International Women’s Day

Baroness Byford Excerpts

Thursday 1st March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Byford]

My Lords, I begin by thanking my noble friend Lady Verma for leading this afternoon’s debate. We both come from Leicester, both have business backgrounds and know and value the contribution that women make to economic growth. Some 18 months ago I hosted a small gathering of Leicester University women graduates; their range of business interests was remarkable—they were business leaders, entrepreneurs, lawyers, a leading local hotelier, an actress, a couple of authors, and a former Mayor of the City of Leicester, all making for a very lively discussion. The common denominator coming from that was education.

I would like to highlight the careers of two of those present, because it poses problems for us today. The first is Hilary Devey, perhaps the best known, and Lopa Patel, whose very different paths reflect opportunities recognised and openings taken. Hilary gained her experience in the distribution sector having worked with Littlewoods and Tibbett and Britten and having seven years in the retail sector at TNT, before leaving to set up her own business. She had recognised the difficulty of transporting small consignments of pallet freight quickly and cost-effectively. In November 1996, Pall-Ex was born. The first night saw just 117 pallets distributed through the fledgling network, in stark contrast to the current 10,000 pallets delivered nightly today. Hilary had to tackle incredible odds. She was a single mum; bankers refused to back her and she had to sell her house, but she refused to give up.

Lopa Patel, on the other hand, said that redhotcurry.com was meant to be about curry and nothing more than a hobby. Launched in 2001 as a curry recipe sharing site for Asian women, it has grown to become Britain’s leading South Asian lifestyle portal. From a narrow beginning, Lopa was asked to write about culture, entertainment, food, health and fashion from a South Asian perspective. No one was willing to put money into an Asian diaspora website, so she cashed in an endowment policy and sank her savings into the venture. She was recently awarded an MBE for services to digital media, and for supporting the South Asian community.

At the other end, as we have heard from noble Lords today, there are women who struggle to make a start in life. During the debate in 2010, I spoke of the scheme called Send a Cow. How it has grown, 20 years on. UK donors now also send goats, beehives, chickens, sheep and cattle to families in Africa. The ripple-down effect is enormous, because the first female animal born in Africa has to be given to another family, and each time it goes to the woman. In all, it has been calculated that for every animal sent from the UK, at least eight families were able to make their own contribution to economic growth and to alleviate poverty in Africa. I point people’s attention to the all-party group, which has just produced a very good report on growing out of poverty, which recognises that a profitable smallholder in agriculture is a key tool in assisting social and economic development of a low-income country.

Economic growth depends on the successful progress of many aspects. It starts with an idea, develops into a product or service, is tested and amended, marketed and sold. In most cases the pattern can be completed only through the injection of financial assistance at one or more points. This is why I am really glad to hear of Defra’s announcement in January about putting £165 million into support of rural communities, where the problems are often more difficult. Designated in this was the allocation of £20 million to extend rural broadband to the remotest areas. Most of us in cities take it for granted, but you still cannot get it in many areas. There is also a scheme that provides £60 million to entrepreneurs in rural areas, giving successful applicants 40 per cent of the cost of their projects in business areas of farm competitiveness such as agri-food, tourism, forestry and micro-enterprise support. This is good news. My noble friend has already spoken about the amount of money being allocated to rural women as well.

I have a friend whose business is helping people into self-employment and who stated that women do not borrow as much as men, or as easily. She puts this down to women being risk-averse. She does not feel that men have a monopoly on good ideas, nor are they better at running a business or putting their backs into hard work. We need economic growth. If a major factor stopping women from starting a business is that finance is so difficult, I hope that the Minister will look at ways in which we can help women in future.