International Women’s Day

Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway (Lab)]

It is an absolute pleasure to follow that wonderful maiden speech by my noble friend Lady Bousted. We have all been given a taste of her fierce intellect and education policy expertise, which will no doubt enrich this House.

As we have heard, my noble friend comes from a big family. In fact, if she had wanted to, she had enough siblings to form her own netball team and have a sub on the bench. I suspect that is one reason why she grew up to become a warrior for women and girls’ equality, and for dignity for all working people. My noble friend championed the TUC’s Unionlearn initiative, along with being an outstanding co-leader of the National Education Union. When she was TUC president, she also took responsibility for chairing the TUC General Council. As noble Lords can imagine, keeping order in a room full of union leaders, each with our own strongly held views, is no easy task—but it is perhaps excellent training for chairing a House of Lords committee in the future.

International Women’s Day originates in the struggles of working-class women and their unions. In my personal experience, not only is my noble friend Lady Bousted on the side of women but she will speak up and get stuck in, and she does so with intelligence, wit and real sisterly kindness.

Today’s trade union movement has incredible talent and expertise within its ranks: educators, engineers, coders, climate scientists and a growing number of members in new technologies and the gaming industry. Meanwhile, we have seen an extraordinary shift in the organisation of capital, with technology companies dominating the league table of the wealthiest corporations in the world. As well as wealth, big tech has enormous power to shape not only our material lives but our emotions, behaviour and politics. When Elon Musk provides a megaphone for alleged rapist and people trafficker Andrew Tate and known far-right agitator Stephen Lennon—aka Tommy Robinson—we all have an interest in how this industry is run and regulated. Let us be clear: in this country we absolutely support freedom of speech, but we draw the line at hate and incitement to violence.

I have always believed that technology has the potential to be a liberating force that can transform society. Think about the difference it would make if the estimated multibillion-dollar productivity gains were shared fairly in the form of decent universal childcare, shorter working hours or higher pensions. Imagine if the priority for developing work-based technologies was eliminating boring and dangerous tasks, and making every job safe, skilled and satisfying.

Women’s equality is not just right in principle; it matters because it is about who gets to decide on tech design, rules and priorities, and in turn how that impacts on all our daily lives. For example, one reason why we have seen race and sex discrimination baked into facial recognition technology is the very unrepresentative group who designed it. The tech bros would benefit from having more tech sisters.

Too often, technologies are designed to make working lives harder: tracking and monitoring staff oppressively, hiring and firing without a human review, and casualising employment contracts. Women, and black and ethnic-minority workers, are at the sharp end of these high-exploitation technologies in anti-union companies such as Amazon. We do not just need to change faces in the industry; we need to change systems of power.

According to a recent survey of its members working in tech, the professional trade union Prospect found that over 60% agreed that their employer’s pay system is opaque and likely unfair. Is the Minister confident that Labour’s Employment Rights Bill will tackle pay secrecy once and for all, so that women tech workers—in fact, all women workers—can win equal pay for work of equal value? When purchasing technology services, will the Government use their procurement power to lever up equality standards so that more tech apprenticeships go to young women, and so that rights to fair treatment and a union voice at work are enforced?

Equality Act 2010: Diversity of Political Candidates

Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway Excerpts

Wednesday 5th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Baroness makes a very important point. Some of that, of course, is the responsibility of political parties themselves, but particularly in areas where she and I have previously shared views and work—such as the abuse and intimidation that impact all elected politicians but disproportionately impact women—there is work that the Government can do, building on work done outside this place on this issue; for example, by the Jo Cox commission. The Government are working with the Electoral Commission to take this forward in terms of practical actions that will help overcome some of these barriers, which, as the noble Baroness says, might put people off coming into democratically elected life, and, in doing that, make us all poorer.

[Baroness O’Grady of Upper Holloway (Lab)]

How long does my noble friend the Minister think it will take before we achieve 50:50 representation of men and women in the House of Lords?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My noble friend the Leader assures me that the Front Bench on this side is pretty good. I am afraid it is not within my power, but I see in the other place that considerable progress has been made since 1997, when I was elected, which was equally a big jump in women’s representation. Then, however, it was just over 18% women—it now stands at 40%, which is the sort of progress that we would all like to see.

Vocational Training

Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway Excerpts

Monday 9th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

As we have discussed at some length as the Bill has gone through this House, the intention in shifting the functions is to enable them to be used by Skills England, which will be very much driven by the needs of employers, working alongside trade unions and bringing in the necessary regional and local co-ordination. I hope I provided some reassurance in Committee. There is no intention that we should move away from a system where the occupational standards and assessment plans are determined by employer groups. It is fundamentally important, to build confidence in apprenticeships and other technical qualifications, that they fulfil the requirements of employers. That is the intention for when Skills England takes on that role.

[Baroness O’Grady of Upper Holloway (Lab)]

My Lords, does my noble friend the Minister agree that the legacy of the last Government was nearly 7 million people of working age with little or no qualifications, one in five workers lacking even basic computer skills and the number of apprenticeships falling off a cliff? Does she agree that the remedy, to revitalise vocational training in this country, is in part to have an active industrial strategy involving both employers and unions, and investing in our FE colleges—in kit and equipment but also in staff?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My noble friend is absolutely right; we have a skills shortage, and it has worsened over recent years in the way she describes. That means we need the industrial strategy this Government are developing, but we need it linked closely to a much more coherent skills system, led by Skills England, which will identify, with the partnership I outlined previously, current and future skills gaps. Those gaps will then be met by improved opportunities for technical education and apprenticeships. She is also right that a key partner in delivering that will be our FE colleges, for which this Government were of course able to find an additional £300 million of revenue and £300 million of capital in the recent Budget Statement.

Free Childcare Scheme

Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway Excerpts

Wednesday 20th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The Government have committed to deliver the number of childcare places needed for those who are eligible and seek to take advantage of the opportunity that the Government offer.

[Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway (Lab)]

Does the Minister agree that many families up and down Britain are tearing their hair out over the cost and difficulty of accessing quality affordable childcare? Clearly, delivery is crucial. Would she also agree that childcare is one part of the jigsaw puzzle, and that many working families in Britain are also worried about security of employment and predictability of working hours and income in order to be able to access childcare? What we really need is a new deal for working people that delivers that security, as well as childcare provision.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I know the noble Baroness is well aware of the very substantial increases that we have made in the national minimum wage. To put it in context, the 30 hours of free childcare is equivalent to just under £7,000 per child, which I think she will agree is a substantial contribution to the average family income.

Children’s Care Homes: Private Equity

Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway Excerpts

Tuesday 30th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

As I said, bringing forward the legislative changes necessary to implement a new regime depends on parliamentary time. However, we are not wasting any time in trying to support the foster market, for all the reasons that noble Lords have already set out.

[Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway (Lab)]

My Lords, there is a sense of urgency here, as this issue is not only about gross profiteering and loading up homes with debt but about respect for the human rights of children. What active consideration are the Government giving to price caps, which some local authorities have called for—or, better still, to moving towards a model of public ownership in the public interest?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

We are looking at a number of different options in this area. Although I am not suggesting that these are absolutely comparable, in 2023-24 the average cost of a residential care placement provided by a local authority is just under £5,500, but the average placement provided by the private or voluntary sectors is just under £4,700. Costs may not be the main issue here.

Universities: Impact of Industrial Action on Students

Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway Excerpts

Thursday 16th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I am very happy to take back my noble friend’s recommendation to the Office for Students.

[Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that, as long as an employer does not face a financial penalty—for example, in reimbursing students, or indeed with the railways, where the Government initially said they had no responsibility for settling the dispute—there is less incentive on the employer to get around the table to negotiate a fair settlement?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

Obviously, the noble Baroness brings many years of expertise to this matter, but I think that employers in universities and other sectors of the economy are suffering great penalties—financial, reputational and in terms of their relationships with their customers—which have a considerable impact on them.