Women’s Contribution to the Economy

Debate between Caroline Spelman and Stephen Metcalfe

Thursday 6th March 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Spelman]

The hon. Lady and I share a great interest in the role of female entrepreneurs in our regional economy. If she waits a short while, I will come to exactly that point.

Charities are also running initiatives, such as Oxfam’s gendered enterprise and markets programme. Oxfam works with vulnerable farmers, especially women and mothers, helping them grow and sell more by supporting them to establish producer groups. In that way, female farmers can pool their resources and sell their produce in bulk to get a better price, enabling them to increase income and gain equal status in their homes and communities.

A couple of weeks ago, during the recess, I saw another example of an initiative to empower women when I visited Bangladesh in my capacity as vice-president of Tearfund. The charity is working in partnership with other non-governmental organisations to undertake capacity-building programmes in flood and drought-prone parts of the country, as well as empowering women in village communities to take over and improve their own situation, not necessarily by giving money directly but by building capacity. I saw women there being taught to use kitchen gardens to grow vegetable crops that they would otherwise pay a great deal to buy imported from India. It was a joy to behold the light that shone out of their eyes and their pride in improving their circumstances. They might be illiterate, but their daughters will be able to get a university education, and the resources that they had secured through better farming were ploughed into the needs of their local community.

I also discovered in Bangladesh the role played by the central bank there. Its governor, Atiur Rahman, has at heart a desire to make his country more sustainable and to help the women there become more sustainable. He has granted a mobile bank account to every female garment worker in the country for next to no charge, meaning that those women can return their income directly to mum and dad back home in the village without a middleman taking a cut. Those are examples of creative ways to ensure in developing countries that women play a much more active role in their economy.

As for the UK, Office for National Statistics figures published last month show that female employment in the UK is at its highest level since records began. It now stands at 62.7%, compared with 53% in 1971. Women now account for 46% of the UK work force. Figures from January 2014 also show that 20.4% of FTSE 100 directors are female, compared with 12.5% in February 2011. Progress is being made in those areas, but there is definitely still further to go.

Turning to my regional interest, which I share with my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Lorely Burt), I am disturbed to read that there are serious geographic imbalances in female participation in this country. The lowest employment rates for women are in Birmingham, where the rate is 50%; Nottingham, where it is 54%; Coventry, where it is 55%; and Leicester, where it is 55%. That means that they have a higher than average proportion of women not actively employed in the economy. I fully understand that that might be linked to the ethnic make-up of those cities, but none the less, it is disappointing to find that the midlands cities, which are at the heart of the manufacturing renaissance that we are enjoying, have such low levels of female participation compared with other cities.

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

I know all too well the importance of women in the economy, having worked in my family business for the last 25 years with my wife, my sister, and the founder of the company—my mother, who built up the business. It strikes me from what my right hon. Friend says that not enough young women are going into the workplace and aspiring to do well. Does she think that it should be incumbent on successful women to act as role models by going into schools, inspiring people and telling them that there is no limit to their aspiration and should be no barriers to it?

[Mrs Spelman]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, and I agree that the role modelling to women needs to start really young—as early as primary school—before girls are put off entering certain professions that they somehow do not see as being open to them. I will warm to that theme.

In September 2013, the ONS published a report on women in the labour market that established that there were important gender differences between different occupations. For example, 82% of those employed in caring or leisure occupations are women; by contrast, just 10% of those in skilled trade occupations are women. Some industries have a good gender split. For example, in February figures from the General Medical Council showed that 48.8% of registered general practitioners are female. A report published by the Law Society in May 2013 showed that approximately 47% of solicitors with practising certificates are women, compared with a figure of 39% in 2002. That report stated that for the past 20 years women have accounted for more than half of new entrants to the legal profession, so the proportion of women in the profession is set to increase in the foreseeable future. According to the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, women account for 49% of the work force in the creative advertising sector, and according to the Performing Rights Society for Music, the music licensing organisation, nearly a third of last year’s top 100 albums were by women artists or groups fronted by women.

However, one sector that has traditionally been heavily male-dominated is manufacturing and engineering. It is a sector that is very dear to my heart, as Jaguar Land Rover’s two factories are very important to constituents in both Solihull and Meriden. There is no doubt that the current manufacturing renaissance is a fantastic opportunity for more women to enter the manufacturing sector. However, the growth in manufacturing has provoked a skills shortage, which could be addressed—at least in part—by encouraging more women into manufacturing and engineering jobs.

Jaguar Land Rover, our local employer, is certainly seizing the opportunity by running a programme called “Young Women in the Know” for year 10 and 11 students, to encourage more women to consider careers in manufacturing and engineering. It is a week-long programme that enables young women to find out more about the sector. Students visit JLR’s manufacturing, design and engineering sites; they meet female apprentices, graduates and managers; and they participate in work placements. Information is also provided in all our local schools about the apprentice and graduate schemes run by JLR, and there are also workshops for job applicants and work on interview techniques, to help female applicants to understand what is required in an interview situation and to give them the confidence to go for it. By the end of 2013, 200 young women had participated in the courses, which had increased interest in engineering and design careers at JLR by 35%.

There is a parallel “Girls in the Know” programme for girls in years 5 and 6—the top of primary school. That is very important. When we had a cross-party round table of all the MPs in this House whose constituencies are affected in some way by the JLR supply chain, one of the important points that emerged is that girls are put off at an early age from thinking of going to work in the automotive industry, in manufacturing generally and in engineering specifically, despite the fact that the key qualifying subject for engineering is maths. These days, engineering is not all about heft; it is actually about being a really good mathematician.