Women and Equalities Committee

Laurence Robertson Excerpts

Thursday 8th September 2022 Westminster Hall

[Mr Laurence Robertson (in the Chair)]

Before we start, I would like to repeat the statement made by Mr Speaker in the House of Commons, who sent his best wishes on behalf of everyone to Her Majesty the Queen and the royal family, who are in our thoughts and prayers at this moment.

Caroline Nokes will speak on the publication of the first report of the Women and Equalities Committee, “Menopause and the Workplace”, for up to 10 minutes, during which I cannot allow any interventions. At the conclusion of the statement, I will call Members who wish to ask questions on the subject of the statement, and call Caroline Nokes to respond. I must remind everyone that questions should be brief. I call the Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, Caroline Nokes.

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

Thank you, Mr Robertson, and I associate myself with the comments made by yourself and by Mr Speaker.

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting me time in this Chamber and the opportunity to make this statement. I pass on my thanks to the Clerks to the Women and Equalities Committee and to the entire Committee for their incredibly hard work. It is now over a year since we launched the inquiry, a year in which we have seen menopause and its health and workplace issues rise to prominence. I think it is fair to say that there was a time, not that long ago, when nobody in this place would have wanted to talk about the menopause, and women of a certain age—that is, my age—would have been very anxious about talking about it publicly for fear of the stigma and taboo that is sometimes associated with menopause.

There has been a massive sea change in recent years. We have seen debates, both in this Chamber and on the Floor of the House, where Members—both male and female—have been very happy to talk about their own experiences and champion the change that we wish to see for our constituents. It was really encouraging to see the large number of Members who took part in the debate on World Menopause Month last year. I am sure that the hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) and I will be applying for another debate this year. We have had long discussions about the menopause workplace pledge, menopause workplace policies, and the importance of employers and businesses, whether large or small, adopting menopause-friendly policies. Indeed, we saw Mr Speaker sign the menopause workplace pledge on behalf of the House of Commons and the civil service, and we have also seen private companies such as John Lewis and Royal Mail sign that pledge.

What matters to me and my Committee, however, is not just a commitment from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to work hand in hand with businesses signing up to those sorts of pledges and introducing policies, but that those policies are implemented and acted on. When we launched the inquiry, we discovered that, although things have improved, this is no time to be complacent. In 2019, Bupa published research showing that almost 1 million women had left their jobs due to menopause symptoms, and that many women are still facing stigma in society and at work and are struggling to get diagnosis and treatment.

We launched the inquiry because menopause is an inevitable and natural part of growing older, but stigma, poor medical treatment and feeling compelled to give up work or to not take on promotions at the peak of one’s career should never be considered inevitable or normal. We took evidence from academics, lawyers, doctors, experts in business and people with lived experience, and they all said the same thing: yes, things are getting better, but there is still a long way to go.

We also looked at menopause as a health issue—the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East on hormone replacement therapy is very well known. On health, we found that stigma around menopause is still a significant problem for all women, but it is magnified for certain groups, such as minority ethnic women. I pay particular tribute to Karen Arthur, who came and gave evidence on behalf of black women going through the menopause. Certainly, younger women and LGBT+ people who have faced premature menopause and surgical menopause have faced particular challenges because it is not seen as a problem for them.

We have welcomed the inclusion of menopause on the relationships, health and sex education curriculum, but we want to see a really inclusive and high-profile public health and education campaign on menopause. There is some great work being carried out by organisations such as Pausitivity. Indeed, in my own county of Hampshire, great campaigners such as Jo Ibbott and Claire Hattrick have worked so hard on this issue. However, what we really want to see from the Department of Health and Social Care is an inclusive and high-profile public health campaign.

We heard that far too many women struggle to get an accurate diagnosis and that access to specialist services is limited. Women told us horrendous stories of being dismissed and ignored and having to really fight to explain what was going wrong with them to their GPs in order to get the appropriate prescriptions. The issues of access to HRT and the cost of prescriptions have been raised many times in this Chamber, but they are worth reiterating. Although we were pleased to see the appointment of the HRT tsar, we are worried that she is now headed back to her previous role as head of the vaccine taskforce while there are still shortages and protocols around 12 of the 13 HRT medicines.

At this point, I would like to pay particular tribute to the work of the Minister for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield), who did fantastic work on this in her previous post. We are sorry to see her go. It is poignant that today is the first day that over-the-counter HRT medicines have been available—I pay tribute to her for making that possible.

Women are staying in work for longer. Women over 50 are the fastest growing demographic in the workplace. However, despite being among the most experienced and skilled workers, and, indeed, role models to younger workers, some women are leaving their jobs, being forced out or forced to cut back their hours.

We heard about the many ways in which menopause can affect work, such as through problematic symptoms. Some 99% of respondents to a survey we ran outlined that they had at least one problematic symptom. In a modern society, it cannot be right that women are being discriminated against and that the menopause is contributing to women reducing their hours or leaving work altogether. We are losing skills, future generations are losing the benefit of their wisdom, and the economy is haemorrhaging talent.

The positive benefits of being menopause-friendly are obvious. They include not only strong reputational benefits, but the ability to retain the best and most experienced staff and to help women to thrive in the workplace. All of this will help to reduce the gender pay and pension gap. We heard that supporting menopausal employees need not be resource-intensive or costly. We heard of some fantastic schemes about menopause workplace champions. When employers ask, “What is the one thing we can do to support our female employees going through the menopause?”, the answer that invariably comes back is, “Give them space to talk and someone that they can trust to take their issues to.” Some of the organisations we spoke to had fantastic “Ask me” T-shirts, encouraging women to speak up and speak out.

We were shocked, however, to find how little awareness and guidance there is that the menopause can be both a health and safety at work issue and an equality issue. We have called on both the Health and Safety Executive and the Equality and Human Rights Commission to urgently issue menopause-specific guidance.

The current law makes it extremely difficult for women to bring a claim. I regard bringing a claim to a tribunal as a failure of workplace policies, but it does happen, and we have to ensure that it is easier for women to bring a menopause-specific claim. Both sex discrimination and age discrimination require a comparator—I know that hon. Members will immediately see the problem with a menopausal woman having to compare herself to a sick man in order to get redress. Too many women have been forced to resort to disability discrimination legislation in order to bring a claim. We considered whether any measure short of legal reform would help, but concluded that the Government needed to enact section 14 of the Equality Act 2010 to allow women to bring claims based on dual discrimination and to consult on making menopause a protected characteristic.

In conclusion, I hope that this important report will continue to drive social change and further encourage cross-Government action. It is imperative that all Government Departments are involved, including the Department of Health and Social Care, BEIS and the Departments for Education and for Work and Pensions. We need to improve the diagnosis and treatment of women and keep those many menopausal women who should be thriving at work in work. While we heard of many terrible experiences for women, we also heard from some utterly inspirational women and organisations. Let us continue the hard work that we have started, and find the ability to celebrate menopausal women’s contributions to society and the economy. I hope that the Minister will look at the work of the women’s health strategy, where menopause has been a priority—and the recently appointed women’s health ambassador, Dame Lesley Regan, is already doing great work—and make sure that women’s health, particularly menopausal women’s health, remains a priority.

[Mr Laurence Robertson (in the Chair)]

Perfect timing. Thank you very much.

[Kate Osamor (Edmonton) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee and the entire Committee for this important report. It rightly brings attention to the additional discrimination in the workplace and stigma that women from ethnic minorities go through during the menopause phase, which is often neglected in the wider conversation. Disappointingly, however, these problems were not mentioned in the relevant section of the Government’s women’s health strategy. Does the right hon. Lady agree that the Government should give consideration to the specific issues faced by ethnic minority women?