Women: Board Membership

Debate between Baroness Northover and Lord Smith of Clifton

Monday 10th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

The noble Lord puts his finger on a very important point. There are only four female chief executives in the FTSE 100 at the moment. It is indeed an area in which companies need to make a lot more progress.

[Lord Smith of Clifton (LD)]

Does my noble friend agree with what I said last Thursday regarding gender balance in the Cabinet? The battle for gender equality will not be won on the playing fields of Eton or Westminster School.

[Baroness Northover]

What can I possibly say?

Women: Contribution to Economic Life

Debate between Baroness Northover and Lord Smith of Clifton

Thursday 6th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

My Lords, the debates in the House of Lords for International Women’s Day are always outstanding, and this one has been no exception. There is such huge experience and commitment among your Lordships in this area that it is a great privilege to respond. I pay particular tribute to my noble friend Lord Palumbo, who chose to make his maiden speech in this debate today, and whom we welcome as a significant contributor to our House. One can see how far-sighted he is when he speaks of employers recognising that starting a family enhances, not compromises, what an employee can contribute.

It is also good to have so many male contributions to the debate today, including from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester, who flagged his optimism that we might soon see women on his Benches, possibly by the time of this debate next year. I was also very pleased that my noble friend Lord Holmes of Richmond participated, despite his case of extreme man flu. My eldest son has a habit of catching such flu, and although he beat it this autumn, when he sent me an e-mail from Nigeria saying, “Mum, I have acute typhoid”, it required my daughter to say that if he is well enough to send the e-mail, he is probably all right. Cross fingers—he probably is.

We have marked International Women’s Day for over a century. The lives of women in this country have been transformed over that century, as my noble friend Lady Seccombe so clearly showed, and as other noble Lords have remarked. I was very touched by the speech of my noble friend Lady Seccombe. In this year, in which we mark the centenary of the First World War, she is right to remind us not only how it changed lives in terms of women’s engagement in the workforce but in terms of the mental and physical suffering that ensued from that appalling conflict—indeed, in her own life.

As noble Lords’ speeches have made clear, inequalities persist. Women earn less, and we have by far the larger responsibility for children in the home and for care of elderly relatives, as well as working. Women are less likely to be in the House of Commons or the House of Lords, less likely to be on boards on the top of companies, in our Supreme Court or among our judges, as vice-chancellors of universities, as my noble friend Lady Bottomley pointed out, or as editors of newspapers, and so on. Indeed, we see progress, but sometimes it seems glacial, although it is good to hear from my noble friend Lady Benjamin about Exeter. I note what my noble friend Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville flagged on behalf of my noble friend Lady Falkner in relation to the diplomatic service. I assure noble Lords that I shall make sure that that is heard very loudly in the FCO.

I spoke in my opening speech about the action that we are taking right across government to promote equality. We know that girls are outperforming boys at school, so by investing in education, expanding our apprenticeship programme and improving careers advice, we can help young women to open their eyes to opportunities that they may have believed were unobtainable, and help them to make ambitious choices. Introducing shared parental leave will help to end the assumption that women will be the main carer for a child, helping families to juggle their home and work life and lessening the negative impact on careers of time spent out of the workplace.

We heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Afshar, about the impact of having children. Noble Lords are right about the importance of addressing the need for childcare that is affordable, flexible and of high quality. My noble friend Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville and the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, particularly emphasised the issue of childcare. As I said, we have extended free childcare for all three to four year-olds to 15 hours—from what was offered by the previous Government—and we are also offering that now to disadvantaged two year-olds. We are also helping with the cost via a tax-free childcare scheme, which is worth up to £1,200 a year from 2015. There is an extra £200 million for childcare subsidies through universal credit, and we are working to improve supply through grants to childcare businesses and setting up childminder agencies.

I recall the cost myself of having three under-fives and working. As I did the other day, I pay tribute to the party opposite for the work that it did to improve the quality and availability of childcare during its time in office. However, I point out that costs rose considerably in the 2000s. What we have sought successfully to do, as the Family and Childcare Trust’s figures bear out, is to stabilise those costs. As for provision, providers show that there are sufficient places and, in fact, vacancies; that said, we know that there is much to do, which is why we have put a great deal of effort into this.

In regard to working fathers, a point flagged up by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, I was personally speechless when the media criticised Edward Davey for taking paternity leave when his new baby arrived. As the noble Baroness, Lady Crawley, said, with regard to trolls, we have a long way to go.

The noble Baronesses, Lady Crawley and Lady Uddin, flagged the need to support carers, generally and in the workplace. We are implementing the recommendations of the report, Supporting Working Carers: The Benefits to Families, Business and the Economy, which was published in 2013. We are improving support for business and developing the market in care and support services, and the Care Bill will help to provide protection and support to those who need it most, including carers. But the noble Baroness, Lady Crawley, is right to emphasise the contribution that carers, from the family or not, can make. My noble friend Lady Benjamin, the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, and others are right to emphasise the contribution of those who are in unpaid work. It is still work and it still contributes.

The noble Baroness, Lady Prosser, rightly urged us to address the value and engagement of those who are nowhere near the glass ceiling but are, rather, around the skirting board, as she described it. The noble Baroness, Lady Nye, flagged the minimum wage, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton. They will have noted that my right honourable friend the Business Secretary has expressed his sympathy with the proposal to raise this. I do not want to get into a competition over this by saying, “We did this and you did that”, but I would point out that, in raising the tax threshold, we have disproportionately benefited women, and I am very proud of the fact that we have done that.

The noble Baronesses, Lady Uddin and Lady Howells, and my noble friend Lady Benjamin rightly urged us to ensure that what we do is inclusive of all groups, whatever their religion, race and background. We agree with that. The noble Baroness, Lady Afshar, flagged the particular challenges facing Muslim women. We pay tribute to the work that she and others are doing in that regard, and hear what she says.

The noble Lord, Lord Haskel, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Nye and Lady Prosser, spoke of the pay gap, which is a worldwide problem. The noble Lord wanted to know the relevant figures. In the United Kingdom, the pay gap is narrowing steadily. It was 25% 10 years ago and is now 19.7%. The pay gap is linked to the occupations in which women traditionally work and these sectors tend to be lower paid. We have addressed many of the issues around that in this debate. From October 2014, employment tribunals will require companies that lose an equal pay case to undertake a pay audit. We must, indeed, continue to work very hard to close this gap.

My noble friend Lady Bottomley mentioned women in the penal system and highlighted their situation and her proposed engagement with them. As she mentioned this, my noble friend Lady Jolly whispered to me that she used to provide evening classes in maths and science in Dartmoor, so there we have some STEM engagement.

All noble Lords are right to emphasise the need to address the position of women across the board. The noble Baroness, Lady Royall, and my noble friend Lady Jenkin flagged a problem that occurs at every level—that is, violence, which may be physical or insidiously mental. We are extremely exercised by this. The Government have set out their approach to the action plan on violence against women, which will be updated on 8 March, on International Women’s Day. We have ring-fenced £40 million for specialist domestic violence and sexual violence support services, and we have extended the definition of “domestic violence” to include 16 to 17 year-olds and coercive behaviour. We have announced the rollout of domestic violence protection orders and the domestic violence disclosure scheme, and we have introduced domestic homicide reviews and relaunched the “This is Abuse” campaign, aimed at teenage boys and girls. I remember answering a Question from the noble Baroness, Lady Nye, on that area.

We continue to work with the noble Lord, Lord Davies. I am very happy to agree that he is a noble sister; I think that the noble Baroness, Lady Crawley, described him as that. He is remarkable and has done a great deal to promote equality in the boardroom. He has tried to ensure that talented women take their rightful place at the top and, once there, provide a different view, which helps business maximise its potential, coming back to the point that my noble friend Lord Palumbo made.

My noble friend Lady Bottomley rightly flagged that we must not concentrate on women on boards to the exclusion of women at every level. We fully agree with that and other noble Lords echoed that point. My noble friend Lord Watson flagged that my right honourable friend Vincent Cable has requested that the EHRC should look at the legal possibilities of quotas for companies. No doubt this will be passed to the board of my noble friend Lord Holmes. I look forward very much indeed to hearing what the outcome might be. As my right honourable friend the Prime Minister has also made clear, quotas have to be a possible backstop if we do not see enough progress.

My noble friend Lord Smith has been a doughty and invaluable campaigner for better gender equality, and I personally value his support enormously. His determination that we should have no complacency in this matter rings in my ears. I would say to my noble friend Lady Jenkin that I think he is actually targeting my party and his party. However, perhaps I may pick him up on one point regarding the reports on office size, which seemed to indicate that women Ministers were undervalued. In this particular case, it is a bit of a red herring. The position gets somewhat distorted by adding in my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary’s room, which is 10 times the size of that of any of his Cabinet colleagues. I happen to know that my right honourable friend Justine Greening chose a smaller room in the DfID building because it was in the new part of the building where most of the officials were, when she could have had the very large, beautiful office that my right honourable friend Alan Duncan has. However, she chose not to have that office in order to be with the officials. It is always worth flagging these points.

[Lord Smith of Clifton]

Does that not make the case for having a woman Foreign Secretary?

[Baroness Northover]

I will volunteer immediately, but I think that my noble friend Lady Warsi will be in front of me. Of course my noble friend Lord Smith is right.

By providing support to women wishing to start and grow their own business, both at home and in the developing world, we could see equality in business, and equalising the economic participation rates of men and women could add 10% to GDP by 2030. My noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe had some very useful perceptions in this regard. Women-led SMEs already add £70 billion to the UK economy. We agree that there is tremendous potential here.

My noble friend Lady Bottomley mentioned that women were less likely to be peacocks, and my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe mentioned that men apply for promotion a year before they should, while women apply a year after they should. Having just read Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In, this seems to be a worldwide challenge. That, again, is why my noble friend Lord Palumbo’s far-sightedness, which Sheryl Sandberg shares, of recognising and promoting the contribution that women make to businesses, is indeed so important.

My noble friend Lady Fookes and the noble Baroness, Lady Prosser, flagged the challenges of getting women into STEM subjects. We are working very hard on this. Last night I was very encouraged to attend a reception hosted by the DPM for female apprentices. The enthusiasm of these women was palpable. One of the things that they emphasised was that they had a battle against their schools when they tried to head down the apprenticeship route. They asked that schools should rate apprenticeships as highly as they rate universities. This is indeed what we are seeking to do through new careers advice in schools. I also say to the noble Baroness, Lady Howells, that last night I met a remarkable apprentice who happens to be black and is apprenticed at Dr Martens. I can show the noble Baroness on my telephone some rather inadequate pictures of the stunning silk and fake crocodile Dr Martens shoes that this young lady had designed and made in the space of two days. I had no doubt that she could sell them worldwide.

My noble friend Lord Holmes gave a moving speech and reminded us strongly of how outstanding are our sportswomen. I noted that there were four winning individuals or teams at Sochi, and that three of them were female. However, that did not stand in the way of national delight and enthusiasm. It did not, and I would make that point to the media.

We heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, just how fantastic the contribution of women can be in the arts, as outlined in the cases she mentioned. I recognise not least the contribution that JK Rowling makes both to the UK Exchequer and to the fantasy life of children and adults. It was absolutely wonderful to see a dyslexic child, who had never read a book all the way through before, sit in a corner and not move until they had read all the way through a Harry Potter book.

I pay tribute as I always do, and as my noble friend Lord Smith has, to the party opposite for what it has done to encourage women to enter politics. I think that my noble friend was actually attacking my party rather than my coalition partners. I have fought long and hard in my party over many years, but we have a particular challenge because we have no safe seats—if only we had. That is why I am very glad that, at least in the House of Lords, 31% of my party’s Members are women, making us the largest group. I am also glad, astounded and impressed that in five of the six Liberal Democrat seats where MPs are standing down, we have managed to select women. I pay tribute to my noble friend Lady Brinton for her sterling efforts in that regard.

We all know that we must do more at every level. I have seen what a transformative difference Labour women MPs have made and, just like the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, I have seen a transformative difference made by women parliamentarians working together in Pakistan. What we have heard about the position of women worldwide reinforces the need to have a stand-alone goal on gender in the MDGs, as the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, made clear.

My noble friend Lord Watson of Richmond, like others, reminded us of some of the barriers faced by women elsewhere. I certainly saw what he referred to when I visited Saudi Arabia. The women are corralled into a small area in the university, unable to participate alongside men unless they are medical students. They are unable even to visit the library. I saw the horror on male faces as I was allowed to walk through the university. As I have mentioned before, the position of women came home to me even in my western-style hotel in Riyadh, where there was a swimming pool. I went down to the pool with my swimsuit but was turned away because it was not the “women’s hour” to swim. When I asked when the women’s hour was, I was told, “There isn’t one”.

Given the situation of women around the world, I am very proud of our work overseas. In our international development work, the UK has put girls and women at the heart of its approach. DfID’s strategic vision for women and girls has set ambitious targets to enhance the economic empowerment of girls and women in developing countries. I laid out the principles in my opening speech. As the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, pointed out, women do so much of the work yet have so little of the property. The imbalance is extremely striking. Two-thirds of women are illiterate and one in nine girls is forced into marriage before her 14th birthday.

Overseas, we are indeed battling against violence. Women cannot fully participate if they are subjected to violence, which they often are, as the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, pointed out. She will know of the efforts that we are making in that respect with a £25 million research and innovation fund looking at what works in preventing violence against women and girls.

The noble Baroness, Lady Howe of Idlicote, raised the issue of FGM. I am very proud of what my honourable friend Lynne Featherstone is doing in combating this overseas, and it is having an effect, too, in the United Kingdom. That is extremely welcome. It is the first time that there has been a commitment of £35 million to combat FGM overseas. I know that I am running short of time.

The noble Baroness, Lady Royall, mentioned concerns in relation to Pakistan, and my noble friends Lady Jenkin and Lady Hodgson mentioned Afghanistan. Probably all three of them will know of our very strong commitment to supporting women and girls right across the board in terms of schooling, engagement and reproductive health. That commitment in Afghanistan continues and I can write with further details if they wish.

My noble friend Lady Fookes asked about women’s political participation and leadership. DfID supports that in a number of countries and, again, I can write with details. However, I will point out that the CPA, IPU and Westminster Foundation have continuing programmes along the lines that she mentions. I know that the CPA is asking right now for a volunteer to do the type of training to which she refers in April in Kenya. Perhaps she would like to volunteer.

In conclusion, this has been a very wide-ranging and informative debate. I was enormously struck by what my noble friend Lady Bottomley said when quoting the chief executive of a company, which I shall not name, who said that the future was not with the BRICs but with women. That is most cheering and a very positive note. I hope that I have made clear the Government’s determination to do everything in their power to transform the rights and opportunities available to women and girls in the UK and overseas. As I predicted, it has been an excellent debate. It has also been constructive and thought-provoking. It is encouraging to have so many women and men seeking to drive forward the gender equality that we all need to see for the benefit of women, families, communities and countries.

Universities: Impact of Government Policy

Debate between Baroness Northover and Lord Smith of Clifton

Thursday 13th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Smith of Clifton]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, for this debate. It is very timely, coming as it does 12 months after your Lordships debated the Browne proposals. When I spoke in last year’s debate, I said that the proposals of the noble Lord, Lord Browne, would be a further acceleration towards the privatisation of tertiary education. I said that, while it would not be my preference, it is perfectly rational to have a free, untrammelled market in higher education, or to maintain the “mixed economy” that has been the main operating principle followed by successive Governments during the last half of the 20th century. The worst of all worlds would be to have a largely privatised system subject to bouts of ministerial interference.

I predicted that the consequences of the Browne proposals would be the adoption of a spate of rationalisation and consolidation schemes in both top and bottom-tier HEIs. That is already happening: north of the border, Glasgow has announced the abolition of courses in Czech, Polish, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian and Catalan, leaving only Spanish and French as the modern languages it offers. This was reported in the Independent on 24 April. In the Guardian of 3 May it was reported that London Metropolitan University, itself the product of a merger, intended to axe two-thirds of its courses, including history and philosophy. This is only the start of the latest round of closures; previous years witnessed the abolition of many chemistry departments and the total demise of any fully fledged nuclear engineering provision. The process will continue and gather pace in the coming years.

Leaving individual universities to decide what they do means that the overall pattern of English university provision will not be based on any coherent strategy. As I said by way of example, how many departments of palaeontology should there be? At least one, presumably, but that is by no means guaranteed in the current haphazard and fragmented state of decision-making. David Willetts claimed in the Guardian on 20 September last that his policy was in line with,

“all three major postwar reports”—

Robbins, Dearing and Browne. This is an absurd contention: the Robbins committee had a very wide remit to review the entire system across the UK, whereas the other two were much more circumscribed, being limited to financing and fees without regard to any other consequences. David Willetts was not comparing like with like.

Not that that is his only failing; there are many to choose from. First, he forecast that relatively few universities would charge the maximum permitted fee of £9,000, whereas a considerable number have already said that they will, including a number of second-tier ones. Secondly, he forecast that while a proportion of graduates—those earning very low salaries—would not have to repay their loan debts, there would be an overall saving to the taxpayer. Reversing the ratio of costs of higher education from 60 per cent public funding with 40 per cent private, to 40 per cent public funding with 60 per cent falling on the individual will not, it now appears, achieve the savings to the Exchequer originally predicted. Mr Willetts got his sums wrong. With average fees of £8,678 per annum, this will lead to a shortfall of £450 million by 2014, as reported in the Guardian of 21 April. A similar calculation came earlier from the Institute for Fiscal Studies. Will the Minister, in winding—I have given notice of this request—please state what the current DBIS estimates are of the savings that will accrue to the public purse by 2014 and will she provide the data that support such calculations? These are crucial statistics that must be updated and published on a regular basis. Furthermore, it is clear that large numbers of graduates will remain in debt for most of their working lives. Mr Willetts was accorded the sobriquet of “two brains” some years ago; a ratings agency might reasonably now reassess this assessment.

There are further problems. First, the rate of return on a first degree has declined. The lifetime earnings premium that went with a degree is now much less than it was. Secondly, the world recession has seriously reduced the prospect of graduates securing well paid careers. It is no wonder that many school leavers are questioning the value of going to university. A decline in HE participation rates is predicted by vice-chancellors and UCAS. Furthermore, today’s newspapers are reporting a significant decline in applications to FE colleges from 16 year-olds. The combination of these new factors will lead inevitably to many university closures, mergers or takeovers and certainly to massive reductions in course offerings across the board.

In response to the emerging chaos, Ministers have come up with a number of policy refinements, if that is not too grand a description of the series of knee-jerk reactions they have been forced to turn to. Ministers continue to assert that the new system of fees and loans will be more equitable than the existing one. The deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats, my right honourable friend Simon Hughes, was co-opted by the Government to improve access. He suggested 10,000 means-tested scholarships of £3,000 per annum to be allocated through schools to bright, disadvantaged pupils, but this will be but a mere sticking plaster. A government advertising programme to explain and promote the new system was also announced, but this and the Hughes proposals will not really tackle the problem. The stark fact is that the new fees/loans scheme is so complicated that it cannot be easily or simply explained and that makes it very bad politics, which further compounds the problems.

The Government need to undertake a thoroughgoing review, on the scale of Robbins, of their HE policies for England, or risk a decline, as many noble Lords have said, in the international reputation of our universities and the quality of the service they give to our citizens. There must also be a radical reordering of our policy priorities, in particular away from military adventurism, so that proper resources can be allocated to our university system. Within the coalition, the Liberal Democrats need to insist on these measures if they are to recover any credibility with the electorate on tuition fees and the costs that fall on individuals who undertake higher education. The chaotic system of English higher education must be addressed and remedial action taken.

[Baroness Northover]

I remind noble Lords that when the clock reaches six minutes—there are many academics here and I am sure that they can work this out—they have reached the end of their time. Otherwise, we risk not leaving enough time for the Minister to reply to noble Lords’ questions.