Arts Council England: Funding
Caroline Dinenage Excerpts(1 year, 9 months ago)
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Dame Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your stewardship, Mr Bone, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) on securing this important debate. I will start by talking about the very difficult period during which I was culture Minister in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. It was throughout the whole covid period, and I did not get out much; I did not get to go to many operas, ballets or performances, but I did get to work very closely with the Arts Council.
I have to start by paying tribute to the Arts Council and to the leadership of Darren Henley and Nick Serota, who worked incredibly hard with the brilliant team at DCMS, led by Emma Squire, throughout the covid period. They were responsible for allocating a significant share of the £2 billion culture recovery fund. The recovery fund board was appointed swiftly, and ensured that vast sums of money were allocated very fairly and effectively at enormous pace and scale, which meant the difference between survival and closure for some of our most vital cultural institutions. Thanks to their remarkable diligence and deep understanding of the arts and culture ecosystem across the country, we avoided many of the issues that some other parts of Government faced when they were trying to dish out vast sums of cash.
As the responsible Minister, I can tell Members that once the money starts rolling out, we really do gird our loins about the potential negative media stories that might come down the track, but they did not come. There were some great attempts from some quarters of the media to excite people about some of our funding decisions—the wonderful drag queen Le Gateau Chocolat was exceptionally grateful for her slice of the cake—but on the whole, there was very little error in a massive piece of work that was done at pace and scale. The work of the Arts Council was a bright light during an otherwise very dark period, and I have lost count of the number of institutions up and down the country that have told me they felt they were saved by the culture recovery fund.
I do not envy the Arts Council its job. Trying to allocate limited funds is always a challenge, now more than ever, in desperate economic times and against the backdrop of a Government who are passionate about the potential of arts and culture to drive economic prosperity and levelling up to all corners of the country. Over the next few years, Arts Council England will invest £446 million per year in 990 organisations—the largest national portfolio ever, reaching more organisations than ever before. It was the most over-subscribed round ever, with 1,723 applications; if all of those applications had been successful, the investment would have been over £2 billion.
Among the 990 successful applications were 276 new organisations. One of those is the Hampshire Cultural Trust, which will now receive £500,000 a year. It is the first time that it has been a national portfolio organisation, and I see what a tangible impact it has on my Gosport constituency, which is an area with deep pockets of deprivation and has been long underfunded by successive Governments.
Our heritage is one of our secret weapons, but, up until now, we have not been able to harness its potential to drive investment, build communities, create opportunities and promote excellence. The newly reopened museum and gallery has been reimagined as a cultural hub, breathing new life into our high streets. The money will allow them to animate already outstanding heritage spaces and organise community-based festivals and events. It is making a difference on the ground and it will continue to do so.
The UK’s cultural sector is among the best in the world: I would say that it is the best. It represents 12% of our service exports, and its potential for our soft power is so often undervalued and underestimated. We have a huge responsibility. The Arts Council has a huge responsibility to ensure that we continue to nurture and grow it.
Culture has the power to drive forward regional economies, build communities and improve health and wellbeing. Arts Council funding has historically been focused on London and we need to ensure that culture is thriving in every pocket of England, but we will not level up the rest of the country by levelling down London. We need to harness the potential of the great cultural powerhouses of London. We must spread their tentacles and sprinkle a bit of their magic across the country in the same way as some of our museums and galleries have driven footfall.
Recently, Dippy the dinosaur went on a tour. It went to the Tank Museum in Bovington. It popped up in the nave of Norwich Cathedral, reaching a whole new audience and inspiring a new generation. The ENO has done exactly the same thing with ENO Breathe, which is its wonderful, game-changing response to covid. It is operating in 85 trusts across the country, including my own. There were some bizarre and ill-judged decisions in this funding round and I think we can all agree that the decision to both relocate the ENO and cut its funding was an ill-judged one. I am pleased that there has now been some movement on that, but there is more to do to secure its future.
Andy Slaughter
I entirely agree with what the hon. Lady has said about the ENO, but it is a one-year reprieve. After that, what it pointedly said is that it wants to
“continue to make incredible opera available for everyone, in English, with hugely subsidised tickets, completely free for Under 21s and with 10% of all seats available for £10”.
It is working in schools and hospitals as well. That will be gone in a year’s time and, over the next three years, it will lose over 400,000 people seeing opera in that way. Surely that cannot be right.
Dame Caroline Dinenage
That is absolutely the point. The ENO not only plays a huge role in the cultural status of London around the world, but the work that it has done to attract a whole new audience and to make opera accessible to all is nothing short of remarkable. I was lucky enough to attend what they call a “relaxed performance” of “It’s a Wonderful Life” just before Christmas. The place was packed with children, people with disabilities and neurodiverse people. It was just incredible to see opera being accessible to so many and building the audiences of the future.
I agree with the idea of devolving money outside of the capital, but we cannot do it by destroying some of the great cultural institutions that do so much and put us on the map. We must avoid these token gestures. We must also be aware of the regional ecosystems that are already well developed outside London before we start transplanting existing organisations out of London.
The Arts Council was born out of world war two. Here we are again, with the global aftermath of covid and a war, once again, on the edge of Europe. The Arts Council has, once again, a unique opportunity to support the innovation, creativity and resilience that make our cultural industries our British superpower. I hope that we can all work together with them to enable them to harness that opportunity.
Supporting UK Artists and Culture
Caroline Dinenage Excerpts(1 year, 11 months ago)
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Dame Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the matter of supporting UK artists and culture.
It is a huge pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. The UK is an international cultural powerhouse. Our arts and creative industries have the capacity to regenerate communities and to drive global exports, and to put a boot up the backside of our stagnant economy, but it feels like we have not always supported or nurtured our world-leading creative talent as we should as a country, or understood our arts and culture as the golden economic goose that it is.
Just look at what the sector currently contributes to the UK. Our creative industries employ 2.1 million people and contribute £116 billion to our economy each year. UK exports were worth more than £37.9 billion in 2019—12% of total UK service exports. The creative industries also help shape the UK’s image around the world. British musicians, artists, writers and actors command a global audience, while many of our cultural beacons draw millions of visitors into the UK. As soft power goes, there is simply nothing like it. That is why we must never underestimate the potential of our arts and culture, and the vital role of its people, the creators and performers, who underpin this success story.
Globally, some modern emerging economies really get this. South Korea’s creative industries have taken the world by storm, with K-pop and drama, from “Parasite” to “Squid Game”, at the forefront. What makes that even more remarkable is the fact that the language is barely spoken outside of Korea. Just as South Korea implemented industrial policy for the export of electronics, cars and chemicals, it applied a policy approach to develop its creative industries. In less than a generation, South Korea transformed from being effectively a third-world country to an industrial powerhouse and the world’s seventh largest cultural player, with its creative cultural sector making nearly $11 billion in exports and supporting 700,000 jobs last year.
Meanwhile, dedicated music or creative industry export hubs have been springing up in countries across Europe, funded by Governments and industry keen to ride the wave of this growing market. At a time when worldwide recorded music trade revenues are set to double by 2030, British music exports could increase to more than £1 billion by the end of the decade. That will require a supportive policy environment that maximises UK export potential against a backdrop of intensifying global competition.
Funds such as the music export growth scheme will be crucial, but we also need a hardcore strategy to underpin this. What do the Government have in mind? Could they look again at the idea of dedicated British music or creative industry export hubs to drive this forward, because at the moment the support is simply not good enough? A creative industries trade and investment board website has had only three posts in the past 12 months, and the Creative Industries Council has just one upcoming event over the next 12 months advertised on its website.
By its very definition, this is an innovative and agile sector. That was demonstrated during the pandemic in how some organisations swiftly pivoted to using digital to ensure that the band played on. One example is the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, which responded to the first national lockdown in 2020 with an exclusive series of live concerts streamed online. During the first six months of this series, it increased its audience by almost 30%, with 65,000 views by audiences around the world. We have digital innovation to thank for that.
Digital has completely transformed how people consume culture and driven appetites for cultural works. A recent survey showed that 81% of people think that accessing cultural works through a digital device is important to their daily lives. Despite this shift, there has not been a corresponding benefit to artists, many of whom operate as creative freelancers. That is why more than three quarters of survey respondents support the Government considering new ideas and initiatives to sustain the UK’s creative industries.
The public understand and value our culture and our creative talent. They also see the huge difference that culture can make in their local neighbourhoods. Funding the arts delivers investment in left-behind communities and aids economic regeneration. There are no two ways about it. There is evidence right across the country. For example, in Margate, thanks to the legacy of local artists such as Tracey Emin, the Turner Contemporary opened in 2011 and has contributed more than £70 million to the local economy in the last decade. This week, I will be really pleased to attend the reopening of Gosport Gallery, part of Hampshire Cultural Trust. That was a massive regeneration project funded by high street heritage action zones. We thank the Government so much for that investment, because it is breathing new life into our beleaguered high streets.
There is no doubt that the Government recognise how arts and culture can be a significant driver of levelling up, and I welcome the recognition that redistributing some of the national Arts Council spend away from London to the regions is a way to achieve that. However, I am going to urge a little bit of caution on the Minister: it needs to be done in a way that supports investments in projects and organisations that can genuinely start a snowball of growth, not as a tick-box exercise and certainly not as tokenism.
Much as I would love to see English National Opera relocate to Gosport, under the current proposals the out-of-London version will receive significantly less funding than its current form, so it will have to stop funding projects like ENO Breathe, its game-changing response to long covid. That has been operating in 85 NHS trusts across the country, including my own. The current proposal risks the work that the ENO has been doing with schools across the country, and it could stop it being able to offer free or discounted tickets to a younger audience. That work means that one in seven of its attendees is now under the age of 35. In fact, it risks the organisation becoming the opposite of what we want and the opposite of what it is—it risks it becoming an elite organisation for those who can afford to pay £300 for a ticket, albeit one outside London.
Dame Margaret Hodge (Barking) (Lab)
I am very pleased to rise under your chairship, Mr Hollobone. I congratulate the hon. Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage) on having secured this debate. I should declare an interest, in that I chair Theatre Royal Stratford East, in London. I wanted to come in on the issue of English National Opera and the cut that will mean the closure of an absolutely unique facility in London. Does the hon. Lady agree that one cannot level up by destroying excellence? We have to embrace excellence and ensure that it is enjoyed throughout the country.
Will the hon. Lady also join me in congratulating the ENO on partnering with Theatre Royal Stratford East to put on a production of “Noye’s Fludde” by Britten? We engaged a lot of young children from east London, who need as much levelling up as those elsewhere in the country, and we managed to secure out of that an Olivier award.
Dame Caroline Dinenage
The right hon. Lady makes an excellent point. The ENO has been groundbreaking in the way it has appealed to younger audiences and reached out in partnerships. It has done TikTok videos seen by hundreds of thousands of people. It has even done beatboxing in a car park. It has done virtually more than anybody to bring opera, which is often regarded as a bit of an elitist art form, to the masses and to a newer, younger audience. It will be a disaster if such organisations —not just the ENO—lose that unique identifying factor in the move. I have nothing against driving investment outside London, but we have to do that in a careful way and not as some form of crazy tokenism. I therefore ask the Minister to look again at giving the ENO more time and more resources to deliver the appropriate change and to continue its excellent work.
We also have to face the fact that we cannot rely exclusively on public funds to support the creative industries; we need new ideas. Funding and income streams across the UK remain a massively pressing issue—the Minister will know this—with most creators and performers earning less than the minimum wage. A strong copyright framework is a key element. Freelance creators and performers rely on royalties from the use of their copyright-protected works in order to earn a living, but they are currently not receiving fair remuneration when their works are copied, stored and shared digitally. I therefore ask the Minister to look at the Smart fund proposal to address that. It is suggested that in the UK it could raise up to £300 million a year for creators, performers and communities. Similar schemes already operate in 45 other countries, generating almost £1 billion a year globally. They do so by diverting a small percentage of the sales of electronic devices, which copy, store and share creative content, into a fund that is paid out to creators and local community projects, with a focus on digital creativity and skills.
The benefit of such a scheme is huge for creators. In France alone, it raised over £250 million in 2021, supporting artists and funding almost 12,000 cultural activities a year. Most importantly, there is simply no evidence that when tariffs change, device prices change, too. The potential for something similar for communities in this country is huge, and I ask the Minister to look at it. It is also supported by the Design and Artists Copyright Society, the British Equity Collecting Society, Directors UK, and the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society, which represent over 330,000 creative workers between them. Will the Minister meet representatives of the creative organisations that support the Smart fund to discuss this issue?
Our artists and creatives have a unique power. They can lift spirits and boost wellbeing, and they can regenerate communities and promote levelling up. They can drive economic prosperity and turbocharge global trade. No other sector can do all those things. No other sector has such a strong track record of delivering for the UK economy or so much future potential, so I urge the Minister to leave no stone unturned in efforts to harness that potential.
Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)
The debate can last until 5.30 pm. I am obliged to call the Front-Bench spokespersons at no later than 5.7 pm, and the guideline limits are five minutes for the Scottish National party, five minutes for His Majesty’s Opposition and 10 minutes for the Minister. Dame Caroline will then have three minutes to sum up at the end.
Six Members are seeking to contribute. To get everybody in, we will have to have a time limit of four minutes. I gently remind right hon. and hon. Members that if you wish to speak in Westminster Hall, you are meant to write to Mr Speaker in advance, but I will endeavour to get everybody in. The first speaker will be the House’s most distinguished musician, Kevin Brennan.
Dame Caroline Dinenage
I thank all right hon. and hon. Members who have taken part today. This has been a really great debate. I thank the Minister—apologies for the fact that he has had a bit of an ear-bashing. I welcome him to his role; I know that he will carry it out as he has all the others, with an enormous amount of dedication and ability.
The Minister kicked off by talking about the immense work that happened in DCMS over the pandemic. He is absolutely right—an enormous amount of blood, sweat, tears and money came out of the incredible team at DCMS over that period, and there are a number of cultural institutions that simply would not be around today had there not been that amount of work. I guess what I am saying today is that we must not lose that momentum. We must build on that.
Our arts and culture make us feel good and are good for our health and wellbeing, but they also define us—they are who we are as a nation. Even if we talk about the issue in cold hard pounds, shillings and pence, they are the cornerstone of our UK economy. As I said before, the sector makes up 12% of our service exports. The sector means business.
At the heart of the sector are the artists and creative talent who make it possible. It does not happen by magic; it happens when we support them, nurture them and encourage them. We cannot take our eye off the ball on that. Knowing that money is tight, I urge the Minister to look at some of the investment I spoke about today, such as the Smart fund—innovative ways of generating money to support our creatives—and to look again, if he can, at some of the decisions made by the Arts Council. Although I completely agree with the idea of devolving money to other parts of the UK, we do not do it by destroying cultural institutions that have already done so much to support our culture and arts.
Oral Answers to Questions
Caroline Dinenage Excerpts(5 years, 7 months ago)
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Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)
The Minister for Care (Caroline Dinenage)
That is a really excellent question. The Government are investing an extra £16 billion in that sort of primary care and prevention to make sure that we have the public health investment that helps people to tackle alcoholism and ensures that women get the breast cancer support that they need. Today, we have released a written ministerial statement responding to the inquiry on breast cancer screening.
Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)
Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)
I urge the Government to work with NHS England to provide support to women GPs who have left the workforce but want to return after caring responsibilities. They should be supported to return to practice so that patients can get the benefits of their skills and experience.
Caroline Dinenage
My right hon. Friend is right. As well as having more GPs in training than ever before, we need to attract GPs who have left the workforce back into work. In March 2017, we launched a major “return to practice” campaign that aimed to attract 500 GPs. So far, 263 have completed the scheme, and a further 266 are in train.
Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)
Oral Answers to Questions
Caroline Dinenage Excerpts(5 years, 10 months ago)
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Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab)
The Minister for Care (Caroline Dinenage)
Our breast cancer screening programme provides a world-leading service, inviting more than 2.5 million women for a test each year, detecting cancer earlier and saving lives.
Mohammad Yasin
The independent breast screening review found that a lack of clarity over when women should receive their invitations had caused the error that resulted in 67,000 women not being invited to their final breast screening. Will the Government implement the review’s recommendations and introduce guidance to clarify the ages at which women should be invited for routine screening?
Caroline Dinenage
The hon. Gentleman is right. The review found that the breast screening incident that was made public in May had arisen because of a lack of alignment between the national service specification and the way in which the programme was being run in practice. As a result, NHS England has announced a comprehensive review of cancer screening programmes, to be undertaken by Professor Sir Mike Richards. We will take account of the findings of both that review and our own breast screening review to ensure that changes improve the whole system.
Luke Hall (Thornbury and Yate) (Con)
Oral Answers to Questions
Caroline Dinenage Excerpts(6 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister for Care (Caroline Dinenage)
The Government are very keen to work collaboratively to help everyone to improve their diet, including women during pregnancy. Dietary guidance for women before, during and after pregnancy is available on NHS Choices and Start4Life, and via health professionals.
Mr Sheerman
Even with my large number of children and grandchildren, I am sure that the hon. Lady knows more about this than I do, but it is essential that pregnant women have a healthy and sensible diet. The approach on the ground is not joined up. Local authorities’ health education budgets have been under-resourced, and there is no join-up between health education and the other players.
Caroline Dinenage
The hon. Gentleman is, of course, a father and a grandfather to many, so he knows an enormous amount about this. He is absolutely right that co-ordination across the piece is absolutely vital. It is also vital that we help to protect the less advantaged to make sure that everyone is able to have the healthy diet that they need during their pregnancies. That is why we have the Healthy Start programme, which helps hundreds of thousands of pregnant women, families and children under four who live in low-income households to sustain a healthy diet.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)
The Minister for Care (Caroline Dinenage)
Women’s welfare during IVF treatment is extremely important. The regulatory framework established by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 means that IVF can be provided only by clinics licensed by the UK regulator, which must ensure that all IVF services are safe and of high quality.
Siobhain McDonagh
This year we celebrate 40 years of IVF, and more than a quarter of a million children have been successfully conceived in the UK. However, a staggering 3% to 8% of women undergoing IVF suffer from moderate to severe occurrences of the completely avoidable ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, with a shocking three deaths every 100,000 cycles. Does the Minister agree that the outdated Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act should be amended to make essential provision for the welfare of women?
Caroline Dinenage
The hon. Lady is absolutely right to talk about this. IVF has made a massive difference to families up and down this country. I know that she has worked long and hard on this particular issue, for which I thank her. Health professionals always have a duty to act in the best interests of the patients whom they care for, and fertility treatment is no exception. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority is leading work to better understand OHSS, and it will be supporting clinics to ensure that care is of the highest standard.
Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister for Care (Caroline Dinenage)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising the fact that this is National Autism Week. We are all wearing our badges with pride, and I hope that he will take part in the Back-Bench debate on this subject later today. He is right to say that girls get diagnosed later and less frequently than boys, and this is something that we are looking at very carefully as we renew our work on the autism strategy.
Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab)
Oral Answers to Questions
Caroline Dinenage Excerpts(7 years ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Caroline Dinenage)
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has regular discussions with the Minister for Women and Equalities, but the Government will not be revisiting the state pension age for women born in the 1950s who are affected by the Pensions Acts 1995, 2007 and 2011.
Emma Hardy
What encouragement are the Government giving to the 1,524 women in my constituency of Hull West and Hessle who are suffering because of the lack of notice given by this Government about changes to the state pension age?
Caroline Dinenage
The Government have already introduced transitional arrangements at a cost of £1.1 billion. The cost of reversing the Acts would be in excess of £70 billion and create an inequality between women and men.
Peter Heaton-Jones (North Devon) (Con)
What is the Minister’s view of any proposal to change legislation that would then favour women as opposed to men in pensions legislation?
Caroline Dinenage
I thank my hon. Friend for that question. I am not a legal professional, but I think that any amendment to the current legislation that creates a new inequality between men and women would unquestionably be highly dubious as a matter of law.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
Caroline Dinenage
The hon. Gentleman is very right to raise that question. Clearly, there is support on that matter across the House. However, it is also right that arrangements for the state pension system reflect welcome changes in average life expectancy and address long-standing inequalities in pension age. If we had not equalised state pension ages, women would be expected to spend more than 40% of their adult life in retirement.
Carolyn Harris (Swansea East) (Lab)
Like scores of other 1950s women, I have struggled to get any information on the availability of apprenticeships that a Minister in a Westminster Hall debate on 5 July suggested were an option for struggling 1950s women. Can the Minister confirm whether she agrees with her colleague and thinks that his suggestion of an apprenticeship was really an appropriate one for tens of thousands of women currently being denied their pensions?
Caroline Dinenage
I am delighted that the hon. Lady is considering taking on an apprenticeship, because a very large number of women over the age of 60 are. I do not think that anybody should be forced to take one on, but those who want to should be practically encouraged to do so. Between August 2016 and April 2017, the number of apprenticeship starts for people aged 60 and over was 3,500, an increase on the previous year.
Oral Answers to Questions
Caroline Dinenage Excerpts(7 years, 7 months ago)
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Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equalities (Caroline Dinenage)
We simply cannot afford to miss out on the talents of half the population. Increasing the number of women in STEM industries is vital for economic growth and to eliminate the gender pay gap. That is why we are improving the quality of STEM teaching, funding programmes such as the Stimulating Physics Network and the further maths support programme, and raising awareness of career opportunities through STEM ambassadors.
Andrew Stephenson
I recently met Katie Goodwill, an apprentice from Rolls-Royce in Barnoldswick, who in November won the gold medal in CNC turning at a 2016 world skills show. Will the Minister join me in congratulating Katie as a role model for other women and girls, inspiring them to take up STEM careers?
Caroline Dinenage
I am delighted to join my hon. Friend in congratulating his constituent, Katie Goodwill, on her fantastic achievement. Role models are so important—that is why more than 40% of our STEM ambassadors are women. They are helping to inspire the next generation, just as I am sure his constituent Katie will.
Caroline Flint (Don Valley) (Lab)
It is important to encourage women and girls into non-traditional careers, but will the hon. Lady ask the Ministers responsible for expanding apprenticeships why there are no targets for increasing the number of girls on apprenticeships in traditionally male areas? There has been a lost opportunity to challenge that.
Caroline Dinenage
I certainly will have conversations with my colleague in the Department for Education, but the right hon. Lady must remember that there are no such things as girls’ jobs and boys’ jobs, and we have to get that message across from the earliest stages of kids’ engagement with the education system. That is why we have chosen to focus on increasing the take-up of STEM subjects, which lead to the more technical apprenticeships and jobs.
Antoinette Sandbach (Eddisbury) (Con)
The engineering education scheme is a brilliant scheme for encouraging primary schoolchildren of both sexes to get interested in engineering. What can the Government do to support that scheme and promote it in schools across the country, including in my constituency?
Caroline Dinenage
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to draw attention to that scheme and others that make such a difference up and down the country. She should also be aware that we are investing an additional half a billion pounds in developing technical skills for 16 to 19-year-olds via the new T-level certificate. We are encouraging girls to take advantage of that scheme to gain valuable industry skills and experience.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
All the evidence suggests that one of the best ways of getting girls and young women to go into STEM careers is to change STEM to STEAM—that is to ensure that every young person in this country, and particularly girls, has a really strong arts education in their school. What will the Government do to ensure that schools do not cut music teaching and drama education, and ensure that every youngster gets a good arts education?
Caroline Dinenage
The Government have taken unprecedented steps to ensure that we continue to invest in those subjects, and that they continue to have massive focus in our schools. We are also publishing online guidance—“Your daughter’s future”—that helps parents to support their daughters in careers choices, so that they ensure that they include all those important subjects when making decisions about their future.
Chris Davies (Brecon and Radnorshire) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equalities (Caroline Dinenage)
I am delighted that there are now more women in work than ever before, and that the female employment rate is nearly 70%, which is the highest on record. The female employment rate has increased by more since 2010 than it increased during the three previous Parliaments combined.
Chris Davies
Recent figures show that record-breaking numbers of women are in work under this Government. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is only by creating a stronger, fairer economy that works for everyone that we will continue to see records being broken?
Caroline Dinenage
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to draw attention to that. We want to ensure that all women can fulfil their potential. That is why the Government have extended the right to flexible working and introduced shared parental leave. From September, we will double the 30 hours childcare offer.
Tracy Brabin (Batley and Spen) (Lab)
According to Maternity Action, 54,000 women are forced out of work each year due to maternity discrimination. What steps are the Government taking to address that unacceptable gender inequality?
Caroline Dinenage
Maternity discrimination and pregnancy discrimination in any form is utterly illegal and must be tackled. Women must feel that they can bring cases forward, which is why we are committed to ensuring people from all backgrounds can access justice. The introduction of the early conciliation service through ACAS has meant that people have to avoid the stress of going through an employment tribunal hearing.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
Some 54,000 women are forced out of work due to maternity discrimination. Will the Government look at reducing the extortionate fees for employment tribunals, and will the Minister specifically look at extending the time for application from three months to six months?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equalities (Caroline Dinenage)
We are consulting on proposals to extend the support that is available under the help with fees schemes. We propose that the gross monthly income threshold for a full fee remission should increase to £1,250, which is broadly the level of the national minimum wage.
Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)
Is my right hon. Friend aware that only 36% of headteachers are women? In my constituency, the Affinity Teaching Alliance, led by local headteacher Sarah Watson, is working on an innovative programme to change that. Will my right hon. Friend join me in congratulating Sarah Watson on enabling many more women to take up senior teaching posts, and does she agree that that is the best way to get the most out of our workforce?