chance to have a successful career. They want to contribute better to the UK economy and to be better, happier citizens and parents. So the framework for maternity leave and flexible working is important and represents a substantial and important investment by the Government. The expansion of pre-school education is another huge and important investment. But women also want good jobs to go to, a decent boss and to be able to get on. Employers, large and small, know that their female colleagues are a skilled and loyal resource. Women are also the majority of customers in many consumer-facing businesses, so have relevant insights for success.

In my own career in the Civil Service and then for over 15 years as an executive at Tesco, a good retail employer, I found four things that worked well. First, it is important to make a point of including female staff in training and development on an equal basis, even if special arrangements have to be made. Mentoring has a place, and role models, as so many noble Lords have said. In an organisation of any size, leadership training is especially important as women are often very good managers, but sometimes lack confidence. Secondly, this understandable lack of confidence is one of the biggest barriers to female advancement. Men think they are ready for the next challenge a year before they are ready, women a year too late. Interestingly, I have also found that women are also less aggressive about seeking pay rises, which may partly explain the 10% pay gap among full-time employees highlighted by the Library note.

For these reasons, women can also benefit disproportionately from good management—clear objectives, appraisal, feedback and, most important of all, encouragement and praise for good work done. Focusing systematically on the female pipeline in a business or agency and ensuring that you give women core jobs in the business, and not just in female-friendly divisions such as HR or marketing, so that they develop a skills base for top jobs, is also vital—like the director of sport we heard about in London 2012.

Since change takes time, it is worth looking back a bit to my own experience in steering the Food Safety Act 1990 through this House. All three lead officials were women, and so were the Ministers, including my noble friend Lady Trumpington, still here in her 90s, demonstrating brilliant development of the female talent pipeline by the party. I have found female networks helpful in establishing some surprising connections and friendships and showing the breadth of knowledge needed for advancement. I remember the Tesco women directors in Asia meeting in Shanghai, 50 of us in total and only two of us, myself and the Irish-born commercial director from Thailand, of non-Asian origin. Networks are also vital for the exchange of good practice, and I found managing children was the most popular topic for best practice exchange. I used to share my wisdom on juggling my domestic arrangements, which was a cause of great hilarity. News bulletins can keep you in touch when you are on maternity leave. Without them, you miss out completely as businesses change.

Such things are also very easy in our digital age—and that brings me on to my final point. The workplace has changed a great deal with the advent of new technology. I remember having to take my children into Downing Street as I had a crisis on a Sunday and external e-mail barely existed in the 1990s. Now parents can bathe their babies and settle down on their tablets to complete their urgent work. That is a very helpful change.

Obviously, we need to make sure that new technology provides new flexibility and does not become a new form of slavery, on the go 20 hours a day. I have a friend who is a senior City lawyer. She has agreed to leave her BlackBerry behind when she goes on holiday with her family. The internet, especially when we all have broadband—a day that I hope will arrive very soon—is changing everything: the workplace, our relationships, who wins in business and, of course, most important of all, the way our own children learn and play.

I do believe that women make an enormous contribution to the UK economy. However, in closing, I wish to touch on an aspect of good management practice, which is to set criteria and deadlines for success. Accordingly, I look forward to the day when progress has been such that there is no need for a debate on the role of women in our economy, and I hope that we get there soon.