Minoritised Women: Pay Inequality

Debate between Baroness Williams of Trafford and Baroness Jenkin of Kennington

Tuesday 19th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

Promotion, absolutely. There should be no glass ceiling, my Lords. We have broken through it and we should continue to do so.

[Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome the guidance that the noble Baroness mentioned, which the Government set out earlier this year, on how to collect ethnicity pay data for employees. I note that the equal pay alliance, of which the Fawcett Society is a member, has today published a manifesto arguing for mandatory ethnicity and disability pay gap reporting, along with mandatory action plans. Could my noble friend say what steps the Government are taking to publicise their guidance, and whether they have any plans to make the reporting of ethnicity pay data mandatory?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, mandatory reporting sounds like the perfect situation, but actually if you look into the granularity of it, as I just spoke about, it can actually be a bit of a blunt instrument that misses certain things: locational differences, regional pay differences and, as I said, there are differences within ethnicities themselves. The gender pay gap was a very simple binary reporting system, because we are talking about two groups. Ethnicity pay gap reporting involves maybe up to 19 groups, which makes it much more difficult, and for firms with small numbers it is less informative than one might think. The guidance that my noble friend was talking about was published on GOV.UK on 17 April and we have promoted it through employer engagement, including asking employer representative bodies to promote it through their networks.

Policing and Prevention of Violence against Women

Debate between Baroness Williams of Trafford and Baroness Jenkin of Kennington

Tuesday 16th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Con) [V]]

My Lords, on 7 March I received an email from a young friend saying “Please help. One of my closest friends from university is missing”, but it turned out that we were all absolutely helpless. I send her and all Sarah Everard’s friends and relations the greatest possible sympathy.

I welcome the review of the policing of the vigil, as we have to get back to the public trusting the police. I also welcome the extension of the consultation into violence against women and girls, and I am glad that so many additional people have engaged in that exercise. My question, to which the Minister has already responded in part, is: how are we to help and prioritise, so that boys can grow up with a healthy attitude towards girls and with respect for them, given how the internet has changed everything beyond recognition in such a short space of time? We have not kept up with this. Only 15 years ago, boys would have had to reach up to the top shelf; now, they have free access to hard-core porn in their pocket, broadcasting violent and rough sex and the subjugation of women, so that it now seems normal to them.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con) [V]]

My noble friend and I agree wholeheartedly on this point. The values that you give your children as they are growing up and some of the influences that they see around them shape them as adults. Tragically, there are young boys who grow up now thinking that non-fatal strangulation and violent acts upon women are part of what makes a sexual experience. We all know that sex is bound in love, and you do not show your love towards someone by practically beating them to a pulp or suffocating them. My noble friend is right to raise this question. I am very much looking forward to the online harms Bill, which places on communication services providers a duty of care for their users. That is one part. The other part is some of what children are taught in school and some of what they see at home. We are in the middle of considering the Domestic Abuse Bill. Sadly, some children think that what they see at home is the norm. We need responsibility from not only parents but online providers and society in general.

Domestic Abuse and Hidden Harms during Lockdown

Debate between Baroness Williams of Trafford and Baroness Jenkin of Kennington

Tuesday 19th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I too welcome the innovation in the Statement and congratulate the Government on their progress. However, given that so much of the violence takes place when perpetrators are under the influence of alcohol or drugs, can the Minister update the House on the use of new technologies and, most especially, on what consideration is being given to the use of tagging of offenders via compulsory sobriety orders, which I think are still being trialled around the UK?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My noble friend is right that a lot of domestic abuse happens when alcohol has been taken, hence the police and the Government are very much alert to the probability that levels of domestic abuse will increase when there are big events such as the World Cup. Of course, lockdown has also meant an increase in drinking for some people. The Home Office and the Government are very concerned for the welfare of people who may be stuck at home, notwithstanding the Prime Minister’s statement that you do not have to remain in your home if you are the victim of domestic violence. On how we can ameliorate alcohol abuse through the various things that we might require perpetrators to do, a domestic abuse protection order may specify alcohol abstinence—or there may be tagging, as my noble friend said—and on breach it becomes a criminal matter.

Health: Alcohol Abuse

Debate between Baroness Williams of Trafford and Baroness Jenkin of Kennington

Tuesday 21st January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Con)]

My Lords, all the evidence shows that when people have the right information, they make better choices. Most people are not aware, for example, that a slice of cake has the same number of calories as a glass of wine. All food and drink products except alcohol must have nutritional information on the packaging. Given that these are empty calories, and given the rise in obesity and related diseases, do the Government have any proposals to change this?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

Under EU regulations, companies do not have to put the calorie content on any drinks with an alcohol volume above 1.2%. I utterly agree with my noble friend that, if people knew how many calories they were consuming in just a glass of wine, they might think twice about how many glasses of wine or other drinks to have. A fact for today is that some canned cocktails contain the equivalent of six Krispy Kreme doughnuts’ worth of calories.