International Women’s Day

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Thursday 5th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

I think we have made important progress in that regard, particularly under the present Government but previously as well. For women under the age of 40, the gender pay gap has all but disappeared, and when we disaggregate the overall data, we see that progress has been made. As the hon. Gentleman says, it is worrying that the gap has not disappeared completely, but, as I am sure he knows, that has much to do with some of the choices that women are making about how they want to lead their lives, which they have an absolute right to do, and also with some of the choices that they are making early in their educational careers. We need to ensure that they are fully aware of the implications of those choices.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

The right hon. Lady said that the pay gap for women aged 50 and over had increased, and suggested that that might be partly to do with choices that women make. Is the enormous increase in unemployment among members of that group, compared with the decrease in unemployment in every other cohort, a result of choices that they have made?

[Maria Miller]

I think the hon. Lady misheard me. I referred to women over the age of 40, and I did not say that the gap had increased. However, she is right in one respect. I am sure that there are many reasons for the pay gap to continue, and I think that she and I share a desire for the position to change. I shall say more about that later.

--- Later in debate ---

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

I have been reflecting on the function of Back-Bench debates. It is important that we get things out of them rather than just listen to ourselves. This is a debate about an issue on which there is not an enormous difference between parties. The first task of such debates is to move culture on; the second is to do things and get allies to change things; and the third is to advance policy.

On shifting our culture in relation to the role of women, I want to give the media some faint praise. It is great that the BBC has aired the documentary about the rape and murder of a woman in India. It is deeply shocking that the documentary has been banned in India and utterly horrifying that Mukesh Singh, who was responsible for the murder, suggests that women are more responsible for rape because they go out late at night and look pretty, as though men are helpless in the face of how women look. We can use this Chamber to make it clear to each other, the UK media and India that that attitude to women is unacceptable, that it damages the reputation of India internationally, that we are standing up against it and that we are proud that we have shown the documentary in the UK.

The media have done another helpful thing in relation to women and politics. Michael Cockerell’s recent programme about this House started with two young women MPs. It was very important to be able to see that the activists and Members in this House who represent constituencies are not just fusty old guys in suits—I speak as a fusty old woman in a suit—but represent some of the different parts of our society. It is a failure in democracy that people are becoming less committed to believing that it is the best way to run a country or, as Churchill put it, the worst form of Government except for all the others. People feel less comfortable about it and I think that one of the ways in which we can make them feel more comfortable is by letting them see people like them in this Chamber. It is a big challenge for all of us to make sure that the diversity of all our communities is represented in Parliament.

When Mr Speaker was in the Chair, he challenged us to name women whose portraits should be in this place. I nominate Baroness Ros Howells from the other place, who did so much, following the fire that killed so many teenagers in Deptford, to bring that evil murder to light and get justice for the community. Perhaps Mr Speaker will read Hansard and commission a portrait of her.

I started by talking about the rape and murder in India. We have to focus on how many women are murdered, because it is a terrible problem across the world and in the UK. The recent Femicide Census showed that 694 women had been killed by men over four years and that 46% of them were killed by men they loved.

[Mary Macleod]

Does the hon. Lady agree that domestic abuse statistics in the UK are still intolerable? Two women a week still get killed in the UK by a partner or former partner.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

Yes, I do—that is absolutely horrifying—and I am really worried that the reduction in quality refuge provision for women who are at risk means that more women will be murdered.

As I have said, we should not just shift our culture and understanding, but change things. I invite every Member to vote on Tuesday week for a real change for a very vulnerable group of women: domestic workers who are grossly exploited by their employers. The other place has tabled an amendment to the Modern Slavery Bill and we have an opportunity to support it when it comes back to this House. I am absolutely certain that the Government have no intention of doing that, but following this debate we could decide that our commitment to those women—bold, brave women who have their passport taken away and are expected to sleep on the kitchen floor and, in some cases, to work for 24 hours for no money—is more important than our commitment to our party Whip. If we did that, we would demonstrate that this debate expresses solidarity among women—because, overwhelmingly, domestic workers are women and they are enslaved here in Britain—that we will not put up with it and that we will be prepared to stick out our sharp elbows and make a difference for that group of women.

As I have said, the third role of Back-Bench debates is to advance policy. Over the past few years I have been banging on about older women—a category that I never particularly expected to get into, but it crept up on me and bit me on the bum. It is a real issue that the peak earning point for men comes when they are in their 50s, while the peak earning point for women comes when they are about 40. The narrowing of the pay gap is being achieved not by Government policy, but by history, because, although it has narrowed for younger women, it is enormously wider for older women.

It is great for Government Members to say, as the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan) has, “Look at all these people we’ve taken out of tax,” but if we look at women’s income, we will see that the majority of them have not benefited from that. The average pay of women entrepreneurs—lone, self-employed women—is £9,600, according to the Office for National Statistics. That group of women has not benefited one jot from the increase in personal allowance.

[Emily Thornberry]

Is it not also right that, if the minimum wage was raised to a living wage of £7.65 outside London and £8.80 in London, 1 million more women than men would benefit from it?

[Fiona Mactaggart]

Absolutely—my hon. Friend is quite right.

After the election of 101 Labour women in 1997, I did a piece of work about how much difference was made by having a lot of women in Parliament. One of the most obvious differences was a shift from the wallet to the purse. Fiscal decisions made by that Government hugely increased the income of women and, to a lesser extent, benefited men. The problem is that precisely the opposite has happened under the present Government. I am really sad about that. I do not believe that that was intended by Government women and I want them to be allies in trying to remedy the problem.

I want to talk specifically about older women and work, because there is a real crisis about keeping women in work. One statistic that is burnt on my brain is the fact that two thirds of the people who work beyond retirement age are women. Two thirds of those women earn entry-level wages, while two thirds of the men, who are the other third of people who work beyond retirement age, are on top-level wages. The story is that the guys keep going because they are enjoying themselves—they have chauffeurs, and there are all the nice things about being on the board—but women continue to work because their families need the money.

In public services, we do not have an intelligent way of keeping women in touch with the workplace. I praise the Government for appointing Dr Ros Altmann to look at the needs of older workers. I am very glad that she is about to produce a report that, for example, will look at women and the menopause. From talking to organisations such as the Royal College of Nursing and the National Union of Teachers, I know that the people for whom they are taking employment cases are women in their 50s and 60s who have been managed or pressed out of their careers. As one woman in my constituency said, “What happens is that you are always first in the queue for redundancy and last in the queue for a new job.” It is very striking that our jobcentres do not make enough of a difference for such women. The Work programme has found sustained employment for just over 10% of the women over 50 referred to it, which is much lower than the level for men of the same age group and lower than the level for every other group. We do not have an intelligent strategy to help to keep older women in the work force.

What is worse is that one reason why older women come out of the work force is that we are the default carers, as other Members have said. We not only make sure that there is breakfast cereal on the table, but we look after the children, the grandchildren, the elderly relatives and our husbands when they have a sudden illness. Yet we do not have proper policies to ensure that a women who suddenly has to do unexpected caring can have a period of adjustment in her employment to work out whether the person she is caring for is going to die, which means that she could go back to work at that point, or whether they will have long-term caring needs. We do not have a policy on adjustment leave in the UK—some individual employers do, but the majority do not—and it seems to me a no-brainer that the Government should legislate to provide for such leave.

The Government should also legislate to enable women who take time out to stay in touch with the workplace. When they have to leave to look after someone, they lose contact with the workplace and cannot find help to get back into it. In a recent e-mail to me, Ms Altmann wrote:

“I would like to see special programmes introduced to help women carers (and male carers…) back into the workplace after they have taken time out, or more flexible working to allow them to combine work with caring.”

The Government may have to incentivise employers to do that, but it is a no-brainer: if we want to use all the talent that exists in our community, we need to let women make such adjustments.

The problem with policies made when women are not in the room is that women are regarded as “not men”—as though their lives were the same as men’s lives when actually they just are not. For example, women’s prisons are very ineffectual at helping women to rehabilitate themselves. Why? Because they think that work is the best form of rehabilitation. That is absolutely true for men, but the best form of rehabilitation to prevent women from reoffending is being able to look after their children. If a woman is given the chance to be reunited with her kids and to look after them, she is enormously less likely to offend. Yet despite all the insights of the Corston report, we do not have a national programme to ensure that that happens for every woman, which is just sad.

That is an outcome of not ensuring that women can think through every bit of policy. In Back-Bench debates, we can criticise policy and say that we have better ideas, but we need to be on the Cabinet Committees and in on every decision. If we were, instead of women being treated as men who menstruate, we could treat them in accordance with the reality of their lives, and we could devise policies to ensure that we employ women’s talents in the work force, use women’s ability to care for our families and have a society in which women play the role of which they are absolutely capable, but which they cannot currently play.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Gillan]

I very much hope so. We need to pay more attention to this. My hon. Friend may know that I have been a great supporter of mandatory reporting of sexual abuse for a long time, because of the efforts of my constituent Tom Perry. I think this falls into a similar category, and I hope we make good progress.

The right hon. Member for Cynon Valley entered the House in 1984. I think she is the longest-serving Member in the Chamber at the moment, and I am probably the second-longest-serving Member. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil) makes a comment from a sedentary position. I am certainly the Mother of the Government Benches in this debate, although I am not sure how much good that does. In the 23 years I have been in Parliament, I have seen an awful lot of changes: changes that have been good and changes that I am surprised have not happened. Sadly, we still have an awfully long way to go at home and abroad before women truly have equal roles and responsibilities in politics, public life and business, and have true equality. I join my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Mrs Spelman) in calling for the implementation of the report she referred to in her contribution.

I hope we can build on what I and colleagues in the 90s originally called the “mainstreaming” of equality issues in legislation and in this House. It is sad that today, all these years later, we are having to contemplate setting up a Select Committee to deal with this. But as we have not mainstreamed gender issues in our legislation and in the activities of this House and in the wider world, I add my voice in support of a Select Committee of this nature, as I would support the calls for Baroness Chalker to be immortalised in bronze, in oils or something else entirely. It is important to remember, Madam Deputy Speaker, that in my time in this House I saw the first female Speaker, in the form of Betty Boothroyd. I am second to none in my admiration for the contribution that that woman made in the Chair. Our two female Deputy Speakers also make an excellent contribution to this place. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”]

May I just bang the drum a little bit for my party? I am pleased to say that Baroness Shepherd was in fact the first Minister with specific responsibilities for women’s issues in Government. Time moves on and we seem to forget that both the Labour party and the Conservative party—with other parties, I would admit—have tried to forge the way forward for women. When I was looking at some background papers for this debate, I was particularly pleased to see that under this Government all the FTSE 100 companies have at least one female board member. There are more women in work—they now number some 14.4 million—than ever before. Colleagues have mentioned other firsts, but I would like to mention one close to my heart, which is the Right Rev. Libby Lane becoming our first Church of England bishop. That is a milestone. Wing Commander Nikki Thomas this year became the first woman to command an RAF fast jet squadron. I remember when I was doing my armed forces and parliamentary fellowship with the RAF that much was made of Jo Salter, who was our first RAF fast jet pilot. It is good to see women taking their place in the front line, quite rightly, and we should continue to allow that to happen.

I am proud to have been the first female Secretary of State for Wales, and I am pleased to be joined on these Benches by two other colleagues who have served as full Cabinet Members. It is right that we need to have more women progressing up the political ladder and that they have the opportunity to make a contribution to this country, particularly at Cabinet level. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friends the Members for Basingstoke (Maria Miller) and for Meriden (Mrs Spelman) who both made very valuable contributions to the government of this country.

These debates are not new to me. In fact, on 7 March 1996, as the Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Education and Employment with responsibility for women’s issues under Baroness Shepherd—what a long title that was!—I was able to introduce the debate on international women’s day. It was, I believe, for a Conservative the first debate on the Floor of the House in Government time. It is sad that we have gone backwards, having to apply to the Backbench Business Committee to have this debate, and that it had been relegated to Westminster Hall. Mainstreaming of this matter should mean that the Government of the day, of whatever complexion, secure this debate on or around international women’s day on the Floor of the House every year. It should enter the political lexicon.

When I introduced that debate, I had recently returned from Beijing where I had led the UK delegation at the UN conference on women. Baroness Chalker was alongside me, again fighting the good fight, as was Baroness Browning, who was then the Member for Tiverton and Honiton. I have to say that I greatly miss Baroness Browning in this House. Among her other nicknames from male colleagues she was often referred to, in a friendly fashion, as Boudicca. At least Boudicca is immortalised in public art in a bronze not far from here. Perhaps we could do with a few more women outside among the bronzes that decorate our city.

We were in Beijing to consider the progress made on women’s issues since 1985 and negotiate the very large document on the global Platform for Action. We had taken 18 months to prepare for the conference, working with the most amazing women’s organisations and non-governmental organisations, including the Equal Opportunities Commission, which was headed that year by Kamlesh Bahl, and the Women’s National Commission. They put in the most tremendous work.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

Does the right hon. Lady share my regret about the abolition of the Women’s National Commission?

[Mrs Gillan]

I think, as with everything, time moves on. Not least, devolution has broken up what used to be the Equal Opportunities Commission of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in the days when I was responsible for it. However, there is still a requirement for organisations that represent equal opportunities, and so perhaps in that sense I do join the hon. Lady in regretting it.

The Beijing conference was inspirational. There were 17,000 participants and 30,000 activists. The NGOs were based some way out of Beijing, and there was inclement weather. Many of these women and champions of women attended the conference in some of the most amazingly awful conditions of mud and deprivation because they were so desperate to pursue their single purpose of gender equality and the empowerment of women.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden mentioned, this is the 20th anniversary of the Beijing conference. The UN has given its main campaign the title “Empowering Women, Empowering Humanity: Picture It!” with “Make it happen” as the subtitle. The platform for action was the most progressive blueprint ever for advancing women’s rights. UN Women says that even 20 years later, the Beijing declaration and Platform for Action remain a powerful source of guidance and inspiration. With no fewer than 189 Governments involved in its drafting, one can imagine what was involved. The civil servants on my team spent many hours, including through the night, fine-tuning the document so that we could all sign up to it. In many countries, the tenets it set out have proved to be a platform for improvements for women. Around the world, UN Women says that more women and girls than at any previous point in time now serve in political office, are protected by laws against gender-based violence, and live under constitutions guaranteeing gender equality. I would say, however, that no country has yet finished the agenda. I really hope that in this 20th year since the declaration we can give more impetus to progressing the critical areas of concern that were set out. I hope that in winding up this debate or in any declarations that are made on 8 March the Minister will ensure that the Government set out what they are going to do to build on the platform for action.

In the mission statement of the declaration, we stated that one of the objectives was the

“full realization of all human rights and fundamental freedoms of all women”

and was essential for the empowerment of women. I want to explore this a little further in the light of propositions that are being made to change our own human rights legislation and our relationship with the European Court of Human Rights. I declare an interest in that I am a member of the Council of Europe and serve as vice-president of the Political Affairs and Democracy Committee in that capacity. I am today seeking assurances that we will not be taking any action that would weaken the protections afforded to British citizens and, in the context of this debate, particularly women.

For example, one of the proposals is to limit the reach of human rights cases in the UK so that British armed forces overseas are not subject to persistent human rights claims that undermine their ability to do their job and keep us safe. That sounds very sensible and something we could all agree with. However, this change could prevent, for example, a case that was brought recently under article 2 of the European convention on human rights, which enabled the tragic death by suicide of a female Royal Military Police officer after reporting that she had been raped in Germany by two colleagues to be re-examined in a fresh inquest. That re-examination allowed the full circumstances of the background to her suicide to be taken into account, and the Army has now introduced a special code of practice exclusively to deal with blue-on-blue rape and sexual assaults. We have to ask whether, if we limited the reach of human rights cases to the UK, it would be possible to pursue that case.

The current situation on human rights has afforded much needed justice in many cases involving women. The tragic case of my namesake, Cheryl James, who was found dead at the Princess Royal barracks in Deepcut, has taken a long path since her death in 1995 to July 2014 when Liberty successfully used article 2 of the ECHR—the right to life, which includes the right to an effective and independent investigation when there is a state involvement in the death—to gain the High Court order for the original verdict to be quashed and a fresh inquest to take place.

Let us consider modern problems. Liberty persuaded Dorset police not to return intimate photographs of sexual abuse victims to their abuser by using article 8 of the ECHR, which provides for a right to private life. If any proposal is going to restrict the use of human rights laws to the most serious cases, this sort of action and protection may be prevented and may be unable to be brought. The photographs of the abused children were just family photographs—they were in swimsuits enjoying themselves—but their potential return to their abuser on his mobile phone after he came out of prison added to their feelings of exploitation and powerlessness. I would be very concerned if this sort of protection, and the means whereby it could be invoked, were to disappear. I hope that no changes that we make to human rights law would prevent what I consider to be an important plank in the protection of women and children in this country.

As we celebrate women and their achievements here and throughout the world, I hope we can use the 20th anniversary of Beijing to refresh our efforts to achieve the vision we aspired to for a world where women and girls can exercise their freedoms and choices, and realise all their rights. I hope that we would not contemplate a narrower set of laws that may be regressive and may not allow future generations of women either here or abroad to be fully protected from the sorts of circumstances that I outlined in the latter part of my speech.