Oral Answers to Questions

Jo Swinson Excerpts

Thursday 16th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

2. What steps she is taking to ensure equal pay in the workplace.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equalities (Jo Swinson)]

The gender pay gap is falling steadily over time, and the full-time pay gap has now been almost eliminated for women under the age of 40. We are promoting pay transparency through the Think, Act, Report initiative and encouraging girls and young women to consider a wider range of careers, including better-paid jobs in science, technology and engineering, through the Your Life campaign.

[Andrew George]

I am grateful to the Minister for that reply, but how can we judge what progress is being made without the hard data? What can she do to ensure that employers, particularly larger employers—surely it is within their capacity—publish the data so that we can make those kinds of judgments?

[Jo Swinson]

My hon. Friend is right to point out that transparency is a really useful tool in being able to make progress on the pay gap. As I have said, with the Think, Act, Report initiative, to which more than 250 companies are now signed up, two thirds are now publishing more information on gender equality, and we are encouraging more and more to undertake equal pay audits. He might also be aware that Grazia magazine—I am sure that he is an avid reader—has been campaigning for further progress on pay transparency, particularly in relation to section 78 of the Equality Act 2010. I think that there will be a significant debate on that in the months running up to the election. As he will know, our party has signed up to that campaign, as I hope others will in future.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

As the Minister indicated, one of the reasons for the pay gap is the under-representation of women in high-paying careers such as IT. Wednesday was Ada Lovelace day, celebrating the world’s first computer scientist. In the intervening time, we have gone from 100% female to only 17% female in this area. What progress is the Minister making in changing that?

[Jo Swinson]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right to raise this issue. I praise her for the work that she has done in highlighting the importance of women in engineering, science and technology careers. I mentioned the Your Life campaign. We are working alongside the different professional bodies within these industries to encourage more young women to study these subjects at school, because that is absolutely crucial if they are to be able to go on to study them at university and go into such careers. We are focusing particularly on significantly boosting the number of girls taking physics and maths A-level. This is work in progress—there is a lot more to do—but we have significant projects under way to deliver it.

[Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)]

Equal pay for people with disabilities is a well-established right. If Lord Freud’s views on this matter do not represent the views of the Government, why is he still a Minister of the Government?

[Jo Swinson]

As I said in yesterday’s debate on the national minimum wage, great shock has been expressed in all parts of the House about Lord Freud’s remarks, which in no way reflect the opinion of the Government. It is therefore quite right that he has apologised in full for those remarks. It is right to set out on the record that people in all parts of the House believe that the minimum wage should be paid to anybody in work, whether they are male, female, disabled or not disabled. Whatever their characteristics, it is absolutely vital that that is the case.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

The Church of England measure that we are going to consider in this House on Monday provides in clause 2 for an amendment to the Equality Act 2010 that says:

“The office of diocesan or suffragan bishop is not a public office.”

Why on earth are the Government allowing the Church of England to bring forward a measure that would carve it out of equality measures just at the time when it is finally allowing the ordination of women bishops?

[Jo Swinson]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question; he is an avid campaigner on these issues. I think there is great joy about the new measures on women bishops that will come forward for debate on Monday. We need to look at what requirements are needed by religious organisations, as there may well be some cases where they need particular provisions to be made. I will happily look into the issue and write to him.

[Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)]

3. What steps she is taking to increase representation of women on the boards of public institutions.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Jo Swinson)]

The Government want half of new public appointments to be women by the end of this Parliament. The Cabinet Office has established the Centre for Public Appointments, which is supporting Departments in modernising recruitment practices, removing long-standing barriers, and emphasising skills and ability over previous experience. This has attracted a more diverse field of candidates to these important roles. The proportion of new female appointments stood at 39% last year, but there is clearly more to do.

[Julian Smith]

Does the Minister agree that as well as board appointments, it is vital that we have more women chief executives in public sector roles? Will she pay tribute to Ros Tolcher, who has become the chief executive of Harrogate hospital, which serves part of my constituency, taking to 100% the female leadership of NHS hospitals supporting Skipton and Ripon?

[Jo Swinson]

I certainly support the hon. Gentleman in congratulating the excellent senior women delivering public services in his local health care system. It is important that we have women on boards but also in executive roles. We have been making progress on this in the private sector, although there is clearly a lot more to be done there as well. The executive challenge has perhaps been a slightly more difficult nut to crack at the same speed at which we have been able to improve the numbers of women on boards more generally. The work we are doing to improve the pipeline support for women in the workplace is absolutely vital.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Yesterday Google and Facebook announced that instead of pursuing family-friendly practices, they were offering women a chance to freeze their eggs for 10 years, in essence saying, “If you want to get to board level, you should have frozen your eggs.” Is not this the worst case of institutional sexism, intimidating women into not having babies at the time of their own choosing? Will the Minister unequivocally condemn those companies?

[Jo Swinson]

It is up to individual companies to decide which policies they want to offer and, indeed, up to women employees whether they provide any kind of incentive or otherwise. What is important is making sure that there are genuine choices that women in the workplace can make so that they do not feel under any kind of pressure to delay starting a family, if that is what they want to do at a particular point in their career. The Government’s changes to make the procedures for maternity leave and shared parental leave much more modern are essential in making sure that women and men can make the parenting choices that work for them.

[Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)]

4. What recent discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for the Home Department on tackling violence against women.