International Women’s Day

Baroness Scott of Bybrook Excerpts

Thursday 11th March 2021 Grand Committee

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[Baroness Scott of Bybrook]

That the Grand Committee takes note of International Women’s Day and the United Kingdom’s role in empowering women in the recovery from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, it is an honour to open this debate on behalf of my noble friend Lady Berridge, but I begin by saying that my thoughts and prayers are with the family and loved ones of Sarah Everard at this very difficult time for them. As the Home Secretary said today,

“every woman should feel safe to walk our streets without fear of harassment or violence.”

This Government have committed to protecting women and girls.

It is 110 years since the first International Women’s Day was marked. I am sure that today we will hear many inspiring examples of women who have advocated for gender equality. I thank particularly the many women working tirelessly in the response to Covid-19 around the world. Covid-19 is the biggest challenge that the UK has faced in decades, and everyone across the country has been hit by its impact. We know that much of the extra pressure of balancing work with childcare and home schooling has fallen on women, and we are working to ensure that opportunities such as the increase in flexible working open up new possibilities as we move forward. Women have been at the forefront of the fight against the virus, and we will ensure that they are at the centre of the Covid-19 recovery as we build back better.

Throughout Covid-19, the Government have worked hard to provide a comprehensive package of support to protect businesses and individuals during this unprecedented time. Across almost all areas of economic policy, we are providing comparable or even greater support than all our international peers. The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme has been extended until the end of September 2021 for all parts of the UK, and the Government have provided generous support to the self-employed during the Covid-19 pandemic through the Self-employment Income Support Scheme.

As I noted, we recognise that this has been a challenging time for parents balancing work, childcare and remote learning. We continue to support families with their childcare costs, and we have set out to spend more than £3.6 billion on early years entitlements in 2020-21. Furthermore, last November the Chancellor announced a £44 million investment in 2021-22 for local authorities to increase hourly rates paid to childcare providers. We have taken action to align key tax-free childcare and 30 hours’ free childcare entitlements with government coronavirus job support schemes, ensuring that parents receiving support through these vital schemes remain eligible for support with childcare costs, even if their income falls below the normal minimum limit.

We have also supported disadvantaged children and young people. The Government are investing over £400 million to support access to remote education and online social care, including securing 1.3 million laptops and tablets. As of 7 March, 1.2 million laptops and tablets have been delivered to schools, trusts, local authorities and further education providers.

We also recognise the hard work of carers, who are continuing their caring responsibilities during these challenging times. We acknowledge that women deliver a greater share of caring in our society. Carer’s allowance is available to provide a measure of financial support and recognition for people who give up the opportunity of full-time employment to provide regular, substantial care for severely disabled people. We have also introduced two important measures until May 2021 to help unpaid carers through the pandemic. The first is the ability to continue to claim carer’s allowance if they have a temporary break in caring because they or the person they care for gets coronavirus, or if either has to isolate because of it. The second is clarification that providing emotional support to a person in need of care can also count towards the carer’s allowance threshold of 35 hours of care a week.

Alongside support for parents, children and carers, the health of women and girls continues to be a priority. It is important to highlight that women have been at the forefront of the fight against the virus, whether that is working to keep people safe in the NHS or keeping the country provided for in the retail sector, with 77% of the NHS workforce and 82% of the social care workforce being female. Throughout the pandemic, women have been at the front line, ensuring that people stay safe and receive the care they need.

As for vaccines, overall, we have been encouraged by the Covid vaccine uptake, with, as of today, 22.8 million people in the UK having now received their first vaccination. We appreciate, however, that work still needs to be done to address the inequalities of take-up, particularly with certain groups around race, religion and sex. As a result, we have developed the UK Covid-19 vaccine plan, which has four key factors to increase uptake: working in partnership; removing barriers; data and information; and, just as important, conversations and engagement.

Alongside this, we are working hard to support pregnant women in the workplace. Employers should regularly review their risk assessments for all pregnant workers and implement any controls needed to support employees. If the employer cannot put in place necessary controls identified by their risk assessment, they should ask the pregnant worker to remain at home on full pay, in line with the long-standing health and safety law. The Covid-19 outbreak has not changed the law on pregnancy and maternity discrimination, and there is no place for it under any circumstances.

We are also aware of the inequalities for women and babies from different ethnic backgrounds and socioeconomic groups. That is why, in September 2020, the Minister for Patient Safety, Suicide Prevention and Mental Health established the Maternity Inequalities Oversight Forum, bringing together experts from key stakeholders to address issues such as disparities in maternal mortality. The Race Disparity Unit has also met a number of stakeholders over the past few months, including academics, midwife practitioners from regional trusts and public health experts, to develop joint solutions to this issue.

On women’s mental health, it is okay not to feel okay during this difficult time, and we will support everyone in getting the help they need. We encourage everyone to make use of the resources that are out there; for example, Every Mind Matters. The NHS has worked hard to keep mental health services open throughout the pandemic, using technology where needed, but also face-to-face appointments where appropriate. We have invested over £10 million in supporting national and local mental health charities to continue their vital work in supporting people across the country. The well-being and mental health support plan includes a commitment, backed by £50 million, to ensure good-quality discharge for mental health service users from in-patient settings. We also announced in the spending review that the NHS will receive around an additional £500 million next year to address waiting times for mental health services, giving more people the mental health support they need, and to invest in the NHS workforce.

As we look to build back better, we must consciously reflect how Covid-19 has presented an opportunity to reform and improve our approach to how work is organised and accessed. We must retain the positive cultural shifts around flexible working, including in workforces where it was previously unthinkable. As part of this, we want to see more employers offering measures such as flexible working and returners programmes, which we know can improve career prospects for both women and men.

Our behavioural insights research with Zurich, which made every job available on a flexible or part-time basis, showed a 16% rise in female applicants for all jobs and a 20% rise for senior roles. We will be building on that insight in our further work on women’s economic empowerment. That includes supporting our female entrepreneurs. The Government have set an ambitious target of increasing the number of female entrepreneurs by half by 2030, equivalent to 600,000 new entrepreneurs. When we meet young women in schools around the country, we see aspirational, motivated and hard-working people driven to succeed.

The Government are committed to making the UK the best place for women to start and grow a business. That includes the launch of a new voluntary Investing in Women Code to increase the transparency of support given to female entrepreneurs and expose the gender gap in investment. The Future Fund has committed over £1 billion to supporting 1,055 high-growth companies across the country, of which 77 have mixed-gender management teams, compared with the Female Founders report, which found that only 10% of venture capital was going to mixed-gender teams in 2019. We are continuing to look at ways in which we can reach out to all aspiring female entrepreneurs across the country and provide the support and advice that they need to grow their business.

We are also ensuring that our trade policy addresses the barriers that women face in trading internationally. Central to our approach is co-operating with our trading partners to advance women’s economic empowerment through our free trade agreements and beyond.

We know that there is much more to do to improve the lives of women and girls around the world. That is why we have committed to putting gender equality and fairness at the heart of our G7 presidency, driving progress on educating girls, empowering women and ending violence against women and girls. We will use the G7 presidency to unite leading democracies in helping the world to build back better from coronavirus to create a fairer, greener and more prosperous future for all.

We announced earlier this week that our presidency will also see us convening an independent gender equality advisory council to bring new voices to the heart of the G7 discussions. My honourable friend the Member for South West Norfolk will be the ministerial lead. We want to bring together individuals with diverse experiences and perspectives on gender equality, with a key theme for the council being “women fixing the world”. The G7’s continued global leadership on gender equality is integral to our values at home and is a global force for good. I look forward to the council ensuring that the core principles of freedom, choice, opportunity and individual humanity and dignity are integrated across our international agenda.

Through our COP 26 presidency we will champion inclusivity and amplify the voices of those who are most marginalised, and we will support a green, inclusive and resilient recovery. Our co-leadership on the Generation Equality Action Coalition on Gender-Based Violence will make clear that gender-based violence is both unacceptable and, crucially, preventable, and so we must act with urgency.

I will take a moment to highlight our 12 years of education commitment. Twelve years of quality education for girls around the world is one of the most transformational development interventions, and it is a major priority for this Government. Between 2015 and 2020, the UK supported at least 15.6 million children in gaining a decent education, over half of whom were girls. We will use our G7 presidency this year to rally the international community to step up support for girls’ education, and the UK, along with Kenya, will host the financing summit of the Global Partnership for Education in July.

I say again that I am proud to participate in today’s debate with so many advocates of equality for women. I am proud to be part of this Government. It is an honour to play my part in the work that we are doing to build back better, fighting for equality for women both here in the UK and across the world.

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[Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I am really sorry for you all, but I will follow on from the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins. VSO changed my life. It gave me opportunities to learn about myself and the world, and to commit myself to a lifelong interest in the developing world and how we change things, particularly for girls and women. I went on VSO when I was 21 and spent two years in Kenya. I have subsequently done other things with VSO: I also did the parliamentary scheme in Tanzania in 2008 and I served in VSO’s governance for over 10 years until a couple of years ago.

VSO is the primary development agency used by this Government for volunteering. It is the primary development agency for pushing volunteering around the world. I had the honour to be in Addis Ababa in Ethiopia for the signing of the first memorandum of understanding with the African Union two years ago. The African Union recognised the sustainable development goal on volunteering and saw, with so many young people in Africa without jobs and almost without opportunity, that volunteering was critical.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, said, despite the pandemic, VSO’s work has continued on tackling Covid and those things that women and girls have been particularly susceptible to in recent months and years. There are some remarkable examples of the work it has done. I have talked to volunteers who were back from the ICS programme but still keeping in contact with people in the developing world, and to some of the national volunteers in those countries where VSO works. Those national volunteers were working in their own communities, reaching out to women and girls about gender-based violence, and reaching out to their local communities about what Covid really meant, trying to demystify all the myths that had grown up. We know about them here too.

The reality is that young national volunteers are transformed by their experience of being trained and supported by VSO to work in their local communities. I have met groups of women, mainly from east Africa, but also from other places in Africa, who are now absolutely determined to make a difference and to be leaders in their own communities and countries. The Government are in danger of throwing this away because they do not recognise the importance of making a decision quickly. This decision has been hanging on for more than a year; VSO was expecting to get approval in January 2020. Now the money will run out at the end of this month—and nothing. There is no commitment, just, “Oh, we don’t want to close you down but we’re not ready to take a decision.”

VSO will go by default if the Government do not take a decision because it needs the money to do the work. That will have enormous consequences for people involved in the developing world who work on this, but also for Britain’s reputation because VSO is, rightly, working with Governments around the Commonwealth: in Africa and India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and elsewhere, including Nepal. It is very well respected and loved there, and the Government are not ensuring its continuation. I suspect they will say, “We are not closing you down, we’re just putting it on pause”—

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I remind the noble Baroness of the four-minute speaking time.

[Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab) [V]]

I am sorry I have gone on. It matters to me; I hope it matters to the Government because they are making a real problem for themselves but they could sort it.

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[Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone (Con) [V]]

It is always a privilege and a pleasure to take part in this debate and hear the campaigns and concerns of so many enlightened Peers, and even a number of other Peers as well. Tribute has been paid to the magnificent scientists who have really shown the way during the Covid crisis: Sarah Gilbert and Kate Bingham, and Dr June Raine at the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, which has swiftly, rapidly and effectively approved the new vaccines. Of course, it was the great reputation of the Medicines Control Agency for its work that won us the European Medicines Agency, which we have now had to return. However, Dr Raine’s work suggests that there is hope for the future.

It was not ever thus. I remind noble Lords that James Barry, the first woman doctor, had to pretend that she was a man throughout her career, and had a very good record of clinical work. Elizabeth Garrett Anderson managed to qualify only at a school which later changed its rules to ban women, and found it so difficult to get work. She may have founded a hospital and finally became mayor of Aldeburgh, but her path was difficult. Marie Curie suffered from the Matilda effect—women doing the work, but men taking the glory—and only with great difficulty did she get her work recognised alongside her husband Pierre. More recently, there was the wonderful Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell, a fellow of the Royal Society and a declared woman who suffered from impostor syndrome. She found the first radio pulsars in 1967, but the 1974 Nobel Prize in physics did not mention her. The men got the credit, and only with a challenge and a fight was she given her recognition.

So I celebrate the changes in my lifetime, and the global female leaders: Janet Yellen—an LSE graduate, I am pleased to say—was the first female chair of the Fed and is now the first female Treasury Secretary, in President Biden’s Government; Christine Lagarde has been spoken of. And then there is the wonderful Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the first woman and first African DG of the WTO, and a great expert in public health, as well as in development economics. How well does that speak for the future?

I believe that women are changing and challenging stereotypes, and we are seeing change in society and in the workplace. In the past month alone, we have seen the Tokyo Olympics chief resign over patronising, sexist comments that employees found unacceptable. He has been replaced by a female, and 12 women have joined the team. In the past month alone, the UK boss of KPMG resigned over an internal team call in which he made comments to colleagues which they loudly challenged. He was swiftly replaced by two highly respected women, Mary O’Connor and Bina Mehta. UK Athletics made international headlines for the sexist, pervasive, oppressive culture of coaches. The new female CEO demanded a zero-tolerance approach. This is different. It was not like this in the past.

There have been changes in the boardroom. In 2011, 12% of FTSE 100 roles were held by females. Now, as a result of the challenge of the Hampton-Alexander review, and following Mervyn Davies’s work, we are up to 33% of FTSE 100, 250 and 350 boards. My noble friend Lady Brady gave another encouraging example. In the public sector, there are more female judges, bishops, doctors, solicitors and vice-chancellors. Only one in four vice-chancellors are female, and I am pleased that one is at the University of Hull, but 10 years ago it was only one in 12—to go from one in 12 to one in four is progress indeed. And we have seen more female Lords spiritual in our House.

Of course there are areas where there have been difficulties and where women have had the greater burden of Covid. The LSE produced a report the other day. I also hope that people have learned more about flexible working and online working, which will enable women to pursue their career and combine it with their domestic responsibilities.

Internationally, I applaud the work of my noble friend Lady Sugg. Provision for gender equality was confirmed by my noble friend Lord Ahmad only this week as part and parcel of our policy of the combined department—

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I remind the noble Baroness about the timing.

[Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone (Con) [V]]

We celebrate success and ask for more progress.

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[Baroness Goudie (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I declare my interests as in the register.

Fifty per cent of the world are women. This year’s theme for International Women’s Day is “Choose to challenge”. With that in mind, I want to use this opportunity to remind us all of the key areas that cannot slip off the agenda—especially in a year in which the world continues to face so many obstacles.

Included among those forgotten during this pandemic is the Yazidi community. This community, which was subjected to genocide, rape and torture by the Islamic State group, has been forgotten. The Islamic State’s 2014 genocide created adversity long before the pandemic ever did. Many people from the community were displaced and have been living in camps for six years. Can you imagine what it is like for those children and their mothers who are trying to educate them? The aid budget for this desperate group has been cut by not only the United Kingdom but other countries as well. The British Government had promised that 92% of their aid would be spent in Yemen on nutrition, health and education for the Yazidi community. Now we realise that this has been cut back significantly. This community needs our attention consistently. These people deserve justice, jobs and the support to return home. We cannot forget their sacrifices.

Then there is the refugee crisis. Across the world, millions of people have been driven from their homes as a result of climate change, which is not their fault. According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, at the end of 2019, around 5.1 million people in 95 countries and territories were living in displacement as a result of disasters that happened not only in 2019 but in previous years. The countries with the highest number of internally displaced persons were Afghanistan, with 1.2 million, India, Ethiopia and the Philippines.

During the pandemic, asylum seekers are also being displaced by war. They are waiting for their cases to be considered, which often takes years, despite the promise of assistance from countries. The pandemic is making this much worse. These families live in barely adequate, unsanitary tent cities, with both elderly family members and young children. In these circumstances, how can they be protected? We must ensure that they get vaccinated as soon as possible. There will be generations of children whose lives were dictated by their lack of education, healthcare and the right nutrition. Despite the pandemic, we cannot turn our backs on these victims. They have found themselves refugees not through any fault of their own but as a result of war and climate change.

At the same time, there is a global human trafficking crisis. The traffickers are having a great time at the moment because nobody is watching what is happening. We have seen cases of human trafficking, particularly in the garment industry, again and again, where many countries, including the UK and US which have legislation in place, turn a blind eye to women producing garments in factories where workers are not paid a decent wage and are working under deplorable conditions. The Government must enforce the law and ensure for consumers that garments and other household goods are from factories with a stamp of approval to ensure that those goods are not developed through human trafficking.

Another problem is the trafficking that exists. Women and young children are often taken by traffickers. What protection is there for them, who will not have the opportunity to have the vaccine, who are being sold as sex slaves and whose babies are sold on the illegal, underground market? I have previously asked the Minister and the Government to follow the money, which is the only long-term way to tackle this. This is the key way to inhibit this. As we come out of the pandemic, this is one of the key issues we must look at.

Time and again we have seen how women have led the charge in successfully navigating challenging situations, especially this year. I take this opportunity to celebrate leading women who are driving us all forward, including Professor Sarah Gilbert, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who I am so proud to know—

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

Will the noble Baroness please wind up?

[Baroness Goudie (Lab) [V]]

I thank everybody who has spoken today, including myself, and the Minister. I am sorry I overran.