International Women’s Day

Baroness Northover Excerpts

Thursday 7th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

My Lords, the debates in the House of Lords for International Women’s Day are always outstanding and this one has been no exception. There is such a huge range of experience and commitment among your Lordships in this area that it is a great privilege for me to respond for the Government. I start by paying a particular tribute to right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Coventry, who chose to make his very moving maiden speech in this debate today and who will clearly make a major contribution to our debates in the Lords. I welcome him and, with him, hope that it will not be too long before we do indeed hear a maiden speech from a woman bishop.

We have marked International Women’s Day for more than a century, and it is right that we do so. The lives of women in this country have been transformed over that century, as my noble friend Lady Seccombe so clearly showed. The noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, noted this as the most profound social transformation, and she is surely right. For many of us, we are the first in our families to go to university, yet our daughters, as well as our sons, expect nothing less should they wish to do so. We have the vote and the right to own property, to be employed on equal terms and not to belong to our husbands, fathers or, for that matter, to our sons. However, as noble Lords have made very clear in their speeches, inequalities persist: women earn less and we have by far the larger responsibility for children, the home and the care of elderly relatives as well as working. As the noble Lord, Lord Parekh, the noble Baroness, Lady Nye, the noble Lord, Lord Watson, and others pointed out, women are less likely to be in the House of Commons or House of Lords, on boards, at the top of companies, in our Supreme Court, among our judges, on our sports boards, editors of newspapers and so on. We see progress but sometimes it seems to be at a snail’s pace. As the noble Baroness, Lady Howe of Idlicote, said, it is a long road. Where women are not able to fulfil their aspirations to play their full part, in whatever way that might be, as my noble friend Lady Stowell so effectively explained in relation to her friend Julie, that is quite simply a loss of talent. Our economy and, more importantly, entire society miss out.

Supporting the most vulnerable in our society has been fundamental to our approach. That is why we are cutting tax for more than 23 million working people, lifting 2 million out of income tax altogether, the majority of whom are women. We are making changes to our state pension that will provide enormous benefits to older women, who may have broken records or contributions because they took time out to care for children or the elderly. Our ring-fencing the health budget particularly assists women, who are greater users of healthcare than men, whether through maternity care, through taking their children for care or in later life. Our acceptance of the Dilnot proposals, addressing an issue that has plagued our health and social care system since the establishment of the NHS, and about which no party in power since has been willing to do anything other than undertake yet another inquiry, is game-changing. Noble Lords will recall that it is women who are disproportionately the recipients and givers of care.

We want to support women, empower them and, most importantly, transform the opportunities available to them. We are investing in education, expanding our apprenticeship programme and improving careers advice to encourage young women to make ambitious choices. As the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, suggests, there are areas of the labour market where women still seem invisible. We need to encourage women to choose subjects such as science, technology and engineering at A-level and at university to enable them to flourish in today’s economy. We are introducing shared parental leave, extending the right to request flexible working to all and working with business to ensure more women are in the boardroom.

The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, asked about progress in relation to women on boards. As my noble friend Lady Stowell said at Question Time, since the noble Lord, Lord Davies, issued his report, the proportion of women on boards has increased from 12.5% to 17.3%. As of yesterday, there are now only six all-male boards. The Women’s Business Council will also be making recommendations on how we support women executives progressing up the executive ladder. I do not think that there is a shortage of potential talent. I was a trustee in a leading organisation, and when I stood down I urged that more women should be appointed. However, I was told there were none. I mentioned a name; they said, “Yes, but besides her, there aren’t any”. I mentioned several others; and, as with the “Life of Brian” and the Romans, they said “Yes, but besides those there aren’t any”. To my satisfaction, that board is now chaired by one of the women I recommended.

We have role models elsewhere. This summer, we have seen so many. London 2012 was a triumph for women’s sport, showcasing positive role models such as Jess Ennis, Victoria Pendleton and Ellie Simmonds, as my noble friend Lady Heyhoe Flint made so very clear. Hearing my noble friend on the subject of various sexist golf courses reminded me of an experience I had in Saudi Arabia. I was part of a parliamentary delegation staying in a very western hotel. I hope that my noble friend Lady Heyhoe Flint will appreciate that I took my swimsuit with me and, one evening, went down to the pool to swim. I was told that I could not because it was not the “women’s hour” to swim. I asked when the women’s hour was and was told that there was not one. There are more women taking part in sport but there is clearly so much more that we need to do and, as my noble friend Lady Heyhoe Flint has made clear, we need to do so much more especially in the running of sports. UK Sport and Sport England have included an expectation that all the national governing bodies will have at least 25% women on their boards by 2017.

As well as discrimination, girls and women face very serious challenges, including violence. Various noble Lords have made reference to that, and I assure my noble friend Lord Sheikh and others that we seek to tackle violence against women and girls and take it very seriously. We have protected central government funding for tackling violence against women and, last year, we announced that forced marriage will now become a criminal offence in England and Wales. We are also clear that we will change damaging behaviour only when we have changed the underlying attitudes that cause that behaviour, a point referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Nye. Prevention is key, which is why, with our teenage relationship abuse and rape prevention campaigns, we are helping young people to recognise abuse and understand when to seek help. The noble Baroness, Lady Nye, asked about PSHE and when the outcome of the review will come through. The Government’s internal review was extended to take account of the outcome of the wider national curriculum review and the Department for Education expects to make an announcement shortly. I assure her and my noble friend Lady Benjamin that the statutory guidance for sex and relationship education makes clear that schools should ensure that young people develop positive values, realising that this certainly applies to sexual relationships.

The noble Baroness, Lady Crawley, and others mentioned the powerful One Billion Rising campaign, and it is extremely important to have that kind of campaign keeping us all on our toes. The noble Baroness specifically mentioned FGM and rightly paid tribute to the work in this area of her colleague, the noble Baroness, Lady Rendell. The Government are also frustrated, as was the noble Baroness, Lady Crawley, by the lack of prosecutions in the past 25 years. We welcome the fact that Keir Starmer, the Director of Public Prosecutions, who published a CPS action plan in November, is seeking to improve prosecutions for FGM. As the noble Baroness will know, a major new programme is also being designed by DfID to support efforts to end the practice in sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East. This has been led by my honourable friend Lynne Featherstone, whose aim is that this should disappear within a generation. She is formidable and I am absolutely delighted that she is taking this forward.

The noble Baronesses, Lady Howe and Lady Healy, asked about women in the penal system. I assure them that we fully understand the challenges that women in the penal system face, and that many have suffered all sorts of problems in the past and maybe suffer still from domestic abuse, alcohol and drug abuse and mental problems. We are striving hard to follow through from the work done by the previous Government to keep women out of prison. I visited Holloway prison and realised very strongly how important it is, not only to the women themselves but to the children who are usually dependent on these women. I saw in Holloway Prison the support that is given for drug and alcohol abuse. We have accepted the majority of the Corston report and are actively taking it forward. I assure noble Lords that my noble friend Lord McNally really gets this.

The noble Baroness, Lady Healy, asked about pregnant refugees and asylum seekers and the response to the report on dispersal. We introduced a new policy last year which includes a commitment not to move any pregnant women within the last four weeks of pregnancy, and any asylum seeker is moved only if it is safe to do so.

Noble Lords have addressed the sexualisation of girls and the risks thereby. We need to address the confidence of girls and, as my noble friend Lady Benjamin said, their need for dignity and the dangers of that sexualisation. The Government appointed Reg Bailey to look into the issue of the sexualisation of children and young people, and he published his recommendations last year. We are using these to work with media, business and regulators to implement, and they include stricter guidelines from the Advertising Standards Authority on sexualised on-street adverts, the launch of the ParentPort website for people to make complaints about media and advertising—we heard some horrendous stories earlier—and an agreement from four of the largest internet service providers on a code of practice, including active choice on whether to access age-restricted material. I am sure this is an area we will need to continue to monitor extremely closely.

The noble Baroness, Lady Massey, mentioned invisible women and flagged it up in relation to politics and other areas. I hope I can reassure noble Lords that we have extended the ability of political parties to use women-only shortlists to 2030. Labour transformed the House of Commons with these and although the initial reaction of the press to “Blair’s Babes” was horrendous, nobody would term them that now. They contribute in a formidable fashion and this has acted as a spur to the other political parties, including my own, and I pay tribute to what Labour did in this regard. We are also working with the main political parties to collect and publish diversity data on election candidates, to give us better insight into where we need to target efforts. I note what was said by the noble Baroness, Lady Uddin, in this regard, and on the wider fields I can assure her that we are working with the Runnymede Trust to look at the general barriers facing, for example, Bangladeshi and Pakistani women in the workforce.

The noble Baronesses, Lady Massey and Lady O’Neill, talked about public appointments; we aim to ensure that 50% of new public appointees are women by the end of this Parliament. We have established the Centre for Public Appointments in the Cabinet Office, which is working throughout Whitehall and the private sector to modernise recruitment practices, and we will keep a very close eye on this.

I heard the contribution of the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, with enormous interest and I look forward to her profound thinking being applied to the Equality and Human Rights Commission. She has asked me whether we could have a debate on CEDAW before July and I will of course feed this into the normal channels. Meanwhile, I encourage all noble Lords to put this down for debate at the first opportunity in the new Session, and the noble Baroness might like to do that herself. I will feed that back.

Noble Lords have made reference to the work that we have done overseas. I am extremely proud of that, and I thank my noble friend Lady Brinton for congratulating us on delivering 0.7% of GNI on aid. Noble Lords who have referred to the situation of women and girls overseas have pointed out that they are of course the poorest and the most marginalised. The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, was right to flag up the importance of UN Women.

We have put girls and women front and centre of our international development efforts. What we have heard from my noble friends Lady Brinton, Lord Sheikh and Lord Black, and the noble Lord, Lord Mitchell, shows why we have done this and why it is so very important. Every year, more than a third of a million women die in pregnancy and childbirth. Almost two-thirds of those who are illiterate are women. Women own less than 10% of the world’s property. One in nine girls is forced into marriage before their 14th birthday. DfID’s key aims in addressing the situation for women and girls focus on delaying first pregnancy and supporting safe childbirth—again, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, referred to the challenges here—getting economic assets directly to girls and women, getting girls through secondary school and preventing violence against girls and women. They are major programmes.

In the past year alone, we have provided nearly 750,000 women with access to financial services, and supported more than 2.5 million girls into primary school and 250,000 girls into secondary schools. We know that education is critical as far as girls are concerned and that girls going through school are likely to be safer, to marry later and to have fewer children. It is of benefit to them, their families, their societies and their countries. There is also an economic dividend from that, which we recognise.

I can assure the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, that we have improved property rights and land rights for nearly 250,000 women, supported 1 million additional women to use modern methods of family planning and helped 300,000 girls and women to access security and justice. We had a passionate debate in the Chamber last night on preventing sexual violence in conflicts. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Coventry is right to flag up the especial vulnerability of women and girls in conflict. I am delighted that my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary is pushing forward an important initiative to increase awareness and data collection and to bring perpetrators to justice. We recognise that sexual violence is a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions and is liable to be seen as a war crime to be brought to the International Criminal Court. It is important that we publicise that fact and make sure that the structure is in place to gather data and that cases are brought, with the intention of trying to curb the dreadful abuse of women in these situations. Right now, we have teams of experts in Syria, for example, working on just that task.

I assure my noble friend Lord Black that we are acutely aware of the risk of AIDS. He has clearly shown the vulnerability of women in that situation.

I appreciate the strong support for our international programmes right across the House. The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, is right about the power of working together. She and I have seen, as her noble friend Lady Royall will also have seen, the power of working together across the political spectrum in Pakistan. There, in a National Assembly of 270 or so, there is a quota for 60 women’s seats. When I visited in 2006, women parliamentarians were marginalised, but they have used their block of seats in the most extraordinary fashion in the past five years. Working together across political parties, they have identified laws that discriminate against women and had them thrown out. They have moved on to laws that protect women; for example, on workplace harassment and criminalising acid attacks. The women have carried out 70% of all parliamentary business and their achievements are remarkable. I visited the survivors of acid attacks; for example, a woman who sought a divorce from her husband and he threw acid at her. If he was not to have her, then no one should want her. She sat bravely on the steps of the Parliament when the Bill came up, supported by civil society and highlighted in the media. The women persuaded their male colleagues and saw the Bill passed. I think that the work of the Pakistani women parliamentarians is a beacon to others and a model to show what can be achieved worldwide, and I salute them.

The noble Baroness, Lady Afshar, drew our attention to the continuing plight of women in Iran, who have seen a further erosion of their rights after being excluded from many fields of study at Iranian universities. I found her exposition of Islamic doctrine enlightening, and it is no wonder that the Iranian regime is concerned. We can assure her that we make clear to the Iranian regime how we view its record on human rights, because, as someone said earlier—I think it was the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill—women’s rights are not in contrast to men’s rights; women’s rights are human rights. They are all part of human rights. We make very clear to the Iranian regime how we regard this. I also agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Afshar, that, in the light of this development, it is vital that we attract talented Iranian women to study at UK universities.

This has been a wide-ranging and informative debate. We are determined to do everything in our power to transform the rights and opportunities for women both here and across the world. We have achieved a huge amount in the United Kingdom. I am constantly reminded of that when I see some of the situations in which women find themselves in developing countries. Yet we do not sit back: we realise how much more there is to achieve in the UK and we work with those in developing countries who seek, often against enormous odds, to ensure that the position of women and girls is transformed in the lifetimes of those born today. I beg to move.

Motion agreed.