Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Featherstone Excerpts

Thursday 2nd December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)]

1. What plans she has to increase the number of female company directors.

[The Minister for Equalities (Lynne Featherstone)]

I offer the apologies of the Minister for Women and Equalities to you, Mr Speaker, and to the House. She cannot attend questions today as she is in Brussels for a meeting of the European Union’s Justice and Home Affairs Council. The Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Maria Miller), who is responsible for disabled people, and I will endeavour to field questions.

Lord Davies has been appointed to consider how obstacles can be removed to allow more women to make it to the boardroom, and we will respond to his recommendations in due course. Measures that we are taking on positive action, flexible working and parental leave will also help address some of the barriers to progression that women face in the workplace.

[Stephen Metcalfe]

Having worked with my wife, my mother and my sister at board level, I am only too aware of the value that female directors bring to a company. What steps will my hon. Friend take to redress the balance of company boards tending to be predominantly male?

[Lynne Featherstone]

My hon. Friend is entirely right. Diverse organisations that reflect their customers offer better products and services as a result. In addition to appointing Lord Davies and implementing positive action, we are working with partners to encourage greater gender pay transparency. As I announced this morning, we will work with business to arrange for companies of 150 staff—not 250, as under the previous Government—to publish information that will allow people to understand their progression in the workplace.

[Emma Reynolds (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)]

I welcome the Government’s strategy to increase the number of women on the boards of companies. Will the Minister seriously consider international best practice, such as that of Norway, and introduce a quota?

[Lynne Featherstone]

The Government have no intention of introducing legislation permitting quotas, but we will listen to what Lord Davies says when he comes back with his recommendations and respond then.

[Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)]

Evidence suggests that companies with a strong female representation at board and top management level perform better than companies without. Does my hon. Friend agree that gender diversity allows companies to understand much better the needs of their customers?

[Lynne Featherstone]

My hon. Friend is entirely right. One would think that looking at the success of companies with diversity on their boards, and at the increase in their bottom-line profits, would be persuasion enough, but apparently there is much more to do.

[Joseph Johnson (Orpington) (Con)]

2. What recent discussions she has had with ministerial colleagues on reform of the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

5. What recent discussions she has had with ministerial colleagues on reform of the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

[The Minister for Equalities (Lynne Featherstone)]

I discussed the reform of the Equality and Human Rights Commission with ministerial colleagues only yesterday. We want to focus on its core regulatory and human rights functions and improve its value for taxpayers’ money, and we intend to consult on our proposals early next year.

[Joseph Johnson]

Will the Minister say why she believes a voluntary regime for the reporting of equality data will be sufficient to eliminate the persistent gender pay gap that the EHRC identified in its latest triennial review?

[Lynne Featherstone]

It will most certainly help. The voluntary approach, as introduced by Labour in the Equality Act 2010, is a very good mechanism. However, Government must not dictate to business. Business, the voluntary sector and all participants must come forward to publish details, and we will work with partners to ensure that voluntary publishing goes forward. We expect that it will, but we will not commence, amend or repeal section 78 of the Act, so the stick remains.

[Charlie Elphicke]

Are the core functions of the commission being successfully addressed? Is it working properly?

[Lynne Featherstone]

This is an opportunity for the EHRC to focus on its core functions. Unfortunately, when it was originally conceived and set up the previous Government seemed to lump together the previous three commissions with no real direction, no analysis of the skills that were needed and no focus. The EHRC has to become a respected national institution that focuses on its core functions, which are to ensure that people understand equalities discrimination and encourage them to use equalities legislation, and to hold to account those who do not.

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

One of the EHRC’s roles is to nudge us towards a more equal society, so will the Minister say what she is doing to encourage more women apprentices, as they make up only 1% of those in manufacturing industry?

[Lynne Featherstone]

I will confer with the EHRC, as the hon. Lady said that this was about it nudging people. We are working with the science, engineering and technology sectors, and with all trades, to improve that representation level, as 1% is not acceptable.

[Meg Munn (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab/Co-op)]

When the EHRC was established, with Liberal Democrat support, one of its key roles was to work proactively, through positive duties and working with organisations to ensure equality, so that cases of discrimination did not arise. In wishing to focus more on regulatory functions, is the hon. Lady not in danger of moving towards a situation where we only punish those who have committed acts of discrimination, rather than having a much more positive approach, as was previously supported?

[Lynne Featherstone]

No, it is a regulatory function to carry out the first of those core duties, which is to ensure that everyone in the voluntary sector and the workplace understands what equality legislation means to them and then to encourage them to use it. So we are taking a very positive approach. We hope that the end that is the enforcement arm of the regulator will never have to be used.

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

What recent representations has the Minister received from the EHRC about the disparity in tariffs for different types of hate crime? Disability hate crimes uniformly attract a lower tariff than hate crimes motivated by issues of sex or race.

[Lynne Featherstone]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question. He is right to say that certain forms of hate crime do not have the same aggravated status as others. That is being reviewed as we speak by the Ministry of Justice.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

Reform of the EHRC must not be carried out because the Government are running scared of the action that the EHRC is rightly taking against the Government on the spending review. The House of Commons Library has now assessed the tax and benefit measures in the spending review and previous Budgets, and its figures show that Labour’s last two Budgets gave more help to women, whereas the spending review and the emergency Budget after the election are hitting women more than twice as hard as men. When women still earn less and own less than men, why have the Government decided that women should pay more?

[Lynne Featherstone]

The right hon. Lady has raised this issue before, and she rightly says that the EHRC is doing what it is meant to do as an independent body. It is currently on the information trail, asking for information appertaining to the comprehensive spending review. All Departments are assessing the impact on equality and this Government have acted to protect the lowest-paid public sector workers, most of whom are women, from the public sector pay freeze. We have taken the lowest earners—800,000 people, most of whom are women—out of taxation. This Government have acted to protect women.

[Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)]

3. If she will bring forward legislative proposals to amend the requirements for the disclosure of historical convictions for consensual homosexual intercourse for the purposes of preventing discrimination.

[The Minister for Equalities (Lynne Featherstone)]

As my right hon. Friend the Minister for Women and Equalities said in her equalities speech last week, the rights and freedoms Bill will include provisions to ensure that those who were prosecuted for consensual gay sex with over-16s at a time when that was illegal may apply to have their conviction deleted from police records. As a result, they will no longer be required to disclose their conviction in any circumstances.

[Iain Stewart]

Does the Minister agree that one of the benefits of the change is that men with such convictions who have not previously volunteered for charities or other organisations will now be able to do so, as they will no longer have to make the disclosure in their Criminal Records Bureau checks?

[Lynne Featherstone]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. It is totally unfair and unjust that men who have a conviction for something that has long not been illegal should have to fear that being exposed—and exposed to partners they live with, who may not know. Such men will never again have to disclose that information. I hope very much that those gay men whom that has inhibited from volunteering will now find that inhibition removed.

[Alun Michael (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

4. What steps the Government are taking to ensure that disabled people are able to participate in elections and referendums.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)]

6. What steps she has taken to increase protection from domestic violence for women.

[The Minister for Equalities (Lynne Featherstone)]

On 25 November, we published the Government’s vision to end violence against women and girls. It covers a range of measures to support victims of domestic violence, such as 12-month pilots of domestic protection orders and £28 million of funding until 2015 to support specialist services, including local domestic violence advisers, national helplines and work to prevent forced marriage.

[Mrs Moon]

If people are arrested or convicted for speeding, or if they are caught drink-driving, they are required to attend rehabilitation training courses. I support go orders, which are a good step forward, but should there not be huge investment and a commitment to ensuring that those who are removed from their homes are also required to attend anger management courses? That is what is needed to prevent further episodes of domestic violence.

[Lynne Featherstone]

I thank the hon. Lady for that thoughtful contribution. I will certainly take it away and consider it.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

The Minister will be aware of the Powys woman who has been imprisoned for retracting her rape complaint against her husband. This abused woman has been criminalised, imprisoned and separated from her children, while the man, who the authorities were satisfied had raped her and who they believed had perverted the course of justice, is free. That will terrify other rape complainants who have been abused by their partners. Such women already have to struggle for support to get out of their situation, but they can now see that asking for help may be more dangerous than staying to suffer. Will the hon. Lady institute an holistic inquiry into how such a debacle occurred, say whether her Government’s proposal to grant anonymity to men—and thus imply that woman who complain of rape are liars—is going ahead, and explain how they will secure no repetition of such a shameful case?

[Lynne Featherstone]

There is clearly an issue with women hesitating to come forward. This case and the publicity surrounding it might well have an effect on women. Obviously, I cannot comment on this case, but I am very aware of the need to encourage women to come forward if they have been the victims of rape. They should feel supported and listened to when they come forward. I will look into the case but I do not think it is my job to say today whether we will have an inquiry. However, I can inform the hon. Lady that the rape anonymity proposals have been dropped.