Women and Girls: Economic Well-being, Welfare, Safety and Opportunities

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Thursday 14th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I feel I must begin by asking the noble Lord, Lord Strathcarron, to reconsider some of his assumptions. As he was speaking, he was facing a female rugby player—me. Thirty years ago, I was playing informal but full-contact games against and with men. I suggest he looks at the distribution of the bell curve, because some of the men on those pitches were smaller and lighter than I was. I also suggest he reads a book called The Frailty Myth.

Since we are on sport, I join the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, and the noble Lord, Lord Addington, in celebrating the women’s Euro 2022, which is happening now. I am hoping to make it to a match next week, but I point out that this is one of the last areas—probably the last area—of legal discrimination. In 2006 I wrote about a potential woman, whom I named Waynetta Rooney, who might have wanted to be selected by a Premier League team. She is not allowed to play for that team or to get the salary that would go with it because of her gender. All those wonderful players we are watching now are paid vastly less and are not allowed into teams where they could be paid more, because of their gender.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Gale, for securing this debate. I will focus briefly on a lifestyle economic analysis. We start with a girl in school who faces stereotypes about the subjects she should study and restrictions that will affect her lifetime earning potential. She will be expected to sit quietly and to be polite and compliant, something particularly difficult for neurodiverse girls.

A recent study by the charity In Kind Direct found that in some cities and towns period poverty affects two-fifths of girls and women. In Brighton and Hove it is 46% and in Oxford 40%. I am proud that Green councillors on Oxford City Council have just this week submitted a motion for free period products to be put in public toilets, town halls and community centres. However, the fact that this is necessary is a dreadful indictment of our society.

I note the points made by the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, about discrimination in science and work. Why do we have the Francis Crick Institute, named after a very controversial character, instead of the Rosalind Franklin Institute? Lynn Margulis is one of my scientific heroes. She is an evolutionary biologist who proposed a real change to the science of evolution. Her gender definitely had something to do with the difficulties she had in having that accepted.

Going back to economics, there is something called “sheflation”. Note that figures from the Living Wage Foundation show that 20% of women earn less than a real living wage. The figure for men is 14%; it is unacceptable for both. Every worker of whatever age should earn enough money to live on. Many people have referred to the situation of single parents, 90% of whom are women. The New Economics Foundation has figures showing that, in the current cost of living crisis, single-parent families have seen 50% more of their income lost to the crisis than families with two adults.

We come to middle age and the generation trap. So many middle-aged women are now caring for younger children and teenagers and providing support for older children and their own parents, or even grandparents. The slashing of government services has meant that the practical reality is that the overwhelming weight of that has landed on women.

I come to my worst figures. They are from the Health Foundation. A number of other noble Lords have referred to the situation of female pensioners and older women. Life expectancy for women in the poorest areas of the UK is lower than the overall life expectancy for every country in the OECD, except Mexico. We are doing worse in the poorest parts of the country than all but one other OECD country. That is a measure of the level of discrimination.

I shall make one final point. Sometimes this is seen as a zero-sum game—more for women, less for men. Actually, however, if we make a society that is fit, decent and caring for women and girls, we make a better society for everyone.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Stedman-Scott) (Con)]

I start by echoing many of the tributes paid to the noble Baroness, Lady Gale, for bringing forward this debate, and to all Members who have spoken and contributed to such an all-encompassing discussion. I would also like to pay tribute to those men who have joined us today and made very forthright contributions. It is great that you respect women, and their role and potential in the country. I thought the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, gave five minutes of excellent value, and it was a very significant contribution which I will refer to as I go through.

One thing is as sure as eggs: I am never going to be able to answer everybody’s questions. If I do not answer your question, it is not because I do not want to, or I am disrespecting you, but I will, at the end, make sure I write to all noble Lords who took part in the debate, and make sure all your questions are answered to your satisfaction.

I had the great pleasure of being part of the International Women’s Day debate held in March, when again the noble Baroness, Lady Gale, made a very powerful and eloquent speech. While that debate was not all that long ago, I will never turn down a chance to highlight the great work taking place across government to ensure that everyone can access opportunities and reach their full potential.

I suspect that for most Members here, as is certainly the case for me, 2010 now feels like a very distant memory, although it was a momentous time for me, being the year that I first took my seat in this place. I am conscious that, while this Chamber still looks the same, the world around us has changed immeasurably. A great number of things may be different, including those currently in government. However, one thing that has remained constant is our commitment to achieving gender equality. Each successive Government have reaffirmed their resolve to make the UK a place where women and girls can access all opportunities on an equal basis and be able to thrive.

We know that this is not something that can be achieved overnight; there are no quick fixes or silver bullets, much to the frustration of probably everybody in this Chamber. It can often feel as though the pace of change is too slow, and progress is always just out of reach. But this week I have more than one reason to step back and appreciate just how far we have come since 2010.

On Monday, we celebrated—and the noble Baroness, Lady Goudie, was there—10 years of the Women’s Business Council, and I was overwhelmed to hear what it has achieved within that time. In 2010, the gender pay gap was 19.8%, and in 2021 it was 15.4%. There are nearly 2 million more women in work since 2010, and the number of women in FTSE 100 boardroom roles has jumped to 39% from 12.5% 10 years ago. At the 2010 election, 143 women were elected to the other place; in 2019, it was 220. We have got some way to go on this, and more about that later. While we can all agree there is more to do, and my ministerial colleagues and I are certainly not complacent when it comes to tackling that challenge head on, it is remarkable to see the strides that we have already made in such a short space of time.

I do not believe that we should dwell on the past or rest on our laurels, so I want to focus on the exciting work that we are doing now to ensure that this progress does not stall but in fact is accelerated. The underpinning principle behind government work undertaken since 2010, is that women should have the economic freedom to make choices about their lives and careers, unconstrained by inequalities or expectations. We want women to be economically empowered, and to remove the barriers that prevent them from reaching their full potential.

The noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, Lady Prosser and Lady Thornton, all talked about the importance of women in careers where they could really achieve their potential, not least of all construction and science. I am pleased that one of the ways in which we are doing this is by ensuring women can enter into higher-paid sectors and positions. The STEM world is calling for people with the right skills to come and help them meet the needs of our future economy, yet women currently make up only 24% of the STEM workforce. If we are to meet those challenges, then we need to first tackle this occupational segregation.

Of course, much of this relies on inspiring girls to consider STEM careers and study STEM subjects from a young age. We are already making some progress here, with girls representing 44% of all STEM A-level entries in 2021, and the proportion of women entering full-time undergraduate courses taking STEM courses having increased to 42.2%. The Department for Education is currently supporting a number of initiatives to encourage a more diverse uptake of STEM subjects and pathways. To name but a few, it funds the Inclusion in Schools project and the Stimulating Physics Network, it is researching interventions to tackle the barriers young women encounter to studying STEM, and it is enhancing mathematics teaching through a national network of 40 school-led maths hubs and funding the Advanced Mathematics Support Programme.

However, it is not just getting young women interested in STEM that is important; the real challenge is how we get them into STEM and keep them there. On International Women’s Day, I announced a programme to encourage more women to return to STEM careers after taking time out for caring. The pilot will give them the opportunity to refresh and grow their skills in sectors where their talents are most needed, and will build on what we have learned from previous government returner initiatives.

The noble Baroness, Lady Goudie, also mentioned women and diversity on boards and women in leadership. We are not just supporting women into higher-paid STEM careers; it is also about helping them to reach the top within their chosen profession across a range of sectors. Over the last 10 years, the Government have lent support to successive reviews, most recently the FTSE Women Leaders Review, to drive progress on female representation at the top of our biggest companies. This business-led framework has had fantastic success. In 2021, the UK FTSE 100 ranks in second place compared with 11 similar counties. But it has now turned its attention to fixing the pipeline of talent, making sure that this level of representation spreads through the entire leadership team and across a wider range of companies.

When the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths of Burry Port, speaks to that school tomorrow, will he pass on the very best wishes of everybody in this Chamber today to that head teacher, who has given and given, and thank her on our behalf?

We also want to help women to realise their entrepreneurial aspirations. As it stands, only one in three UK entrepreneurs is a woman—a gender gap equivalent to 1.1 million missing businesses. That is outrageous, and we must do something about that. Our aim is to increase the number of female entrepreneurs by half by 2030, so we will look very closely at that.

Many noble Lords mentioned the gender pay gap. One of the ways we are helping women in every workplace, regardless of how senior they are, is by driving transparency on pay. We will not have the situation where a woman goes for a job and is asked, “How much did you earn in your last job?” We do not want that. We want a salary on the advert so that women can negotiate the pay that shows their worth. We recently announced that we will take this transparency one step further. We will provide women with the information they need, making it easier for employees to understand whether they are being paid fairly.

However, as many of my noble friends have noted today, the world of work does not exist within a vacuum. So much of what goes into getting work right, not just for women but for everyone, is about making sure that workplace culture and practices fit with the lives that people lead outside of them. All the effort we put into empowering women and girls throughout their lives and careers goes to waste if we do not also remove the barriers that can prevent them being able to fully realise their ambitions.

The noble Baronesses, Lady Prosser and Lady Thornton, touched on the subject of childcare. This is something that is vexing me. I am on it. I cannot make promises, but I can promise to try getting to the bottom of some of the things that we can do to enable women to get the childcare that they need so that they can fulfil their potential in the workplace. The Government have doubled free childcare and have done much on tax-free childcare. But we want to help parents with the cost of childcare so we have introduced, as I have said, tax-free childcare, providing working parents with up to £2,000 of childcare support a year for each child. Much has been done on flexible working and parental leave. I am really proud that we extended the right to request flexible working to all employees with 26 weeks of continuous service with their employer.

Half the time has gone already, and I will not be able to answer everything, but let me turn to some of the other points that were raised. The noble Baroness, Lady Gale, and the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths of Burry Port, spoke about the remit of the Government Equalities Office being reduced. The equality hub will move beyond the narrow focus of protected characteristics and drive real change that benefits people across the United Kingdom. We have announced a new approach to equality, which will extend the fight for fairness beyond the nine protected characteristics covered by the Act, to include socioeconomic and geographical equality.

The noble Baroness, Lady Gale, raised Section 106. If the aims of Section 106 are to be realised, all political parties must be truly committed to it rather than be forced to do something. It is our job to drive that change to come naturally. The noble Baroness, Lady Gale, and the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths of Burry Port, raised the Istanbul convention. We are delighted to be ratifying the convention. This will send a clear message, not only within the UK but overseas, that Britain is committed to tackling violence against women and girls. Whatever the differing views on the two reservations, we can all agree about the vital importance of ratification. Ratifying will make it easy for us to hold to account those countries elsewhere in Europe that are pulling away from the convention.

Many noble Lords have raised the cost of living crisis and the impact on women, particularly lone parents. We understand completely that millions of households across the UK are struggling to make their incomes stretch to cover the rising cost of living. That is why the Government have provided an extra £37 billion this year. On a point of difference that the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, raised about giving one-off grants as opposed to fixing the system as one would like, the Government are not standing there watching people struggling. We are adding vast sums of money for people as quickly as possible. Our Plan for Jobs campaign is working, as is the Way to Work campaign, which got over half a million people into work. As my Secretary of State, Thérèse Coffey, an outstanding woman, said, we want people to be in work. Once they have a job, it is easier for them to get a better job and then into a career. I cannot say more about the benefits system than I have said and said yesterday. We are doing all that we can to support people.

On the point raised by the noble Baronesses, Lady Chakrabarti and Lady Gale, about what we are doing to improve rape prosecutions, protecting women and girls from violence is a key priority for this Government. We have made it clear that we need to make improvements to restore victims’ faith in the criminal justice system. We published our rape action plan setting out clear measures to more than double the number of adult rape cases reaching court by the end of this Parliament. However, there are no holds barred here. There is still work to be done, still progress to be made. We will not stop driving actions forward to rebuild confidence in the criminal justice system to pursue justice for rape victims.

My noble friend Lady Jenkin, the noble Baroness, Lady Gale, and others mentioned women in politics. If I may, I will take a moment to congratulate my noble friend on the work she and others have done on Women2Win. She does not take her foot off the pedal at all on this. We have more women MPs than ever before and political parties, as I said, are responsible for their candidate selection and should lead the way in improving the diversity of representation. Let us all redouble our efforts to see whether we can get to that 50:50 target. I would also say that we need to understand why people do not want to enter politics. I had a conversation with someone about this earlier and if we can address the reasons why people do not want to do it, perhaps we will inspire some younger people to take it up.

The noble Lord, Lord Addington, got us off to a great start about the football. The noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, is obviously very excited about the performance of our wonderful team. The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, a rugby star in her own right—

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

Not a star!

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

Oh, she has changed her mind. Noble Lords are absolutely right that these women are doing a great job.

I was at the football on Monday in Brighton. I have never been to a football match in my life. Before I went, my other half said to me, “Please behave. Don’t start shouting out and telling people what to do. You know nothing about football.” I had been there about 10 minutes and I was alive with it. They were like rockets running round the field. They were absolutely fantastic. I just wondered why I had not seen them before. They are doing a great job and if they get to the final at Wembley, I will be pleased to represent all noble Lords and shout. I started to get excited and then realised that I was sitting next to the Duke of Gloucester and I had to calm down. I take on board the challenge from the noble Lord, Lord Addington. I will speak to my noble friend Lord Parkinson about investment in sport.

The noble Lord, Lord Strathcarron, raised the issue of transgender athletes participating in sport. All sports which compete internationally must comply with their international federation rules on that level and the Government are clear that a way forward is needed that protects and shows compassion to all athletes while maintaining the integrity of the competition. I heard the concerns of the noble Baroness, Lady Nicholson, and others in the Chamber today. I am very happy to commit to meeting the noble Baroness and other noble Lords to discuss this.

The gender pensions gap was raised. We take this very seriously. Our reforms, including automatic enrolment, have helped millions more people save into a pension. Pension participation among eligible women working in the private sector was 86% in 2020, up from 40% in 2012.

I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Goudie, on her 30% Club. I will have to write regarding 50% of women on government boards because I do not have that figure to hand. The noble Baroness also mentioned women and girls in the Ukraine conflict. To mark International Women’s Day this year, the UK was proud to launch new funding for women’s rights organisations and civil society actors working to support the critical needs of women and children both inside and displaced outside Ukraine. There is more information, but I will include that in my letter.

The noble Baroness, Lady Prosser, mentioned levelling up for men and women. I thought her explanation of the fact that if we levelled up, it would still be unequal was really quite interesting—