International Women’s Day

Baroness Stowell of Beeston Excerpts

Thursday 7th March 2013 Lords Chamber

Moved By

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

That this House takes note of International Women’s Day 2013.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

My Lords, it is an enormous privilege to introduce the International Women’s Day debate. In the same debate two years ago I made what was then my second speech in your Lordships’ House. I seem to recall the noble Lords present taking a sharp intake of breath when I said then that I had only very recently become familiar with International Women’s Day. My saying that betrayed two things. The first is that, unlike so many Members of this House, I have no claim to involvement in the fantastic advances that have been made in support of women over the past 100 years. Indeed, I feel a great sense of humility when I look down the list of speakers today.

Of course, many other Members of this House—too many to mention—have campaigned hard and achieved so much for the rights of women over the years. However, I would like to mention two Baronesses by name who we have sadly lost from this House over the past year: my late friend Lady Ritchie of Brompton, who founded Women2Win and helped so many women in my own party become MPs; and the late Lady McFarlane of Llandaff, who was one of nursing’s great pioneers and, indeed, the first nurse to become a life Peer.

Secondly, my rather shocking remark betrayed that, unlike many other countries, we here in the UK have not got into the habit of using International Women’s Day simply to celebrate women. In fact, I was talking to some Italian women the other day, who told me that in Italy the men shower them with mimosas on this day. Now, I am especially pleased that six noble Lords of the male variety have joined us, but I reassure them that we are not expecting flowers; I would not want to overburden them coming so soon after Valentine’s day and just before Mothering Sunday. Seriously, though, I am pleased that this is not a women-only debate. We will be discussing issues that affect women, but we cannot address them without the support and input of men.

Today’s debate is a chance for us to draw attention to the serious challenges that women still face here and around the world. Last night, my noble friend here with me on the Front Bench today responded to a very powerful debate about the ongoing use of sexual violence as a weapon of war. This morning we have already responded to Questions, some of them rather interesting, about a range of inequalities affecting women. I am sure that some of these matters, as well as many others, will be raised again, and my noble friend Lady Northover will be pleased to respond to them.

As the person opening today’s debate, I will focus on women and their careers, or more specifically on what we are doing to ensure that we better utilise the talents and skills of all women, whoever they are, wherever they come from and whatever they do. I want to celebrate the contribution of women and talk about how we can support them in achieving their full potential.

The challenges facing women today are very different from those that women faced in the 20th century. We know that in the past British society did not see much value in educating girls. Indeed, this is sadly still true in some parts of the world, as Malala Yousafzai’s ordeal at the hands of the Taliban has shown all too graphically. Here, girls now outperform boys in nearly every subject at nearly every stage of school, yet too many girls lack confidence, self-esteem and ambition.

In the past, women were banned from universities. Now, more young women than young men go to university, yet there are still too many subjects where a female face is rare. As we all know, it was legal in the past to pay women less than men for the same work. Women were barred from too many professions entirely. Getting married could mean losing your job; I will not even mention having a baby. Now we have some of the most comprehensive anti-gender discrimination legislation in the world, yet the gender pay gap remains and women continue to be underrepresented in positions of power and leadership.

It is clear that the way we respond to these very complex modern-day challenges needs a sophisticated, modern approach. The solutions cannot be found simply in more laws, regulations and targets. Of course, finding the solutions is not easy when there is little money around. I realise that women will wonder how we can make their lives better when we also have to make significant cuts in public spending. The truth is that it is not easy, but there are things we can do and are doing.

I will not go through the whole list, but the kinds of measures I am talking about for those on the lowest incomes and most in need include lifting more than 1 million of the lowest-paid workers out of income tax altogether, the majority of whom are women. We will also increase child tax credit by £180 above inflation for low to middle-income families. Where we can we are spending money in ways that empower women and give them real choice and control over their lives.

The top issue that comes up time and again for women is balancing work and family life. Our current inflexible system of maternity and paternity leave makes it incredibly difficult to break down the stereotypical and intrinsic view that women should stay at home and look after the children and men should go out to work and earn the money when a couple start a family. What if the mother earns more? What if she is in a more senior position than the father? What if the father simply wants to take on more of the caring responsibilities? In our modern world the state should not make it harder for parents to choose the best arrangements for their children.

That is why, after an extensive consultation, we announced last November that from 2015 we will introduce a new system of shared parental leave that will make an enormous difference to working women who want to have children. It will mean that if fathers want to take on more of a role, they can. If mothers want to return to work earlier, they can. If parents want to spend some time at home together around the birth of their child, they can. Parents will have a choice.

Crucially, albeit over time, the new parental leave arrangements and the access to flexible working for all employees—the other initiative that we recently announced—will put men and women on a level playing field in the workplace. Employers will no longer be able to assume that only women take a career break to look after their children. For my part, that was one of the biggest things that sold this policy to me.

Until that time arrives, we are also determined to help working women by boosting childcare wherever and whenever we can, especially to those who need it most. This includes but is not limited to 15 free hours a week in a nursery or with a childminder for all three and four year-olds. From September this year that will be extended to two year-olds from the most disadvantaged homes.

Even in flexible and family-friendly workplaces, women can still hit the glass ceiling, so we are working with employers to ensure that there really is no limit to how far women can go in their careers. We have just been talking about women on boards, and as a result of the fantastic work by the noble Lord, Lord Davies, to increase that number, the number of FTSE 100 all-male boards has now halved, and since last March 40% of new appointments to boards have been women —up from 13% in 2010.

There is, however, a pipeline issue for women in executive roles. Our Think, Act, Report initiative to improve transparency on pay and wider workplace equality is helping to make a difference. Employers who sign up make a commitment to identify any barriers to women in their organisation, to take action to address them, and finally to report publicly on their progress. The transparent reporting bit of the scheme is a particularly powerful tool with which to achieve change.

Since the initiative was launched just over a year ago, 73 organisations have signed up. In total, they employ more than 1 million people and include firms such as Marks & Spencer, Tesco, BT, EDF and BP. As of today, they have been joined by the Chartered Management Institute, which has more than 90,000 members and huge outreach to other employers. However, we are not stopping there. Because we recognise that we do not have all the answers, last year we established a Women’s Business Council, made up of exceptionally high achievers in business, to provide advice to government on what we can do to maximise women’s contribution to our future economic growth. It is comprehensively examining the evidence, from the issues and choices facing girls in school right through to the experiences of older women who need to continue working into their retirement but who face diminishing options in the labour market. That council is due to report to the Government later this year.

We need to encourage all women to aspire to and be ambitious for success, but too many young women still do not have the confidence to follow their dreams and, even more distressingly, too many do not have dreams at all. We are trying to change this through measures such as our pupil premium to help schools better support their disadvantaged pupils and close the attainment gap between them and their peers. We are working with schools, advertising, retail and the media to improve perceptions of body image through our Body Confidence campaign so that more young women realise their future will be defined by their talent, hard work and abilities, not by what they look like.

We are encouraging women to choose more of the STEM subjects at A-level and university that will allow them to flourish in today’s economy, and we are giving them the skills they need to succeed. Noble Lords might be interested to know that last year, for the first time, more women started an apprenticeship than men, but let me say something about aspiration, ambition and success, about which I feel very strongly. There are many definitions of success. It is vital that we have more women in positions of power, whether in business or politics. We want those women on boards. We need more women around the Cabinet table, as the Prime Minister said very recently.

However, we must not forget that many women have no desire for that kind of success. They might want to run their own business instead or be a doctor specialising in a particular field of medicine. Just because people who work in Parliament enjoy power, we must not think that everyone else does. We have to be honest here: there are also many women for whom reaching the top of the tree is not a realistic ambition. By concentrating so much on the high achievers, or telling people to aim for the very top, I worry that sometimes, without meaning to, we diminish other people’s achievements and even discourage them from being ambitious at all.

I would like to recount a story about a friend of mine called Julie. She is an undertaker. She is roughly the same age as me and left school with little in the way of formal qualifications, so was put on what we then called a YOP scheme. I am sure she will not mind my sharing this story with the House. On her first day at work, she thought that the funeral company’s office was a car showroom when she turned up because of all the big black cars outside. After a few false starts and once she had got over the shock that she was working at a funeral director’s, she knuckled down and started to progress up the undertaker ladder.

After a few years, Julie was put in charge of its new Beeston branch, which included arranging funerals. That is a difficult task, as it means talking to people when they are at their most vulnerable. However, she was good at it, so much so that the family of a teenage boy who had been killed in a dreadful accident requested that Julie direct the funeral as well and be the person leading the cortege. She had never done that before and it was a massive step. Because the family insisted that she did this, the firm quickly rustled up a uniform for her and she did it. She was magnificent. She was so proud and walked through Beeston in front of that hearse as if she had been doing it for years. As she had been so successful, she was given that additional responsibility and started to build a strong personal reputation throughout the town. Word got around that she was very dedicated and good at her job. After a further few years, after she had a short maternity break, she tried to return to work but unfortunately was not able to agree mutual terms at her old firm, and that was that; at least, it could have been.

Not many avenues were open to Julie and it would have been easy for her to enter a system that led to nowhere. After a while, however, she spotted some premises which she thought would make an ideal funeral home. With the support of people who knew her reputation and that she was a sound investment, she set up her own funeral directing business. That was five years ago and the business is now thriving, so much so that she keeps six people employed in full-time work and provides regular casual work to another four.

I told you Julie’s story to make this simple point; she is as much a role model to the young women of Beeston as I might like to think I can be. As much as we want all girls to be ambitious at school and aspire to great things, because that is the most secure route to success, those who do not can still achieve their own very worthwhile version of success if they aim to be the best at whatever they find themselves doing.

Tomorrow is International Women’s Day, and the Government are doing a range of things to mark the event. We are, very simply, celebrating all women. I hope all noble Lords will join us, and I look forward to all the contributions that will be made today, especially from the right reverend Prelate, who has chosen a debate about women to make his maiden speech, which I am sure will be very interesting. I beg to move.