Women and Equalities Committee

Debate between Kirsten Oswald and Caroline Nokes

Thursday 8th September 2022 Westminster Hall

[Caroline Nokes]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. I can think of many an occasion when I have heard him speak in debates on the menopause, and I thank him for his commitment to the issue. He is right to point out that there are more women in employment now than I think at any time previously during my lifetime. That is a huge bonus and benefit that we should celebrate. We must hold up those women over 50 or those menopausal women in employment as role models and champions. They are the vanguard for a younger generation, and can be the menopause workplace champions who can provide the advice and that safe space for talking about this.

This issue absolutely applies across the whole of the United Kingdom, and we have to spread best practice. My Select Committee is tentatively considering a visit to Northern Ireland. I very much hope that we will get consent from the Liaison Committee to go on our first visit to Northern Ireland, and we hope to squeeze in a little trip to Dublin at the same time. People are looking to us as world leaders on this issue. I have been stunned at the number of parliamentarians from overseas who have contacted me about the work that we are doing here in the United Kingdom on the menopause. It is imperative that the work is shared among the devolved Administrations as well.

[Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)]

I am very grateful to the Women and Equalities Committee and am enjoying the outbreak of agreement across this Chamber today—it is not always that way. The right hon. Lady’s comments about why it is so important that we talk about this issue resonate with me. It is not a niche issue. I talked about it with some constituents at the Neilston Menopause Café last week, or the week before—I can’t remember; that might be brain fog. It was an extremely useful opportunity for women at a particular point in their lives to have those conversations. Does the right hon. Lady agree that bringing that opportunity into the workplace context is particularly important, so that people can and do understand that the menopause is absolutely normal?

If I may, I will push my luck a little and ask a second question. The right hon. Lady mentioned prescription charges, which we do not face in Scotland, but does she agree that another issue for women who go through the menopause may be inadequate sick pay, which can exacerbate already troubling issues? Could the Committee focus its attention on that, given its impact on so many women?

[Caroline Nokes]

The hon. Lady makes a number of important points. She has been to her local Menopause Café. There is a brilliant group in my constituency called What the Fog? I will be doing a seminar with it in a few weeks’ time. It is imperative that we normalise this in the workplace. I have spent the summer talking to organisations and businesses, large and small. I talked to an enormous group of women at Scania in Milton Keynes. It was incredibly. Just giving people the space to share their own experiences was really important to them, and it got the conversation going.

The hon. Lady has absolutely hit the nail on the head about the cost of the menopause. There is a cost to business, to the economy and to individual women. What we call for in the report is a trial, from a large-scale public sector employer, of menopause workplace leave. I would love to see a public sector organisation come forward and volunteer to do that. We understand that it is difficult for some women; they will have horrendous symptoms, but they can get it through it, and maybe leave is the answer.

Ethnicity Pay Gap

Debate between Kirsten Oswald and Caroline Nokes

Monday 20th September 2021 Westminster Hall

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) on having opened today’s debate. This is a really important issue, and I stand here in a somewhat privileged position as chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, because I have the opportunity to talk on a regular basis with those who seek to champion the rights of people with protected characteristics across the country.

Going back to when I was very newly in post, I remember a fantastic meeting that I had with a group of black female entrepreneurs. The first thing that they said to me was, “We must have mandatory pay gap reporting.” There was a very good reason why they wanted it to be mandatory: they had spoken to over 100 FTSE companies that all wanted to report, but were nervous about how. They were nervous about the metrics they should use and whether their ethnicity pay gap reporting would be comparing like with like with other comparable organisations, which is why those entrepreneurs said to me, “We need you to put pressure on Government. Unless it is mandatory, it will not happen in a coherent way, or in a way against which companies can be measured.”

[Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)]

The right hon. Lady is making some excellent points. Does she agree that, as well as an obvious equality imperative for the reporting, there is a really strong business imperative, and that the Government would do well to acknowledge that?

[Caroline Nokes]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady. As we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington, some of the leading banks already do such reporting, but we wish to see other organisations doing more. Earlier this year, I was pleased to receive an email from Zurich, one of the country’s biggest insurers and the first insurance company to introduce ethnicity pay gap reporting.

There are no good reasons not to do such reporting, but there are reasons why it is complex. One of those reasons is the size of the business. With gender pay gap reporting, that is dealt with by making only the larger companies report, and I would argue that exactly the same should be instituted for ethnicity pay gap reporting: make only the larger companies do it.

My hon. Friend was right to point out that we do not want individual employees to be identifiable, so we need to find a way for the reporting to be done on an aggregated basis so that those employees do not have their personal salary details revealed. Just because something is difficult or complicated, that does not mean that we should not do it.

Gender pay gap reporting has shone a light, and as a result, that pay gap has been reduced inch by inch—perhaps I should say centimetre by centimetre, as that is all very topical at the moment. It has been reduced not as much as I would like—I would like to see it at zero—but we know there are also challenges around intersectionality. A woman in this world, in the 21st century, is still stuffed. A disabled person—or, heaven forfend, a disabled woman—has additional challenges. A black woman will have more challenges. It is time that we were honest about that.

As the hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Steven Bonnar) said, reporting needs to be data-driven and with granular data. We need massive amounts of detail to see which groups are the most adversely affected because, guess what, until we have accurately identified that, we cannot put in place the measures that will most help them and give them the equity that we all want.

The hon. Gentleman also highlighted something that my Select Committee looked at: the way that BAME people were affected by covid pandemic. We saw from evidence that they were disproportionately represented in public-facing roles in the care sector, in transport and in the NHS, for example. They had to interact with people daily, which put them at more risk. Those roles—particularly in care and transport—are poorly paid and insecure. Intersectionality is something that we have to scrutinise closely.

Ethnicity pay gap reporting is something that companies are crying out for. They want it to happen, but on a mandatory basis. I made that point to my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) in her capacity as Minister for Women and Equalities, before she became Foreign Secretary. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will tell us whether we can expect an employment Bill in this Session, despite the fact that it was missing from the Queen’s Speech, because that strikes me as an ideal opportunity to introduce legislation on the ethnicity pay gap reporting that we are all calling for.

I recognise the challenges for small business when it comes to additional requirements from Government. I will not describe the reporting as a burden, because I do not think it is one. It will enable companies to look more closely at their own employment practices, and at leading organisations that have done it regardless of the lack of framework—although they would prefer it if there were a framework. I think it is an opportunity for us to look forward and drive down some of the basic structural inequalities that we still see in our country. I look forward to the Minister saying something positive in his speech.