Equal Pay

Baroness Boycott Excerpts

Monday 11th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

Organisations can indeed do that if they wish, but the noble Baroness raises an important point. Actually, gender pay gap reporting was the first step in what will be a long process. It had never been done before and we wondered before organisations reported what the compliance rate would be. As the noble Baroness will know, it was 100%. It is not that organisations do not want to go further—they do—but she is right that a gender and ethnically diverse workforce makes for a better workforce.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

My Lords, if we really want to have women working in this country and therefore being equal, as a country we need to take childcare seriously. I have been campaigning for this since I was 21—I am obviously way past the need for it now—but we still do not have it. Have the Government ever considered the scheme that Quebec introduced in 1997 whereby universal childcare was subsidised? You paid about 10 quid a day. It was found that very soon the increased revenues from women’s earnings paid for the measure through the taxation system. If we want women to work and to be equal, surely the state must take a role in doing some of women’s work, which is rearing and looking after children.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I am very interested to hear about Quebec’s scheme, and I thank the noble Baroness for that. This Government introduced 39 hours of free childcare for working parents and have encouraged shared parental leave, which is possibly not as good as it should be. We can certainly learn from other countries, such as Sweden, in that regard.