Oral Answers to Questions

Angela Crawley Excerpts

Thursday 20th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

Absolutely. I will happily write to the hon. Lady with further details about what we and others in the Government are doing. She is absolutely right to point to this issue. White women have an employment rate of 73.3%; that of women of Bangladeshi ethnicity, for example, is just 32.8%. Bringing my Department into the Cabinet Office, co-located with the race disparity unit, will help greatly in addressing the multiple disadvantages that people face.

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

I wish you, Mr Speaker, all hon. Members and everyone across my constituency a merry Christmas.

The Minister has stated that she hopes that the returners fund will help women trapped in zero-hours contracts and low paid and low skilled work. Will she speak to her colleagues at the Department for Work and Pensions to ask for a review of how universal credit, in-work conditionality and sanctions are damaging the prospects of low paid women?

[Penny Mordaunt]

It will come as no surprise to the hon. Lady that I am already speaking to the Department for Work and Pensions about a whole raft of issues. We need to focus much more on broadening the work of the Government Equalities Office towards addressing the issues of low paid women. Women with low pay will often still be in low paid work a decade later. We need to look at the barriers to their having the career progression and the training that they want, while enabling them to cope with all the other things that women do.