Women and Work

Gillian Keegan Excerpts

Wednesday 14th March 2018 Westminster Hall

[Gillian Keegan (Chichester) (Con)]

Thank you, Sir David, for the opportunity to speak. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean) on this debate. This is an important subject that we need to continue to talk about.

Historically, women have been under-represented across many employment sectors. My experience throughout my 30-year corporate business career affirms that, as more often than not I was the only woman in the room in every business meeting, in every country I worked in—and that was a lot of meetings. I am happy to say that the tide is turning. In 2010, the 30% Club, founded by Helena Morrissey, who is Chichester born and bred, launched a campaign to get a minimum of 30% women on FTSE 100 boards. Today, that goal is close to being achieved, as women make up 28% of all directors of FTSE 100 companies. That progress is something to celebrate; however, there is still a lot more to be done to support women in the world of work.

Women commonly juggle multiple commitments and disproportionately take on family obligations, whether that is raising children or caring for elderly relatives. Part of the issue is the long-standing social constructs that we as a society have put in place. It is just as important to look at the roles of men at home and as it is to look at their role in the workplace. When the women and work all-party parliamentary group looked at this, the expert panel felt that improving the affordability of shared parental leave would help to create a cultural shift, by encouraging more men to share caring roles. One proposal was for shared parental leave to be paid at a greater rate than statutory maternity leave, to ensure shared parental leave is truly affordable.

In many countries, extended paternity leave schemes are already in place and are deemed to be a success. For example, in Iceland, both parents are entitled to three months of statutory leave and a further three months that can be shared between them. Consequently, women there enjoy a very high employment rate, at just under 83%. Sweden leads in the EU, with more than 75% of women in employment. Fathers receive 90 days of paid leave, which is a lot in comparison with the UK, where men receive one to two weeks. Those modern systems support women, enable them to return to the workplace and help to achieve a better gender balance in business. They will have a business case.

Last year, the employment rate for women over 16 in the UK reached a record high of 70.8%. However, these positive figures do not tell the full story: 42% of those women work part time. The effects of working part time can often mean that opportunities for promotion are limited, which has an impact on the gender pay gap. It does not have to be that way. The all-party group on women and work heard examples of good practice at the University of Sussex, which promoted Alison Phipps to a professorship, despite her being a part-time worker after having two children. I personally witnessed an excellent example of good practice when my fellow classmate at the London Business School was promoted to partner level at PricewaterhouseCoopers while she was on maternity leave.

Another factor to consider in the 21st-century workplace is self-employment. There are 1.6 million self-employed women, which accounts for the majority of the newly self-employed as well, probably because of the flexibility that comes with that option. At present, self-employed women may be eligible for maternity allowance of £140.98 a week, but not statutory maternity pay, meaning that they will receive a lot less than an employee. Similarly, casual workers or zero-hours workers do not have the right to paid leave or perhaps even to attend antenatal appointments with a healthcare professional. Such barriers negatively impact on women, and more needs to be done to address those issues.

[Leo Docherty]

I pay tribute to the work that my hon. Friend has done, both before coming to the House and while here, to encourage women to engage in politics. It is the duty of all parliamentarians to encourage that. It is a matter of regret to me that we have only ever had male MPs for Aldershot. That is not something I want to change too soon, but I am pleased to have some female constituents here today whom I would encourage to maintain an interest in politics.

How important does my hon. Friend think it is to encourage young women to get involved in business careers, given her experience of being an apprentice? Does she think that we are doing all that we can to encourage awareness among young women of school age of the opportunities for work and apprenticeships at that critical stage in their school career when they consider what career to go into?

[Gillian Keegan]

I think that for both men and women the availability of high-quality apprenticeships needs to be better understood by all children and parents, and from a young age. I did an apprenticeship at 16 and I was the only woman. There were four guys, so I was the token 20%, which is a figure we often find. It is a great way into the workplace, particularly degree-level apprenticeships, which means that people do not have to choose between education and work experience, and certainly it propelled my career.

I have mentioned self-employed women, zero-hours contracts and the barriers that women face. Millions of women have taken time out of work to raise a family, and others take time out to care for loved ones. For them it is often difficult to get back on the career ladder. Of the people who are out of paid work to care for family, 90% are women. That is a huge loss, not only to those individuals, but to our economy and businesses all over the country. I welcomed the announcement by the Minister for Women and Equalities, my right hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd), that £1.5 million is being made available to support people, particularly women, to get back into work after time out.

The fund will offer grants to help people return to work in the private sector by updating their skills and supporting businesses with guidance and a toolkit to increase employment opportunities. That is just part of the £5 million commitment made by the Prime Minister last year to help people back into employment after a career break. Similar returner schemes are already up and running in the public sector, in the health professions, social work, and the civil service. The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport is using the cyber-security skills impact fund to help women who have been out of the labour market to get jobs in cyber-security.

It is crucial that women have the opportunity to reach their potential and that our industries do not lose out on their valuable skills and experience. The Government have championed the rights of women in the workplace, with gender pay being just one area widely commented on. We are moving in the right direction, and I am pleased that we are having debates such as this one to address the barriers that are still present for women in work.

[Laura Pidcock (North West Durham) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean) for securing this extremely important debate. I am sure it will not be a surprise that some of the interpretations that I have of the world of work are somewhat different from what has been expressed. For many of the women in my constituency, work is not a choice or a health benefit, but an absolute necessity for survival.

Last Thursday we marked International Women’s Day: a day when we celebrate the victories that women have achieved so far on the path to liberation, and a day when we remember how far we have to go. That one day in the calendar is when we focus on women’s issues and they are thrust into the limelight. It serves as an opportunity to briefly scrutinise our collective experience. The Labour party used the day to announce that we would fine employers who not only fail to audit their gender pay gap, but fail to take decisive action against it.

In the narrative around women at work, the focus is not always on workplace issues that affect women the most. In recent years we have seen the agenda—it is as though I knew what the hon. Member for Chichester (Gillian Keegan) was going to say in her speech—that applies only to women at the top. Women in this Chamber will be aware of campaigns such as the 30% Club, which aims to get at least 30% of women on the board of large public companies, and similar campaigns. I do not wish to discredit such campaigns, but I do not think it is unfair for me to say that they are irrelevant to the majority of working women in this country.

Pictures of gender-balanced boards or of women chief executive officers might be glitzy, but they are a distraction from the material reality of working-class women in this country.

[Gillian Keegan]

I simply want to say that I am a working- class woman who left school at 16 but still aspired to be on a board, so I would say they are relevant. They are just one part of the picture.

[Laura Pidcock]

Those campaigns do not focus on the reality of most working-class women in work at this point in time in our nation. As with most things, success at the top does not trickle down. [Interruption.] I will not take any more interventions, because of time constraints.

What good is it if a woman becomes a CEO, only to rely on an army of women on precarious contracts and on poverty pay to make her sandwiches, look after her children and clean her offices? The success of elite women does not facilitate the emancipation of lower-paid sisters in the economy. In fact, some would argue it prevents it. The experience of most women, after all, is that of a worker, not of a boss. Our obsession with boardrooms has not only failed to close the pay gap for working-class women, but produced another kind of pay gap—the gap between women at the bottom and women at the top. Professional women earn on average 80% more than unskilled women, while the difference between professional and unskilled men is still huge, at 60%.

Although a few elite women succeed, the experience for most working-class women is of a system that is completely rigged against them. It is a system in which women are on zero-hours contracts and are scared that they will not get adequate maternity pay if they want to start a family. As a proud pregnant working woman, I know that my position protects me from many of the forms of discrimination that pregnant women face in the workplace. It is a system in which women are still the main childcare providers. They represent 90% of lone parents and are terrified that they will not get enough hours to provide for their children.

It is a system in which 230,000 jobs held by women pay less than the minimum wage. The Government—let us be honest—do not even give adequate notice to women about changes to their pensions, leaving them in fear of their retirement, and then think it appropriate to suggest that those women expecting to reach retirement take an apprenticeship. It is a system in which women in low pay and poverty reduce their meal portions to allow their children to eat in the school holidays. It is a system in which unaffordable and inaccessible childcare forces women to work fewer hours or accept poorly paid, poor quality part-time positions—and, of course, as has been mentioned, they are at risk of dismissal while on maternity leave.

It has been mentioned many times in the Chamber that the fact that we have had two female Prime Ministers satisfactorily explains that the Conservatives are the party of gender equality. That is an affront to the women in my constituency and across the UK who experience much inequality. It is important that there are women in the highest positions, of course, but it is never enough to just stop there. There have always been women who have succeeded in the face of structural sexism and women who buck the trend, but we cannot and must not be satisfied with the achievements of a minority of women while most women bear the brunt of poverty and austerity.

Some Members might not know that International Women’s Day started as a campaign for the rights of women garment workers in New York. Women’s issues have always been inextricably linked with class issues. Only by punishing the bosses who exploit women and only by creating a social security system that recognises the inequality faced by women, will we have any hope of genuine equality at work. Fundamentally, we must give all workers the ability to collectively bargain for their own pay and terms and conditions. We need a system that challenges the gender-segregated nature of employment. I am glad that the hon. Member for Redditch secured the debate, but I can tell the House that women in my constituency will not be grateful for the way the Conservatives have treated them.