Women (Government Policies)

Heidi Alexander Excerpts

Wednesday 8th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I commend my hon. Friend on his experience and how he got his qualification—I am choosing my words carefully, given what he said about the number of females on the course. However, it is important that we support part-time study, because it is an option that people are increasingly considering. The extra support that we have provided and the way we have dealt with the issue are important steps forward. As he said, such support will have a particularly significant impact on women, given that many part-time students are women.

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

On students, women in my constituency often tell me about the need for good English language schools. The Home Secretary will know that the co-financing proposals for speakers of other languages will affect women disproportionately— 74% of those affected by the proposals will be women. What conversations has she had with the relevant Minister about that issue?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Louise Mensch (Corby) (Con)]

I am very glad to be called to speak in this important debate. Let me start by saying how much I agreed with part of the concluding sentiments of the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), when she said that this debate is not just about women, but about everybody. That, of course, is where all the Opposition’s arguments fall down, because they fail to perceive—she said this was ideological; I agree with her: it is ideological—that by returning the country to prosperity, we will be returning women to prosperity. She fails to perceive or acknowledge what the former Prime Minister and Member for Sedgefield, Tony Blair, has acknowledged—along with James Purnell and her right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field)—which is that her Government failed to reform the welfare system, and in doing so, failed so many of the women and children in this country, who suffered from being below the poverty line.

What a shocking indictment to hear from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State that the right hon. Lady’s Government left office with 1 million women unemployed. We heard a list in the right hon. Lady’s opening arguments of all the ways in which women had fallen behind men in equality. I would say to her and other Opposition Members that Labour had 13 years in power to do something about the inequalities that women suffered, about the welfare system or about children below the poverty line, yet they signally failed to do so, just as they signally failed to tackle our structural deficit. Again and again, we heard her right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) talk about taking tough decisions for the long term, yet he never took any of them. It has taken the two parties on the Government side of the House to fix the mess that the one party on the other side left behind.

How astonishing that the Labour party actually dared to call for an Opposition day debate on women’s issues. When I look at my research brief from the Government I see measure after measure designed to protect children and families. I see a relentless focus on women, children and the most disadvantaged among the dispossessed. This Government must try to perform the incredibly difficult balancing act of fixing the deficit while protecting the most vulnerable, and we are coming up with creative and flexible solutions to a problem that was left to us entirely by the Labour party.

Labour Members talk of Sure Start provision. It is a fact that under Labour 50% of Sure Start centres were failing to reach out to the most disadvantaged children. It is a fact that Sure Start provision had moved away from its original purpose, and was failing to reach the most needy and the most vulnerable. Our proposals for Sure Start provision will include payment by results, and rewards for incredibly effective Sure Start centres such as the Pen Green centre in my town of Corby in east Northamptonshire, which has just received a massive amount of investment for research from the Department for Education. We will see extra health visitors, and we will see a relentless focus on children.

I find it amazing that, yet again, what we are hearing from Labour Members is naked opportunism. My right hon. Friend made a point that has been made many times on the Government Benches and has always gone unanswered: Labour’s spending plans involved cuts of £7 in every £8. When asked for specifics, Labour Members always respond with platitudes. They get to their feet and say, “We agree that the deficit needs to be tackled”, but when Government Members ask them precisely how they would tackle it, they reply, “We would not make your cuts.”

The women of this country are not stupid. They know that a blank piece of paper is no answer, and they know that we are fighting at every level for women. They see that there are to be new rape crisis centres in Hereford, Devon, Trafford and Dorset. They see stable funding for rape crisis centres: £10 million a year for the next three years. The Government are dealing with the important issue of violence against women, and they are taking action against rape. We are seeing deeds rather than words from this Government.

[Heidi Alexander]

The hon. Lady talks about fighting for women. What assessment has she made of cuts in legal aid that will have a hugely disproportionate effect on women once family law cases become ineligible for funding? Does that constitute fighting for women?

[Mrs Mensch]

I believe that the proposal to reduce legal aid funding was in the hon. Lady’s party’s manifesto. She will know, or she should know, that the legal aid system is incredibly inefficient and incredibly costly. Once again, we hear from Labour Members objections to a particular cut; once again, it is a particular cut that Labour also proposed in its manifesto; and once again, Labour Members have no specific proposals whatsoever to offer the women of this country on how they would implement their policy.

As my right hon. Friend pointed out, universal credit is an attempt to tackle not the symptoms but the root causes of women’s poverty. According to statistics from the Department for Work and Pensions, it will take an estimated 350,000 children and 1 million people out of poverty. That is genuine progress. We know that women and children suffer in workless households, and we are finally grasping the nettle and tackling the problems that Labour refused to tackle.

As I look through my statistics, I see programme after programme directed at women. We have talked about the massive investments in existing rape crisis centres and the new ones that are being built. We have talked about the increase in the minimum wage—and so many of the 890,000 people affected by the increase to £6.08 will be women. Under Labour, it was perfectly legal for Jobcentre Plus offices to display advertisements for sex workers. It is absolutely appalling that Labour allowed that to continue, but this Government have stopped it.

What about the extra investment in the national health service? Labour is very quiet about the fact that it would cut funding for a service on which women increasingly rely. How bizarre to sit here—