Women and Work

Kirstene Hair Excerpts

Wednesday 14th March 2018 Westminster Hall

[Kirstene Hair (Angus) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean) for bringing this important matter to the House, particularly in view of the journey that she went on in her working life. It was good to hear about the positive changes she experienced.

The influx of women into the workplace is one of the greatest social revolutions of recent decades. As my hon. Friend mentioned, in 1951 only one third of women were economically active—employed or unemployed. Today the proportion is about three quarters of women. Thanks to that remarkable change in society, workplaces across the country have benefited from the talents and contributions of women who just decades ago would not have entered those workplaces. Today women are free, and the country as a whole is more prosperous. However, there is still more to do to create equal opportunity between men and women, both in the world of work and across society.

We must make sure that no industry is closed to women because of sexist prejudice, and that no woman is paid less than a man for equal work. I was delighted to visit my local primary school, Whitehills, in Forfar, on Monday morning to discuss the correlation between science, technology, engineering and maths and career opportunities. When I asked the 400 pupils about their career goals, it was heartening that there was no evidence of gender-specific jobs. There were would-be scientists, engineers and architects aplenty. Those young people had their minds wide open and we need to ensure that as they grow up and develop we do not narrow them in any way. All jobs are open to both genders. That is why I am proud to support the UK Government, who have required companies with more than 250 employees to publish data on their gender pay gap. It is important that we get to the root causes of the overall gender pay gap and introduce the appropriate measures to deal with them, so that the young girls I met on Monday will enter a workplace where gender discrimination is a thing of the past.

Childcare is a massive financial burden on any working family. It is no coincidence that the gender pay gap widens considerably after age 30, or that relatively few women have broken into high-ranking positions that require considerable experience. Indeed, when I decided to stand for Parliament, the question of how I would be able to have a family in years to come was raised. However, no job in this country should force any female to make a choice between career and family. Of course, individual families know best how to organise themselves and balance childcare with work commitments. However, it is crucial that the Government should offer parents the childcare support that makes achieving that balance easier and allows them to do so without being pressured by antiquated societal assumptions.

I therefore commend the Government on doubling the amount of free childcare available to parents of three and four-year-olds in England and Wales, introducing shared parental leave and pay, and encouraging more flexible working, including in the armed forces. I also support the increase in childcare hours brought in by the Scottish Government, although I believe that the roll-out was slightly ill-thought-out, and that further flexibility is required to increase parents’ ability to take up the provision.

All the measures I have mentioned will help more mothers to remain in work. That will help more women to rise to the top of their field, which will help to reduce the gender pay gap. While there is certainly more to do to encourage a culture of more flexible working and of mothers and fathers sharing responsibility for childcare more equally, the measures in question are a strong start.

Women must also have an equal opportunity to use their expertise through enterprise. As has been mentioned, only 5.7% of women were involved in starting or running a new business last year. That is half the rate for men. For that reason I recently joined the Telegraph campaign for the Government to boost female entrepreneurship in Britain. There is a need for easier access to capital, higher levels of funding, and support from experienced mentors to guide people through that life-changing process. Astonishingly, the Federation of Small Businesses has suggested that Britain is missing up to 1.2 million new enterprises because the business potential of women remains untapped in the sector. Another poll demonstrated that two thirds of female business owners were not taken seriously when trying to secure funding for start-ups. That leaves them two options—to self-fund or to walk away. That is simply unacceptable.

I say those things with optimism about the future. Let us consider the progress that we have already made, which our great-grandmothers would not have thought remotely possible. I wholeheartedly believe that the progress we want can be made quickly. It will take action in this House and in wider society, but we should go forward with confidence that it can be done. A post-Brexit Britain has to back British businesses and I look forward to continued progress in that area.