Women’s Contribution to the Economy

Debate between Baroness Coffey and Sharon Hodgson

Thursday 6th March 2014 Westminster Hall

[Dr Coffey]

I thank my hon. Friend for that comment. I understand that the management board and Ministers in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills were invited to do unconscious bias training, although I believe that the only Minister who was able to do it was my hon. Friend the Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson). I agree that we should be proactive. There are companies that have offered to run courses for MPs. That has been on my to-do list for some time, and I will ensure that it gets done.

Our report recommended that companies should normalise flexible and part-time working. We should encourage companies to review their culture so talent does not drain away from the pipeline unnecessarily. Evidence shows that the best way to make flexible working a standard practice is to ensure that it is a non-gender issue. Companies know that they have a role in inspiring members of the next generation in the subjects they take and their career choices.

Finally, I come to our recommendation about head-hunters, for whom there is already a voluntary code of conduct. I want to draw Members’ attention to the review undertaken by Charlotte Sweeney at the instigation of the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, my right hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Vince Cable). It was launched earlier this week, and it looks at the voluntary code of conduct.

Head-hunters can play a significant role in helping us to reach Lord Davies’s target of ensuring that 25% of board members are female. I welcome the report’s ambition that the code should be a minimum standard and that we should aspire to more. To achieve that, we must encourage as many head-hunters as possible to sign up to the code.

One way of promoting the code is for the Government to lead by example. I am encouraging the Cabinet Office to ensure that all head-hunters used by the Government and their agencies are signatories to the code. We know that currently they are not. I had a conversation with my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden about that issue, and I will take it up further.

[Mrs Hodgson]

I recently met some senior women in higher education, who said that head-hunters are a barrier to their progressing to senior positions, such as vice-chancellorships of universities. The hon. Lady is talking about a good measure.

[Dr Coffey]

I find that fascinating. I have not thought about higher education because I have been focusing on business, but I will add that to the discussion that we will soon be having with Cabinet Office advisers.

Charlotte Sweeney’s report stated that the use of the code should be extended to the executive pipeline. That is music to my ears. We seek to persuade the Government and business to back the initiative. It is where the most difficult challenges lie, but it is vital to ensuring long-term progress. The report that I co-authored made a similar recommendation. I look forward to the forthcoming head-hunter summit, which my hon. Friend the Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth and I will be chairing, and which will allow us to have a discussion about what is happening to the code, how we can improve it and what we can do to extend it further. I am excited about that initiative, which will take place within the next month.

Locally, we in Suffolk recognise the value of women’s contribution to the economy. I pay tribute to the New Anglia local enterprise partnership, which has launched a campaign to help women fulfil their economic potential. A report by the LEP established that a woman working full-time in Suffolk will, over her career, earn £332,000 less than a man, and will pay £83,000 less in tax. The LEP is right to note that those employment and pay gaps represent lost income for families, lost opportunities for growth and lost prosperity for the county.

I have spoken for considerably longer than is my wont, but I feel that the report that we put together last year and whose recommendations we continue to follow up deserves a good airing in Parliament. We can all unite around this issue, although I expect that Government Members are not keen to legislate; our ambitions are elsewhere. There are a number of initiatives that we should support. We should be pleased that 37% of start-up loans went to women, and we should be pleased by the recommendations and initiatives undertaken by the Women’s Business Council. We should be pleased that this agenda is firmly on the map for the Government and the Opposition.

It is a waste to our economy if women who want to are not able to work at the top of industries, universities and the public sector. We should put our shoulders to the wheel and keep pushing. There will be a tipping point at which women start to play a full part in business, the economy and politics.

[Mr Jim Sheridan in the Chair]