Women and Low Pay

Angela Crawley Excerpts

Wednesday 18th November 2015 Westminster Hall

[Angela Crawley (Lanark and Hamilton East) (SNP)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. I congratulate the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) on securing such an important debate.

Gender equality is not a dream, or at least it should not be. Often when we debate gender inequality in the workplace, we hear the usual apologist grumbles from Members. We are told that, in many ways, it is a fact of life; it is the way the world works and we cannot continue to complain because it will not change—“Life is unfair. Men are men and women are women. That’s it. Accept it and get on with it.” Well, I will not accept it. That response, which I have come to expect, is not only lazy but wrong, and it does not address the real issues women face. If we think along those lines, of course nothing will change. Inequality will continue. Women will continue to be discriminated against for having children. They will continue to be refused access to justice and will always be paid considerably less than men. We cannot, should not and must not allow that attitude to go unchallenged, because it is that attitude that put us in the position we are in today and it is that attitude that will keep us here.

On 9 November, we marked equal pay day, when women across the United Kingdom started working for free, while men continued earning—a day that we should be talking about in history lessons, not in the 21st century. Forty-five years after the passing of the Equal Pay Act, men still earn two months’ more wages than women every year. The gap between men and women stands at a staggering 19% in the UK, with women earning 81p for every £1 that a man earns. Even in professions dominated by women—hairdressing, catering and cleaning—the pay gap still exists, while women in skilled trades, including plumbing and mechanics, suffer the biggest pay gap, earning close to 30% less than their male counterparts. That is a damaging indictment of successive UK Governments, employers and industry, and it is something we should be collectively ashamed of.

In Scotland, the gender pay gap is substantially lower than across the UK, which is welcome, but it still exists and it should not. More work must be done across these islands. In my constituency, gender inequality has been at the heart of the political debate for years. In my own local authority, South Lanarkshire Council, hundreds of women have fought for equal pay for equal work, and many of them have now received a payout, totalling the massive amount of £70 million. However, just a few months ago, figures published for South Lanarkshire Council showed that the gender pay gap was a staggering 16%, and many more women continue to fight for equal pay, so we are not there yet. I say that not to play politics but to show that the gender pay gap still exists, particularly in the public sector.

Scotland is one of the leading countries in Europe for reducing female unemployment, and we have done it through practical policies such as expanding childcare for two, three and four-year-olds and paying all Government employees the real living wage. We continue to move closer to the goal of equality. Scotland’s First Minister has made the business of redressing inequality a priority for her Government. Labour market figures show that female employment in Scotland has reached a record high, while youth unemployment is at its lowest level in six years and the number of people in work continues to grow. That is a testament to the strong actions taken by the Scottish National party in government, with the economic powers it currently holds, but women should not have to wait another 45 years—or 70 years, as the UN has estimated—for equal pay in Britain.

We have heard from Members about the campaign group Women Against State Pension Inequality and the impact of this issue on the entire generation of women born in the 1950s. What do the Government intend to do to address the issue of those women’s pensions? How will they rectify that, to ensure that women do not continue to experience inequality?

[Barbara Keeley]

I am glad to hear the hon. Lady raise the same point I did. Is she aware how much it rankles with and angers the women affected that they have not received the transitional protection the Government promised them? It is very harsh to impose the change on people without the protection the Secretary of State promised.

[Angela Crawley]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady and thank her for that point. I hope the Minister will address that in his remarks.

This fight is not reserved to half of the population. We do not fight against injustice for one sex; we fight for everyone. No man wants his wife, daughter, sister or mother to earn less simply because they are women. We need to send a strong message to employers, Governments, local authorities and industry that there is simply no excuse for discrimination. As things stand, we are damaging families, diluting gender equality and doing no favours to the economy that is so important to this Government. Now is not the time for excuses; we have heard them all before. Let us take strong, decisive action and put gender inequality where it belongs: in the history books.

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil Gray]

Absolutely. There is nothing that I can disagree with in that intervention, and I will come to some of those issues later in my speech.

Returning to the contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Lanark and Hamilton East, the gender pay gap still exists even in what would be traditionally or stereotypically described as “female jobs”. That is still wrong and needs to be addressed. No man wants to see his daughter suffering a gender pay gap—that is absolutely right. I speak as a the father of a one-year-old daughter who I hope will go on to employment where she will earn the same as her male counterparts, so I stand here today on that basis.

The hon. Member for Coventry North East (Colleen Fletcher) effectively highlighted the issues of gender inequality in her city of Coventry. Again, I highlight the contribution made by the hon. Member for Coventry South, who, as I said, also made noteworthy contributions to the debate on pensions yesterday.

It is disappointing that in 2015 we are still discussing matters of gender equality. Nevertheless, it is important to take cognisance of the fact that a real pay gap between men and women remains. Low pay affects women disproportionately. In 1999, the gender pay gap for full-time employees in Scotland stood at 16.7%, but by 2014 it had been reduced to 9%, and it is 9.4% in the rest of the UK. This year, the Scottish Government launched the Partnership for Change programme, wherein public, private and third-sector organisations make a voluntary commitment to work toward a 50:50 gender balance on their boards by 2020. As of 9 November, 160 organisations and businesses have signed up, which I am delighted to see, although more work is clearly needed. On this year’s equal pay day, 9 November, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon pledged to do everything she can to advance equal pay and gender equality in Scotland as part of the Fawcett Society’s pay gap pledge campaign. The First Minister has been leading the way on the issues, starting clearly and publicly with her 50:50 gender balanced Cabinet.

Many women shoulder a disproportionate amount of childcare or family responsibilities, and they are unable to take up promotion and other opportunities because they do not have alternative care arrangements. The Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 provides further assistance to women and young families by providing that all three and four-year-olds and the most disadvantaged two year-olds are entitled to 600 hours of early learning and childcare. By the end of the next Parliament, the Scottish Government will have doubled the hours from 16 to 30 per week. Increasing childcare will not only improve outcomes for children, but support more women into work.

The Scottish Government have also provided Skills Development Scotland with additional funding as part of a wider £3 million allocation in 2014-15 to develop a range of equality activities, including tackling gender segregation. The Scottish Government are doing all they can with the tools on offer to provide tangible improvements.

[Angela Crawley]

Does my hon. Friend agree that providing Scotland with powers over the minimum wage and welfare, which still sit with this House, would allow Scotland to address needs and ensure that inequality is abolished in Scotland?

[Neil Gray]

Absolutely—I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend.

In Scotland, councils are now responsible for meeting legal obligations to their employees, including on equal pay, but clearly more work needs to be done. My hon. Friend highlighted the issues in South Lanarkshire. My constituency falls under North Lanarkshire Council’s jurisdiction. The council has been embroiled in a long-running and legally very costly equal pay dispute in which the council has dragged equal pay claims through the courts for several years. That is utterly shameful and needs to be addressed urgently. All equal pay cases need to be resolved with urgency and commitment, so that those affected receive their legal entitlement. Again, I am making the point not on a party political basis, but on the basis of doing what is right by our workers.

To conclude, despite the passage of the Equal Pay Act 45 years ago, more work needs to be done to address low pay. Although it is important to recognise that female employment in Scotland is at record levels, that the gap between male and female employment is at its smallest ever, and that the gender pay gap is smaller than in the rest of the UK, a great deal of work remains to be done to ensure women receive parity with their male colleagues. Low pay for women is both a symptom and a cause of gender inequality. We must do all we can to eradicate the gap between men and women to create a fairer and more prosperous society.

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Howarth. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) on securing this important debate, and I pay tribute to the many people on Twitter who are tweeting this morning on #WomenandLowPay, and are contributing to this debate as part of the digital opening up of Parliament.

We have heard this morning that the gender pay gap in the UK remains, and that women earn 81p for every pound that men earn. Many reasons have been given for that, including a system of occupational segregation in the UK; all too often, women find themselves in low-paid sectors such as retail, hospitality and care, and work part time because they have caring responsibilities. Women face barriers in going to employment tribunals because of maternity discrimination. They face barriers to training and development, including apprenticeships. Sadly, this Government have failed to build on Labour’s achievements, and their cuts are hitting women hardest.

My hon. Friend gave a good example of women’s work being valued less than men’s. She referred to a Father Christmas earning £12 an hour and a Mrs Claus earning the national minimum wage—half the hourly wage of Father Christmas. That got me thinking about a few things, including the message that sends to the children who visit that Father Christmas—that we value his work more than Mrs Claus’s. Frankly, I doubt whether Father Christmas could get round the world in one night without the support of a wife like Mrs Claus.

The majority of low-paid workers in this country are women. Three in five national minimum wage jobs are held by women, and over a quarter earn less than the living wage; the figure for men is one in six. Women are pushed into clerical, caring, catering, cashiering and cleaning occupations, as we have heard, and I will add another “C” to the list: classroom assistant. That brings me to my mother, who was born in the 1950s and works as a classroom assistant. With her union, she challenged her employer on equal pay legislation and on why classroom assistants were earning far less than men who were working for the council in similar jobs of equal worth.

My hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) referred to pensions discrimination. I call on the Minister to outline what transitional protection he will introduce for women who have been caught in that trap.

The Resolution Foundation estimates that care workers, 78% of whom are women, are collectively paid £130 million below the national minimum wage, because employers fail to pay for travel time between appointments, and make deductions for items necessary for their job, such as uniforms, mobile phones and petrol. Women are forced into work in which they are undervalued and low paid. For example, 63% of those in retail and customer service are women.

What are the Government doing to end gender segregation and undervaluation of women’s work? Will the Minister give a commitment to take action to encourage women to consider traditionally male-dominated jobs, especially in science, technology, engineering and maths—STEM careers—as well as encouraging men to consider, for example, the caring professions, to ensure that these careers are properly valued and paid at the rate they deserve? We should ask ourselves as a society why we do not value the work that women do to the same extent as that done by men. Some 42% of women are employed part time, but the average part-time hourly rate is less than a third of the full-time hourly wage.

[Angela Crawley]

Does the hon. Lady agree that zero-hours contracts only exacerbate inequality? Will she join me in calling on the Government to ban exploitative zero-hours contracts, particularly as we are coming up to Christmas, when the retail industry in particular exploits such contracts?

[Cat Smith]

The hon. Lady predicts where I am going. I agree that zero-hours contracts make it very difficult—for women, predominantly—to plan, especially at this time of year. Reference has been made to Father Christmas; this is an important time of year for families to come together. It can be an expensive time of year. Budgeting when on low pay is essential, but if someone does not know what wage they will take home at the end of the month, it is very difficult to budget at all.

What are the Government doing to create more well-paid jobs with reduced hours or flexibility? The TUC has researched the issue of single-parent families, who are twice as likely as couple-parent families to live in poverty, and 90% of single parents are women. Women’s low pay arises hugely from the fact that they are often a single parent in a household. Single mothers are more likely than mothers in couples to be in low-skilled work, reflecting the difficulties in finding well-paid work that fits around caring responsibilities.

Research from 2005 showed that 30,000 women were forced out of work through pregnancy discrimination, but 10 years later, that figure has almost doubled to 54,000. What are the Government doing to tackle maternity discrimination, and to ensure that women who are victims of such discrimination have access to justice?

As part of my research for the debate, I contacted the National Union of Students and asked it for the information that it has about apprenticeships as part of the work that it is doing. I pay tribute to Shelly Asquith, its vice-president, welfare, who provided me with the information. On average, young men earn 21% more than young women while doing an apprenticeship. According to the poll, female apprentices earn just £4.82 an hour, compared with £5.85 an hour for male apprentices. What steps are the Government taking to improve training opportunities for women, and to ensure that apprenticeships do not discriminate by gender?

My hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth set out Labour’s record on equality issues. The Equal Pay Act 1970, the minimum wage, the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 and the Equality Act 2010 were all introduced by a Labour Government. In government, we have also strengthened maternity and paternity rights. What we have seen from the current Government is a lot of job losses in the public sector. Of the local government job losses since 2010, 96,000 have fallen on men, while 141,000 have fallen on women. With the pay for low-paid work being 8% higher in the public sector than in the private sector, how many of these women are being forced out of their public sector jobs into equivalent private sector jobs and in effect receiving a pay cut?

Will the Minister commit to developing all tax and spending in a way that takes on board the likely impact on women’s equality? I ask that because 85% of the tax credit and benefit changes have fallen on women, and 70% of the savings made by cuts to tax credits have fallen on women. Will the Minister include in the new gender pay gap reporting regulations a requirement for employers to publish information on the earnings distribution of men and women in their workforce? I ask that because unless women know that they are receiving less pay for an equal-value job, it is very difficult for them ever to take any action to challenge that.

The full-time gender pay gap is 9.4%, but that masks the adverse experience of those working part time, where pay is typically lower, resulting in an overall gender pay gap of 19.1%. Indeed, the UK’s gender pay gap is above the EU average, and at the current rate of progress, it will take 50 years to close it. Although I am a young MP, I plan to be retired in 50 years’ time. I am not prepared to wait that long, and I am sure that the Minister is not, either. I therefore hope that he will have positive answers to my questions. I leave him with this thought: why do we value women’s work so much less than we value the work that men do?