Women in Society

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon Excerpts

Wednesday 21st July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, we have had an excellent debate. I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, for enabling this debate to take place and for her comprehensive introduction. In the range of superb and powerful contributions today, we have heard seven fine maiden speeches. We are fortunate to have these additions to our Benches with their expertise and their enthusiasm. They espouse many of my own passions. While it might be invidious to single out one speech, I have to say that I was delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Black, spoke of osteoporosis and the health of older women. My mother suffered from osteoporosis and polymyalgia and I am a proud member of the National Osteoporosis Society.

In recent years, PCTs have worked strategically to raise awareness and to commission services that improve the health of older women—women who contribute so much to our society. Clearly, much more should and must be done, but I do not think that the radical pursuit of GP commissioning is the best way forward to ensure the continued and strategic improvement in the health of older women.

I want to focus my remarks today mainly on economic matters, as well as on a number of other issues, including carers and domestic violence. However, I begin with a quote from Aung San Suu Kyi. In citing her words, I celebrate her contribution to democracy and freedom and I lament the fact that such an inspiring, courageous leader should have to suffer for her belief in universal human rights. She said:

“The democracy process provides for political and social change without violence”.

I celebrate democracy along with all noble Lords in this Chamber.

The election a couple of months ago means we that have just experienced political change. The consequences of the election—the deficit reduction programme on which the coalition Government have embarked—mean that we are about to experience social change. This is the first debate on women in your Lordships’ House since the election. We on these Benches did not win the election and we know the consequences of that. One of the consequences about which I am concerned is the impact of the coalition’s policies on women. That includes the economic impact, the impact on their employment, the impact on the work-life balance, especially for those with children or who are carers and are holding their families together in very difficult circumstances, and the impact on women who suffer domestic violence.

As many inside and outside this Chamber have pointed out, it is women who bear the brunt of the cuts that are a consequence of the recent Budget. Yes, we all agree that there must be cuts in order to reduce the deficit—a deficit that arose because of the global economic crisis—but we do not agree that the cuts should be imposed so early and so savagely. We do not agree that they should be imposed without proper analysis of their impact. The Minister said that fairness must be at the heart of all of our decisions. I agree and I am delighted that she said it. I ask her to confirm whether a robust process for assessing the gender impact of proposals is being put in place before departments make decisions on their cuts and spending. I remind the noble Baroness of the gender equality duty, which, at this time of financial constraint, would not prevent the Government and other public authorities from making difficult and often unpopular decisions on funding and service provision. However, it would enable them to ensure that decisions are made in such a way as to minimise unfairness.

It seems from the evidence to date, including the gender audit of the Budget that was commissioned by my right honourable friend Yvette Cooper, that an analysis of the impact of the Budget on women was not made before the Chancellor made his announcements in June. The coalition tells us in its programme that,

“strong and stable families of all kinds are the bedrock of a strong and stable society”,

and that it wants to,

“make our society more family friendly”.

I welcome that, but I do not think that at present the rhetoric and the reality match. My right honourable friend’s study found that, of the £8 billion net revenue to be raised by the financial year 2014-15, nearly £6 billion will be from women. That can be neither just nor family friendly.

Support is being cut for children, which clearly has a profound impact on women, but, even if those cuts are put aside, women are being affected by cuts in things such as housing benefit, upratings to the additional pension, public sector pensions and attendance allowances, while they benefit less than men from the increases in the income tax allowances. That is without any consideration of the impact of public spending cuts. As women make up more of the public sector workforce, they will be more heavily hit by the public sector pay freeze and the projected 600,000 net public sector job losses.

Just last weekend I happened to have conversations with some women working in the public service—women who are teachers, health workers, teaching assistants, nurses and civil servants. I also spoke to some carers. All of them are worried about their jobs and the consequences for their families. In addition to their feeling of insecurity, they have already tightened the reins on their family spending, which on a larger scale will have an impact on the economic recovery. It is a real concern that the approach taken to deficit reduction is already pushing firms in the private sector, and the economy in general, back towards recession. We will all be losers if that happens, but women will bear the brunt.

Today’s debate asks us to take note of the position of women in society and speaks of the development of women’s potential. I argue that, in order for women to develop their potential, which they must if we are to have a healthy economy and a healthy society, they need security rather than insecurity and they need to be able to manage work and family life. Carers can be essential to that. We all recognise the huge contribution that carers, predominantly women, make to our society and our economy. Carers UK is absolutely clear about what the emergency Budget means for carers. It welcomes some of the plans, but it expresses clear anxiety on behalf of millions of carers and the people for whom they care. It is concerned, for example, about the switch in the system of uprating benefits, tax credits and public service pensions from the retail prices index to the consumer price index. This will hit the incomes of certain families particularly hard, including those families where disability, carers’ and means-tested benefits are the only source of income, single parents—usually women—caring for a disabled child or carers looking after a partner or an elderly parent.

Another aspect of security for women is domestic violence, a key issue for many women. I was glad that the Minister spoke in her opening speech of forced marriage and rape and I certainly welcome the establishment of more rape crisis centres. However, domestic violence goes much further than rape and forced marriage. In the UK, one in four women and one in six men will suffer from domestic abuse in their lives and 750,000 children live in violent households. Domestic violence affects women disproportionately. As my noble friend Lord Brooke said, 90 per cent of repeat victims of domestic violence are women. On average, a woman will be abused 37 times before she tells anyone about it. That is an astounding figure.

I am proud to tell the House that, while in government, my party took steps that reduced domestic violence by more than 60 per cent. I pay tribute to my noble and learned friend the shadow Attorney-General for much of that success. The multi-agency model that we developed to tackle abuse and domestic violence was and is successful. The multi-agency risk assessment conference model got results. In 60 per cent of all cases heard at MARAC, there is no further abuse. For the 120,000 women living in fear of their lives and suffering serious and sustained abuse—for those most at risk of being killed—the MARAC model offers the best ever chance of a safe life free from fear.

While these kinds of results alone ought to be enough to embed the multi-agency approach across our public services, there is a real risk in the approach being taken by the coalition that this type of specialist, intensive support will be seen to be unaffordable. This is short-term thinking, because the opposite is true. In the criminal justice system, health services, children services and police services, proper provision of MARAC nationwide will save this and future Governments well over £700 million each year and will save women from what is still the greatest cause of female morbidity—domestic violence. I would be grateful for confirmation from the Minister that the Government will continue the violence against women strategy.

On broader equality matters, noble Lords will recall the excellent debates that we had in this House on the Equality Bill, now the Equality Act. I am grateful for the contribution made by the Minister and I am immensely proud of that Act. It begins with a new duty on public bodies to reduce socio-economic inequalities—a duty that has assumed greater importance in the current economic climate. I would be grateful if the Minister would confirm that this duty, along with other duties, will be implemented in October. It was good to hear from the noble Baroness that the recommendations of the Speaker’s Conference are being acted on.

We on this side of the House, when in government, had a record on the issue of women of which we could be proud. The minimum wage alone pulled hundreds of thousands of low-paid people, many of whom were women, out of poverty wages. We hope that the coalition will continue that approach. Naturally, I welcome the proposed extension of the right to request flexible working.

I regret that I do not have time to focus on issues regarding women in the world, but I am delighted that so many noble Lords—including new noble Lords—have referred to it and have spoken of women and development, women and human rights and women and peace and security. I look forward to the Minister’s responses to questions on these matters, especially those concerning progress towards the millennium development goals. Women throughout the world bear the burden of poverty, so the achievement of the MDGs, especially those relating to the education of girls and maternal health, will do much to alleviate that burden.

Christabel Pankhurst said:

“What we suffragettes aspire to be when we are enfranchised is ambassadors of freedom to women in other parts of the world who are not so free as we are”.

As noble Lords have said, suffragettes were brave women who fought for the vote. It was a struggle, but they achieved it and we celebrate that. Today we celebrate women’s contribution to and participation in democracy and the role of this House in our parliamentary system. We are ambassadors of freedom and we must continue in that role until there is no more stoning and no more trafficking and until women enjoy the freedom of human and democratic rights wherever they live in the world. We want the Government to support women properly in this country and through our international development work and our foreign policy. We urge the Government to continue to adopt policies that will do so and, as a responsible Opposition, we will keep the Government under scrutiny on women’s issues to ensure that they do.