Women: Public Life

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Tuesday 21st October 2014 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Thornton]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what measures they are taking to increase the representation of women in public life.

[Baroness Northover (LD)]

My Lords, we are seeking to remove barriers that prevent women from progressing in public life. For example, the Government have established a centre for public appointments in the Cabinet Office to ensure that best practice is followed. As a result, the proportion of new female appointees to public boards has increased to nearly 40%. We have also supported political parties in increasing women’s representation through a combination of measures.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

I invite the Minister to join me in celebrating the fact that the first four women were introduced into the House of Lords on this date in 1958. Since then, without doubt, great progress has been made in women’s representation in both Houses, from those few four. However, we seem to have got stuck at around 23% in both Houses. In the Commons, we in the Labour Party are doing our best to get equal representation, and a general election victory will increase our numbers further. What positive efforts are the two coalition parties each making to significantly increase the number of Liberal Democrat and Conservative women in the Commons? Does the Minister agree that, until and unless they do so, the mother of Parliaments will fall even further down the international table on equal representation?

[Baroness Northover]

My Lords, I would also celebrate 1958, when women were brought into this House. We have just seen one of my very able noble friends introduced, and I look forward to her contribution. Indeed, the Labour Party and the other parties have made all sorts of efforts to increase the number of women in Parliament. The Conservative Party now has 25% of women as general election candidates; the Labour Party is ahead with 42%, and 26% of the selected candidates for the Lib Dems are women—and 36% of candidates in our most winnable seats are women. Therefore, I look to the great British public to make sure that those seats indeed prove to be winnable.

Women: Wages

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Wednesday 25th June 2014 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Thornton]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what measures they are taking to address any fall in wages of women in the United Kingdom.

[Baroness Northover (LD)]

My Lords, the Office for National Statistics Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings shows that pay for women working both full-time and part-time is rising. To support these women, we are helping with the cost of childcare, introducing shared parental leave, extending flexible working to all and raising the income tax threshold, which means that 1.83 million women will be taken out of income tax by April 2015.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for that Answer. Obviously we have a difference of opinion about the figures from the Office for National Statistics, because they tell us that between 2013 and 2014 women’s mean full-time earnings fell to what amounts to an average loss of £52 over the year. So, unlike men, women working full-time have seen their actual take-home pay fall. I ask the Minister to go back and look at those figures because that gender inequality is not acceptable. What steps will the Government take to remedy it?

[Baroness Northover]

I hope that the noble Baroness will be reassured that I have looked at the figures; I have them with me. She will know that the previous Government used the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, which is what I have just cited, and not the survey she cited. That is in part because of the difference between median and mean, which no doubt I do not have to go into in depth with her. Also, the survey she is looking at went up in the last quarter, while now there is a slight drop. However, it is self-reported, whereas the survey I am referring to is based on PAYE and HMRC information. That is the survey the Government use and which her Government used.

Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Tuesday 17th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

We have no plans to put forward a candidate for the next round of elections in 2016. We look at all UN bodies very carefully and we do not rule out nominating a UK expert in the future, but as the previous Government also concluded, ensuring that such a UK expert is elected is resource intensive. As the noble Baroness knows, we liaise very closely with CEDAW, we put huge efforts into the annual UN Commission on the Status of Women and we put major funding and other support into UN Women, currently standing at £12.5 million a year.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, in the past the Women’s National Commission, which represented millions of women across the UK—and which was abolished by this Government in their first year in office—ensured that UK women’s voices were heard as part of the CEDAW process. Those were independent voices, not always comfortable for the UK Government because they were independent, which spoke about how the UK was progressing in its elimination of discrimination against women. Who represents UK women’s voices in this process, how are they being represented and how are we ensuring that women’s voices are being heard in this process—not just the Government’s voice on their progress on the elimination of discrimination?

[Baroness Northover]

There has been a huge amount of engagement. My honourable friends Jo Swinson and Jenny Willott, who is currently covering for Jo, have engaged with a number of NGOs. We have provided funding to the Women’s Resource Centre to enable it to launch its shadow report to the committee—that is, of course, an independent voice; we have provided the Equality and Human Rights Commission funding and other funding to enable people to feed into CEDAW and to report back on what CEDAW has said about the United Kingdom Government.

Women: Board Membership

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Monday 10th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

I thank my noble friend for her encouraging comments. I am sure that mentoring has indeed helped, and I think that transparency and pressure have helped as well.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, would the Minister care to tell the House how the Government are doing in increasing the number of women on public bodies? Those figures seem to be slightly more woeful than the ones for corporate bodies. Secondly, I am sure that the noble Baroness is aware that twice as many women as men leave the corporate sector once they reach mid-level management. Given that, does she agree that, alongside measures to increase the number of women at board level, we need to fix the leaks, as it were, in the talent pipeline and ensure that women are properly represented at every level of an organisation? How does she think this might be brought about?

[Baroness Northover]

We are aiming for women to account for 50% of new public appointments by 2015. They are currently averaging 45%, so we are moving in the right direction. The noble Baroness is quite right that we need to address this at every level. One of the beneficial things about the Davies approach to company boards is that it is also having an effect on the response of companies at other levels. This issue has to be addressed at every level.

Women: Contribution to Economic Life

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the speakers in today’s debate. I thank the Minister for landing us this debate and getting it extended to cover the whole world. We have benefited from her contribution about her brief and that of my noble friend Lady Royall, and indeed from the experience of women across the world. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Palumbo, on his excellent maiden speech; we look forward to hearing more from him, as I am sure we will as time goes on. I also congratulate the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester on giving us, as it were, an update on the position of women bishops. I certainly look forward to sharing a glass of pink champagne with him—that is probably the best offer of this debate, actually. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, that I very much enjoyed his speech and was very inspired by it, and I do not think that I was alone in that.

I shall be concentrating on the contribution of women to our economy and the barriers that we face. I will be looking at what the Government could and should be doing to make the world a better place for women and make it easier for them to work. I come from a background where there was really never any question that women worked, as the noble Baroness, Lady Seccombe, mentioned. We had to go out to work in our family. When I grew up, it was only really middle-class women and those who lived in salaried families for whom the choice was available to stay at home and be homemakers and full-time mothers.

Although I agree with the Minister, who was quite right to say that our lives have been transformed and are quite different from those of our mothers, guess what—I do not think that that much has actually changed in the past 60 years regarding the economic imperatives for going out to work. Going out to work is not a choice for millions of women in the UK or indeed for millions of women across the world, working in factories and fields and from home. The noble Baroness, Lady Fookes, rightly paid tribute to the work involved in childcare and caring, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin.

My grandma Edna had 11 children. During the Second World War she worked on the railways. She had to work, and was able to because of the provision of proper state-run nursery care. Her eldest daughter, Jean—my mother—had seven children. Leaving aside the contraception and family planning issues in my family, which have kept us all entertained over many years, she also worked. She ran two successful businesses. The option of being a full-time homemaker and mother was never open to her—and I am not sure she would have dreamt of taking it if it had. In this 2014 International Women’s Day debate, I pay my tribute to Jean and to Marie, Eileen and Alma, who are her sisters, for their contribution to our economy over the whole of their lives, and it is on their shoulders that I stand today—to use the image used by my noble friend Lady Royall. I do have a granddaughter. She is only six months old, but it is also for her future that I speak today.

Sometimes when we say from these Benches that the Government seem out of touch with the lives of women, it is because of this component. There is sometimes a lack of understanding of life as it is lived by millions of women for whom going out to work is not a choice and for whom childcare is essential. Today it is very expensive. Almost all women will have caring responsibilities at various times in their lives. We do not have to look very far to see the lives of ordinary women. I know that some of the women who clean our offices have other jobs. They go from here to work in supermarkets and other places to support their children through school and to pay increasing rent and travel costs. Their hard-working life is very typical and very common today, which is why, for example, the national minimum wage, which was fought against and opposed by the Conservative Party at the time, is so important. It is why trade unions have an important, vital role to play in supporting women in their fight for decent pay and conditions and in protecting their rights at work.

As the Minister said, there are more women in work today, which is indeed a cause for celebration. There are also more women who want to work who are not able to do so because jobs are not there, or they are too badly paid or, as my noble friend Lady Prosser said, training opportunities do not exist. Women Like Us is a brilliant organisation, and it is also a social enterprise—noble Lords may remember that I am very keen on social enterprises. More social enterprises than small businesses are headed by women, and they have a better survival rate than small businesses.

Women often have to look after their family and undertake other caring responsibilities. There are millions of women who give up their jobs to look after sick and ageing partners, parents and relatives and whose reward for their unpaid, loving care is not celebration or gratitude but to find it more difficult to re-enter the job market and often not at the level that they left it. I am glad that my noble friend Lady Bakewell celebrated our millions of carers.

The question I shall address today is what the Government are doing to make it easier, better and more equitable for women to work and how they match up to those challenges. It will be a bit of a report card. On Tuesday, we saw a headline story which asked the question: “What does childcare really cost?”. A report by the Family and Childcare Trust suggested that the cost of having two children looked after, even part-time, is more than the average mortgage. Over recent weeks, there has been mounting evidence of the impact that increasingly high childcare costs are having on family budgets and our economy, yet the Government seem to be in denial about this.

I dispute the rosy picture painted by the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, about the childcare situation. The cost of sending a child under two to nursery part-time—for 25 hours—is now more than £109 per week in Britain or £5,710 per year. The cost of a full-time—42 hours per week—nursery place for a child under two is almost £10,000. Over the past five years, childcare costs for under-twos have risen by 27%, meaning that parents are paying £1,214 more in 2014 than they did in 2009, and I remind noble Lords that wages have remained the same. This is a good example of the cost-of-living crisis facing ordinary families. Ironically, I heard yesterday of a nursery in south-west London which is putting up its fees and citing the cost-of-living crisis as the justification in the letter that it sent to parents. Perhaps it has missed the point there somewhere.

The average cost of an after-school club is now £48.19 a week, or £1,830 a year. Despite the legal obligation in the Childcare Act 2006 and Scotland’s early years framework to ensure enough childcare, only half—49%—of local authorities have enough childcare for working parents. Only a third—33%—of local authorities have enough childcare for children aged five to 11, and this has worsened in the past five years. Three-quarters—75%—of local authorities do not have enough childcare for disabled children; that was more than adequately amplified by my noble friend Lady Uddin.

Even Fraser Nelson of the Spectator, not someone I would normally quote, asked whether:

“Expensive child care is robbing Britain of its female talent”.

He says:

“In this way, the British economy loses out on the talents of a significant chunk of our high-skilled female population. It’s a form of economic self-harm. Making childcare tax-deductible would, in a great many cases, be a game-changer”.

Of course, it is above my pay grade and that of the Minister to comment on matters of tax and spending. However, it is interesting if even a right-wing commentator thinks that the inadequacies and costs of childcare are robbing the UK economy of female talent. My honourable friend Lucy Powell MP said recently:

“Early years places have fallen by 35,000 since 2009 and just half of local authorities report they have enough childcare for working parents”.

Last month, the IPPR highlighted that high childcare costs are stopping many mothers from working and that increasing maternal employment rates would benefit families and the economy to the tune of £1.5 billion a year. It is not cost-effective not to have effective childcare. There is also a question of flexibility of working practices which support working fathers. In Germany and Scandinavia we can see fathers changing the working culture so that they, for example, take the Friday off to undertake childcare responsibilities, even at a very senior level. Would the Minister care to tell us what the Government are doing to encourage working fathers to take their fair share of childcare among the Civil Service?

The Government are reducing work incentives for the lowest earners by cutting tax credit support and creating a two-tier system in universal credit. The Resolution Foundation has reported this will see the poorest families lose £1,000 a year to help pay for childcare. Unlike the current Government, on these Benches we completely understand how important it is that we address the issues with childcare and enable more parents, especially mums, to return to work or work longer hours.

Turning to older women, I think that there is much to celebrate about the labour market position of women over 50 in the UK. The employment rate for women in this age group is high compared with many other European countries, and it is increasing. The employment rate for women aged between 50 and 64 has increased by 14 percentage points over the past two decades, the greatest increase in any group. However, many older women will not recognise the rosy picture painted by these headline statistics. Half of the women aged 50 to 64 work in the delivery of public services, which means that they have been hit by the cuts disproportionately. Redundancies, pay freezes and increased contracting out of services feature prominently in the stories the TUC gathered from older women as part of the Age Immaterial project. Part-time work is prevalent among women over 50 and the majority of them earn less than £10,000 per year. The problems of low pay, lack of job security and weak employment rights are exacerbated for those in precarious forms of work such as zero-hours contracts, as has already been mentioned by my noble friend Lady Crawley.

I very much welcome the fact that the noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin, recognised that women are experiencing disproportionate effects of the austerity agenda. Indeed, the coalition Government have removed support for childcare, capped maternity pay and have chosen to give a tax break to married couples where one spouse does not work or works a few hours. I do not think that there is any evidence that less than £4 a week is a good or appropriate way to encourage people to marry. In five out of six cases the benefit will be paid to the husband. According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, many families will face a £200 penalty if mum returns to work full-time. In December the official figures revealed that the gender pay gap had increased in 2012-13 for the first time in five years. Under Labour, the pay gap fell by 7.7%.

I will glance at our record. We introduced the national minimum wage, which has had such a disproportionately positive effect on low-paid women. We opened 3,500 Sure Start centres to support parents and young families. We increased maternity leave to nine months and extended total maternity leave to a full year. We doubled maternity pay, and from 2009 gave millions of parents with children under 16 the right to flexible working. We introduced working tax credit and child tax credit and legislated against maternity and sex discrimination in the workplace.

What will we do when we are elected next year? Under David Cameron, one in four women earn less than the living wage, but I am happy to tell noble Lords that we will make work pay for women by allowing firms to claim back a third of the cost of raising their staff’s wages to a living wage. We will strengthen the minimum wage and tackle the abuse of zero-hours contracts. We will give every working family 25 hours of free childcare for their three and four year-olds, 38 weeks a year—an increase of 10 hours on the current offer. We will deliver a primary childcare guarantee, which will ensure that the parents of primary school pupils are able to access breakfast and after-school clubs through their school between 8 am and 6 pm. We will back more women to start their own businesses, which my noble friend Lady Crawley mentioned. Private firms will be able to claim back a third of the cost of raising their staff’s wage to a living wage. This evidence shows that we still think that the Government are out of touch with the lives of many women.

We have had some magnificent and fabulous speeches today, from my noble friend Lord Haskel, the noble Baronesses, Lady Seccombe, Lady Howe and Lady Afshar, and my noble friend Lady Howells. On the issue of parliamentary selections I say to the noble Baronesses, Lady Fookes and Lady Jenkin, that we tried a woman on every shortlist in the 1980s and it did not work. It was tokenism. The only way to increase the number and representation of women—I say this to the Liberal Democrats, and I am pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Smith, agrees with me on this—is to have all-women shortlists. That is the only way that you will persuade your parties to select women and increase the number of women. We would welcome that and would support noble Lords in doing it.

I struggle to give better than five out of 10 for the Government’s support for working women and their families. That five is because the Minister has great words to say and very good intentions, which I hope will be translated into the policies of her party. However, on this International Women’s Day 2014, the UK Government need to do better.

Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 (Consequential and Contrary Provisions and Scotland) Order 2014

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, I do not want to detain your Lordships, but I was not part of your Lordships’ House when noble Lords agreed to pass equal marriage, so I am going to take my opportunity now.

I have to declare an interest. I am married to a man, and it is not the first time that I have been married. I remember going on an extended interview process to become one of the most senior police officers in the UK. One of the questions in the pre-interview questionnaire was, “What is the most difficult decision you have ever had to make, first, in your professional life and, secondly, in your private life?”. In the answer to the second, I put, “Having been married for five years, telling my wife that I was gay”. I never believed that I would be able to marry again.

In 2010 I took part in a debate at the Liberal Democrat Party conference where we were the first party to adopt equal marriage as party policy. I told the people at that conference about my marriage. Having fallen in love with a Norwegian, in January 2009—Norway having decided to abolish civil partnerships and allow everybody, whether they were opposite-sex or same-sex couples, to get married—I stood in the courthouse in Oslo in front of a judge. When she said, “We are here today to witness the marriage of Brian and Petter”, the difference between a civil partnership and a marriage really struck home.

I was not part of your Lordships’ House when the legislation on equal marriage was passed, but I have to tell noble Lords what a difference it makes to me, to my husband, and to people like me. It is important that your Lordships pass these statutory instruments today.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, I think we would all agree—certainly those of us who joined forces last summer to ensure that the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill reached the statute book—that today is a cause for celebration. I was reminded by the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, about that happy day when I found myself outside on the pavement with the Minister holding a placard that said, “Girls marry girls—get over it”. I have the picture on my phone and I promise that I will publish it at some point. That was indeed a happy day and a happy event, and today we are taking another step nearer the first time that an actual marriage can take place between a same-sex couple.

I know that the Government have been determined to allow that happy event to happen as soon as possible and I congratulate them on doing that. This means that there are still some matters outstanding, and the fact that we want this to happen as soon as possible should not excuse us from the need to do some scrutiny.

I have given the Minister notice of a few questions, some of which have already been asked today. First, of course, how soon can the conversion of a civil partnership to a same-sex marriage take place and what timetable might achieve that? The Act provides for same-sex couples seeking to convert civil partnerships into marriages to do so, as well as for an opposite-sex married couple to remain married where one of the partners wishes to change gender—an important matter which we dealt with last summer. These are provisions which the update says should come into force by the end of the year. I would be grateful if the Minister could give some indication of when further necessary legislation will be brought forward, as well as providing an update on when we might expect to see these provisions come into force.

From the commencement of the Scottish Act, if a trans person living in England or Wales wishes to get married and wants to ensure that they could not later be subject to spousal veto when applying for gender recognition while in that marriage, they could well be able to circumvent this process by opting to get married in Scotland—but why should they? Can the Minister explain whether a couple whose marriage was registered in Scotland but who subsequently lived in England would be able to apply to the sheriff courts for their interim GRC, or will the Government review and revise this entire area so that they do not need to do so?

At present, of the 11 legal jurisdictions in Europe which have same-sex marriage, only those trans people in existing marriages registered in the legal jurisdiction of England and Wales are subject to a spousal veto on their access to gender recognition while married. The other 10 legal jurisdictions, including Scotland, allow gender recognition without requiring the consent of the trans person’s spouse. We discussed this issue during the passage of the Bill but it is not covered, obviously, by these orders. Does the Minister at least accept that this issue does not sit well with the drive for equality for all groups? Will she therefore seek to continue working on this to make the changes that trans people want to see?

Turning to the issue of pensions, which was debated at length and with some passion throughout the passage of the Bill, Section 16 places a duty on the Secretary of State to arrange a review, as we have recognised. I am very happy to hear that this seems to be on track and will be published within the year. However, is a consultation going to take place? As far as I am aware, as yet there is no public consultation being issued by the Department for Work and Pensions. Given that there are only 18 weeks left between now and when the review is supposed to be complete, what is going to happen and how might that consultation take place? Indeed, if it is to be launched, can the Minister offer an assurance that the Government will not simply be listening to the occupational pensions industry, which will quite clearly have strong and shared financial interests in this report saying one thing, and that there will be a consultation which listens to and consults independent experts?

If the Secretary of State decides in his report that the law on survivor benefits should be changed to fit in with the spirit of the Act, will the Minister ensure that the necessary orders are brought forward quickly to redress the inequality as soon as possible? As I am sure the noble Baroness will be aware, this issue has been in the news over the past week following the conclusion of a case under the Employment Appeal Tribunal, which found that it was legal under European law for employers and pension scheme trustees to discriminate against same-sex couples. If it becomes clear that companies are not going to do this voluntarily, the sooner the Government complete their deliberations the better for all the couples concerned—even if it is just that they will now know where they will stand financially in later life and be able to plan accordingly.

International Development (Gender Equality) Bill

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Friday 7th February 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord McColl, and add my voice to the tributes paid to him. He and I have been involved many times in debates about health, women’s health and Third World health over many years, and I was not surprised to see that he was sponsoring this Bill today in your Lordships’ House. As usual, we have had an informed and passionate debate because there is such expertise, experience and commitment in the House to these issues. I also pay tribute to William Cash MP for introducing the Bill in the Commons. It is a testament to his reputation that he managed to bring this Private Member’s Bill so far up the list. I also thank NGOs such as the GREAT Initiative, Plan and WaterAid for their briefings.

The aim of the Bill, as noble Lords have said, is to embed gender considerations into every aspect of the UK’s aid spending and to ensure consistent and long-term monitoring of how UK aid impacts gender inequality. I cannot resist a small and gentle aside to the Minister, in that I wish that some of this was embedded into the monitoring of our domestic policies and their gender impact. However, I leave that debate for another day. The Bill places a duty on the Secretary of State for International Development to consider gender in the disbursement of any development and humanitarian assistance and introduces an additional duty to report annually on the activities undertaken to tackle gender inequality. From the briefing that I have read, I understand that the Bill may be one of the first of its kind anywhere to enshrine a commitment to reducing gender inequality in development. I commend the Government on their support for that.

Importantly, the debate has shown that gender inequality holds back development. It is not enough to address democratic reform if the political representation of women is not also addressed—or, for example, to fund family planning initiatives that fail also to address men’s roles and responsibilities. That was mentioned by noble Baronesses earlier in the debate. As has also been mentioned, women around the world continue to face serious levels of violence, limited control over assets and property and unequal participation in private and public decision-making. All those issues are important and they all provide us with the backdrop and the reason why the Bill is important.

The previous Government and this Government have put improving the lives of women and girls as a policy priority for the work of the UK Department for International Development. They have seen it as,

“stopping poverty before it starts”.

I was very struck by the remarks made by my honourable friend Meg Hillier in Committee in the Commons. She said that she had visited Nigeria several times, and one of her points was that,

“we went to look at human rights”,

but,

“we quickly concluded that women’s rights, if tackled, would solve many of the wider problems, particularly with children’s rights. That underlines the importance of the first part of new clause 1”—

as it then was—

“which deals with development assistance. If people are aware of their rights, that can make a big difference”.—[Official Report, Commons, Gender Equality (International Development) Bill Committee, 11/12/13; col. 9.]

My honourable friend Gavin Shuker, who has responsibility for this issue on the Front Bench in the Commons, said:

“One of the challenges of gender equality is that all too often it is treated as a women’s issue, but in an international development context, holding back women in a society does not just hold back women; it holds back societies”.—[Official Report, Commons, Gender Equality (International Development) Bill Committee, 11/12/13; col. 6.]

That is absolutely right, so from these Benches we are very happy to give wholehearted support to the Bill. We will certainly do everything we can to make sure that it reaches the statute book.

Female Genital Mutilation

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Wednesday 4th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, who initiated this important debate and asked some important and pertinent questions, as did my noble friend Lady Rendell in her characteristically forthright speech.

Every day, 8,000 girls in the world are subjected to the practice of female genital mutilation. This intimate act of controlling women’s and girls’ bodies is not only a human rights violation, it is also, in the UK, child abuse. It has been illegal in the UK since 1985, and since 2003 Britons have been able to be prosecuted for acts of FGM abroad, but it is still practised. The report, Tackling FGM in the UK, produced by the Royal College of Nursing, asserts that 66,000 women in England and Wales have undergone female genital mutilation and that more than 24,000 girls under 15 are at risk. In Europe, it is estimated that 500,000 girls and women have been subjected to FGM and that an additional 180,000 are at risk each year.

Despite FGM being classed as a serious criminal offence in the UK, there have been no prosecutions. In the recent Channel 4 programme “The Cruel Cut”, you must weep with the girl who at seven returned from being taken overseas during school holidays to be cut. When she returned, she confided in her teacher, who ignored her cry for help. That child was doubly betrayed by the adults who should have been protecting her, and no action was taken against her parents. We should be ashamed in the UK that thousands of girls in danger of genital mutilation are being failed by our education, health and justice systems.

While I can only welcome the fact that an interministerial group is addressing this issue, along with other forms of violence against women, and that FGM is high on its agenda, there are two questions that I would like to ask Minister. First, is it really necessary for the Health Minister, Jane Ellison, to conduct yet another inquiry into FGM? I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge: we know what the problem is. What new information is there to be found after the reports that have been done, including that by the Royal College of Nursing? If it is to happen, when will it happen? How long will it take, and how long will we need to wait for further action to be taken?

Secondly, since the Channel 4 programme, the 7 year-old girl has met Jeremy Hunt, and to his credit and that of the Home Secretary, Theresa May, they have committed themselves to action. Indeed, on 7 November, the noble Earl, Lord Howe, in responding to a question from the noble Baroness, Lady Manzoor, said:

“Female genital mutilation is child abuse and violence against girls and women. It is also a criminal offence, and cutters and perpetrators need to be brought to justice”.—[Official Report, 7/11/13; col. 326.]

We all agree. Despite this, it would seem from the press reports I have read that Michael Gove, the Secretary of State for Education, refuses to make FGM mandatory in child protection. Can the Minister tell us whether that is true and explain how we can expect teachers to take this issue seriously and make FGM part of their duty of care to children when it is not part of the guidelines? FGM is not recognised as child abuse. It needs to be treated in UK law as such.

Women: Board Membership

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Monday 17th June 2013 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Thornton]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to increase the number of women on boards.

[Baroness Northover]

My Lords, the Government are supporting the voluntary, business-led strategy of the noble Lord, Lord Davies, to increase the number of women in UK boardrooms. At the time of the noble Lord’s latest report of April 2013, women had secured 34% of all FTSE 100 board appointments in the previous year. The UK corporate governance code now requires boards to report on their diversity policy. Headhunters have pledged to ensure that women make up 30% of longlists and, from October 2013, quoted companies will be required to disclose the gender balance at various levels within their organisation.

[Baroness Thornton]

My Lords, this is not what the Cranfield review of women on boards says, which is that that in the past six months, progress in the number of female non-executive directors in FTSE 100 companies has reached a plateau; it is flatlining and stuck at between 26% and 30%. It also says that there has been a lack of progress at the executive-director level of FTSE 100 companies. A rise from 5.5% to 5.8% since 2010 is not impressive. What will the Government do next? It seems that they have got the low-hanging fruit on this issue. If they have set their face against quotas, what does the Minister suggest doing about the abysmal lack of gender diversity, about ageism and about the lack of ethnic diversity in the country’s boardrooms?

[Baroness Northover]

I start by paying tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Davies, the noble Baroness’s colleague, for all that he has done to flag up this issue, and for the way in which he has driven it forward. He in turn has thanked the media for what they have done to make sure that this moves forward. He is absolutely right that we need to continue to make progress. There was an indication of plateauing. The situation now seems to be improving again. Business needs to show that it is making progress—as the noble Lord, Lord Davies, says—so that the Government can say that no quotas are needed. However, they are there as a back-stop.

Health and Social Care Bill: HIV/AIDS Programmes

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Wednesday 21st March 2012 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Baroness Thornton]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the risks posed by implementation of the Health and Social Care Bill to HIV/AIDS programmes.

[Baroness Northover]

My Lords, HIV services are, and will continue to be, comprehensive. They include surveillance and national and local prevention, treatment and care. The NHS Commissioning Board will lead on commissioning treatment and care services. This recognises that HIV treatment is specialised and that prevalence varies. Local authorities will commission HIV prevention services in line with their wider remit regarding sexual health and health inequalities.

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[Baroness Thornton]

I thank the Minister for that Answer, which confirms that HIV treatment and care will be commissioned by the national Commissioning Board, that some preventive work will be conducted by local authorities and that national HIV prevention will be commissioned by Public Health England. However, it is unclear who will commission post-exposure prophylaxis following sexual exposure, PEPSE, which is vital specialist work to halt the spread of HIV. Who will commission that work, and how do the Government intend to ensure that all the services will not be diminished by being commissioned by at least three different bodies or lost when those bodies begin their work?

[Baroness Northover]

I assure the noble Baroness that the current high level of care and commissioning will continue. The reason the Commissioning Board is taking responsibility nationally is that this is a costly disease to treat and its prevalence is varied around the country, so it makes sense if the board has overall responsibility for that. As the noble Baroness knows, public health has moved to the local authorities, which is why it is appropriate for prevention to be placed at that level. With regard to joining up care, as she knows, the health and well-being boards locally will do a great deal to ensure that they look at the needs of the population in that locality and that care is delivered appropriately in their local area.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Northover]

Public Health England will be liaising with the different parts of the United Kingdom to ensure that what is learnt in one area is propagated to others so that the different parts of the United Kingdom can learn from each other. We look to what happens in England, Scotland and Wales. That came up frequently in the Bill and will continue to be the case.

[Baroness Thornton]

My Lords, perhaps I may come back to the noble Baroness as she completely failed to answer one of my questions, which was about PEPSE. Who will commission the vital work which halts the spread of HIV?

[Baroness Northover]

I was accused of answering at too great a length. The Commissioning Board will oversee commissioning. It is working out how that can best be delivered and whether various things should be commissioned at the local level. If the noble Baroness would like to feed into that process, that would be very welcome.