Women (Government Policies)

Emma Reynolds Excerpts

Wednesday 8th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Emma Reynolds (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)]

I am sure that Members on both sides of the House will agree that discrimination and prejudice have blighted women’s lives for many decades and centuries, and we will all have stories of how our own families have been affected by it. In the 1950s, my grandmother, who was a midwife, was nearly forced out of work purely because she got married and started having children. In the 1970s, when my mother was pregnant with me, she was sacked because she was pregnant. She took the case to court, but was unsuccessful. Furthermore, it was only 20 years ago that marital rape was criminalised. It is incredible and horrific to think that until 1991 a man could rape his wife without her having any recourse to justice.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) said, much progress has been made in recent decades. However, it has been hard-fought, and I worry that it is fragile. Much more remains to be done. Girls do better at school and university than boys, but that is not filtering through into the labour market. Women earn less than men, and women own less than men. Men dominate the FTSE 100 companies, and one in four women at some point in their life will experience domestic violence. I also have to say that for every five men in this Parliament there is only one woman.

The case for gender equality is often expressed in the language of fairness and social justice, but there is also a powerful economic case for gender equality. It simply does not make sense to under-utilise the potential of half the population. A gender-equal society is not just fairer; it will be stronger, too. My worry is that the Government are complacent about the progress that has been made and that their policies might set us back years, or perhaps decades. The devastating economic impact of the Government’s policies on women is particularly distressing. Let us face it, the Government did not get off to a great start. This time last year, they failed to do an equalities impact assessment of their emergency Budget.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford set out, the deficit reduction measures are going to hit women much harder than men. Just as I am worried that the midlands and the north will be less able to cope with the economic gamble of this Government’s deep cuts, with the private sector less likely to take up the slack in those areas than in the south, I am also deeply concerned that women’s employment and pay will be disproportionately hit by the Government’s policies. Of the 500,000 jobs estimated to be lost in the public sector, an estimated 65% to 80% will be women’s jobs. It is not clear that the loss of jobs held by women in the public sector will be offset by an increase in the private sector. Therefore, the employment gap between men and women is likely to widen. Moreover, the gender pay gap is also likely to widen, as the private sector has a much higher pay gap than the public sector, with men earning over 20% more than women.

[Dame Anne Begg]

I have to give my hon. Friend the bad news that in some areas the gender pay gap is even wider. In my constituency the gender pay gap is 30%, partly because a lot of the men have high-paid jobs in the oil industry, whereas the women generally work in the service industry.

[Emma Reynolds]

The gender pay gap has been a problem for decades. Even though we legislated in this country in the 1970s, there has not been enough movement to narrow the pay gap.

Let me turn to the commitment in the coalition programme to

“promote equal pay and take a range of measures to end discrimination in the workplace.”

When the Minister winds up, I would like her to explain exactly how the actions that I have described will further that commitment. I fear that we will go backwards, not forwards.

The benefit cuts and changes also have a disproportionate effect on women. I support the eventual equalisation of the pension age for men and women, but again, we have seen the Government’s total disregard for the 500,000 women aged between 56 and 57 who, at very short notice, will have to wait two years longer before receiving their pensions. Also, cuts to child benefits and the working family tax credit, which involve help for child care costs, will make it harder for women to combine parenthood and work. For women with children, those benefits do not create dependence, but give them independence and a real choice of whether to stay at home or work part time or full time. Now that choice will only get harder.

[Nicky Morgan]

My constituents have told me that one of the problems with the current system of tax credits—and the reason why the universal credit is needed—is that a number of women in receipt of tax credits found that if they worked even one or two hours extra, they immediately started to lose more benefits than they were gaining. The point is that we want to encourage women’s independence, as the hon. Lady says, which means the ability to be flexible and take on more work if it is available, yet the current tax credits system seems somehow to stop that.

[Emma Reynolds]

I share the hon. Lady’s sentiments, but I do not agree with her conclusions. The child care element of the working tax credit is particularly important, especially for parents on middle incomes, yet it is being cut quite substantially. Those cuts in particular will reduce parents’ opportunities to work if they want to. I want both parents to have the choice of working, if they so desire, as well as balancing family commitments. Indeed, a civilised society should provide that framework, so that both parents can, if they want to, combine work with parenthood. Again, this is not just about fairness; it also makes economic sense.

However, this Government are guilty not just of attacking women’s economic empowerment, but in their work on tackling violence against women. We have seen many ill-thought-through policies that seem to be targeted at women. For example, this time last year, when considering anonymity for defendants, the Government chose to introduce it for rape cases. I know that they have dropped the idea since, but why choose rape, a crime predominantly committed against women? We also had an interesting debate about whether the Government should increase the plea bargaining discount, and again, the crime chosen to illustrate this was rape. Again, why choose a crime that affects more women than men?

I also have deep concerns about the Government’s reluctance to do anything concrete about the modern slave trade. Although I am pleased that they have finally seen the light and signed up to the EU human trafficking directive, I fear that it took them so long that they are now behind, rather than leading from the front, blinded by a degree of Euroscepticism. I also want to know what the Government are preparing to do ahead of the Olympic games next year. Unfortunately, international sporting events are magnets for pimps and traffickers. I would like to know what specific measures the Government are putting in place to stem the probable increase in trafficking due to the Olympic games. There is also much evidence that the national referral mechanism used to identify victims of trafficking is not fit for purpose. The UK Border Agency is in control of the mechanism, often treating women as illegal immigrants instead of victims—that seems to be the assumption made even before the women involved are interviewed.

In opening, I talked about the discrimination that my grandmother and mother suffered, and the progress made since. I sincerely hope that this Government will start to take seriously the risk that their policies will make women’s life chances worse, not better, for the next generation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Emma Reynolds]

Does the hon. Lady think that the policy that the present Government have just abandoned of increasing the discount from 33% to 50% would have had an effect on the number of defendants pleading guilty? The Sentencing Council did not.

[Mrs Mensch]

I believe that it might have had an effect, but I also believe that the root cause is the fact that sentences overall for violence against women, rape and sexual offences are far too low, and that if necessary the House should direct the Sentencing Council to increase those overall sentences. In that wider context, the proposal might have made more sense. Let me point out to the hon. Lady that the entire left-wing press, including The Guardian, roundly condemned her right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition for his naked opportunism over the issue of sentencing and rape. As with rape crisis centres, it is this Government who are trying to do something about it.

Since December the number of mixed-sex wards has fallen by some 77%, and many women are no longer having to suffer that indignity. There is more investment in the NHS. Sure Start centres are protected under law from arbitrary closure by local authorities, which now have great flexibility to spend their budgets as they wish. Extra intervention means that there will be new health workers to help mothers to breastfeed, and to help the most vulnerable families. Sure Start is being targeted at the women who need it most.

When we look at the overall reforms of the economy, universal credit, the lifting of women out of poverty and the creation of opportunities, we see a Government who are not anti-women but, in fact, relentlessly pro-women, and who are doing all the things that the Labour party failed to do during its 13 years in office. Let me say to Labour Members that if they are not satisfied with the position of women in our society today, they have only themselves to blame.

On the issue of women as on so many other issues, it is the two parties in the coalition Government who are taking action and making progress. When an Opposition Member gets to their feet and levels with the House and the country about where precisely they would make some cuts, they might begin to have some credibility.

--- Later in debate ---

[Harriett Baldwin]

rose—

[Emma Reynolds]

rose—

[Claire Perry]

If they are, we are all ears. [Interruption.] Tell us! The only thing we have heard is that they would restore child benefit for families with a median income of £75,000 a year. I do not think that that is fair or progressive; nor do hard-pressed working women and women on benefits in my constituency. They think it is outrageous—and that is the only Opposition policy we have heard today that would deviate from what the present Government are doing.

I shall give way first to my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin), and then to the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds).

[Claire Perry]

My hon. Friend is right. Moreover, despite the state of the public finances—for every £4 we spend, £1 is borrowed—Labour would like to borrow that money from other countries in order to restore my hon. Friend’s child benefit, thereby putting that debt round the necks of all of our children and grandchildren. How can that be a rational policy? It is sheer, rank hypocrisy—and on that point I will happily give way to the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East.

[Emma Reynolds]

I thank the hon. Lady for such a kind introduction. The Government plan to fund the deficit reduction through a proportion of 20% tax rises and 80% spending cuts, whereas our plans are for 60% to come from tax rises and 40% from spending cuts. Does she accept that because women earn less and own less, the spending cuts being introduced by her Government hit women much harder than ours would have done?