Geraint Davies
Main Page: Geraint Davies (Independent - Swansea West)Department Debates - View all Geraint Davies's debates with the Home Office
(13 years, 5 months ago)
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Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
My right hon. Friend mentioned in passing the fact that 65% of public sector workers are women, so they will be hit disproportionately. In my constituency, some 40% of workers are in the public sector. Does she accept, given what she has just said, that further cuts will tend to generate more domestic violence because of the economic pressure put on family life? There is a disproportionate impact on women not just economically but through domestic violence and the lack of funding to support increasing demand for services at a time when there are also cuts to the police budget. That is terrible for communities such as the one I represent.
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend is right. There are increased pressures on services, as well as cuts to many resources. Women workers in public services are feeling the strain, too.
The Minister for Women and Equalities will doubtless tell us about the good work that she and the Minister for Equalities are doing to improve women’s lives, which we welcome, but we believe that we need to go further and do more. We want to support them in their work, but we need them to do much more than they are doing now. We need them to start standing up for women in the Government. We will back them if they do, and we will support them even if their colleagues do not. However, they must act. They cannot just stand on the sidelines. They have a duty to stand up for women in this country, and to get in there and fight. They need to undertake some proper, independent research on the impact of the cuts and their reforms on women. They should use the work that has been done by women’s organisations in Coventry with the university of Warwick, because if they do not, we will. We will work with local groups and institutions to monitor what is happening to women across the country.
The truth is that equality for women is not just about women, it is about everyone. A fairer society for women and an economy that uses women’s talents is better not just for families but for everybody. I have always believed that every generation of women would do better than the last, have more opportunities and choices, break through more glass ceilings and challenge more conventions. However, I fear for our daughters and granddaughters as a result of what the Government are doing. We owe it to them to further the march for women’s equality and not to be the generation of women who turn back the clock.
Mrs May
In the last three months, the increase in employment for women was greater than the increase in employment for men. Opposition Members, including the hon. Lady and the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), have said today that what the Government are doing is wrong. We hear that in debate after debate. Opposition Members stand up and tell us that the cuts in virtually every area of public sector expenditure are wrong. If they were in government, they would be making cuts. In that case, the question for them is where they would make those cuts.
Geraint Davies
Does the right hon. Lady accept that the deficit was the price we paid to avoid depression? The choice for the Government is whether to make deep and savage cuts that will stop growth, and to increase VAT, which will stoke inflation, or to focus on growth and make more balanced savings over time, and, obviously, to make the bankers pay their fair share. In the case of the police, the Opposition would cut 12% rather than 20%. That is a more balanced approach that would not undermine growth or increase the deficit in the process.
Mrs May
The premise on which the hon. Gentleman began his intervention was incorrect, because he failed to recognise that we are dealing with a structural deficit. This is not about the world recession, but about the structural deficit that was built up by the previous Labour Government.
Geraint Davies
The Institute for Fiscal Studies has shown that something like a third of the deficit was excess investment—
