Women and the Cost of Living

Lilian Greenwood Excerpts

Tuesday 19th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

Actually, we have had equal pay for 40 years. I shall talk in a moment about the pay gap having narrowed. Men and women should of course be paid the same amount for doing the same job. The Government have introduced a provision that, if a successful pay claim is brought, an automatic audit is triggered of the pay structure of the employer who has been caught falling foul of the law. That is something that the hon. Gentleman should welcome.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Nicky Morgan]

I want to make a little progress, but I will give way to the hon. Lady in a bit.

The Opposition have thrown a barrage of statistics on female employment at us across the Dispatch Box this afternoon. I should like your permission to throw just one back, Madam Deputy Speaker. As I have said, there are now more women in work than ever before. If I am allowed one more, I shall tell the House that there are nearly 450,000 more women in employment since the Government came to power, and nearly 300,000 fewer economically inactive women. We should be celebrating the fact that there are now so many women in the labour market. Not only are there more women in the workplace, but the pay gap is shrinking, having fallen by nearly 1% last year. It now sits at just 9.6%.

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[Nicky Morgan]

I, like all other hon. Members, would be concerned if any constituent came to me to say that they had been sacked as a result of being pregnant. I would support someone in that position. The research that we have is from 2005. The hon. Lady may have more up-to-date figures, and we are launching a new consultation to look into the rate and scale of the things she has mentioned.

[Lilian Greenwood]

How many women who potentially face maternity discrimination at work will not be able to take their claim to a tribunal because they are being asked to pay £1,200 just to launch a claim for maternity discrimination?

[Nicky Morgan]

I am sorry that the hon. Lady, whom I regard as a good neighbourly MP in so many ways, is scaremongering. People have to pay the fee only if they actually go to a tribunal, and there are many stages before that in an employment claim.

Let me talk about women and the workplace. As I said, we want to see not only more women in the workplace, but more women rising to the top of their workplaces. I am delighted that the Minister for Women and Equalities is on the Benches today, as she has been doing so much work to promote women in the workplace. I was also delighted to see Fiona Woolf, the second ever female Lord Mayor of London, coming into post earlier this month. I am sure that she will be an excellent role model for women in the City of London. But we need to do what we can to help more women to reach these senior positions and play an even more prominent role in our recovery. As many hon. Members will know, last month we published a Government action plan specifically designed to help women start out, get on and stay on in our workplaces by taking steps on things such as training, skills and flexible working.

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[Nicky Morgan]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The increase in the personal tax threshold meant that 57% of those who benefited and who were taken out of tax were women. That is 145,000 women who are no longer paying income tax. That money is staying in their households and they are able to spend it on themselves and their families, which should be welcomed.

[Lilian Greenwood]

rose—

[Nicky Morgan]

I will make some progress. There will be an additional 100,000 families who will eligible for child care support under universal credit. We have also ensured that our changes help the record number of women who have entered self-employment under this Government. That is a critical step. If women started businesses at the same rate as men, we could have an extra 1 million female entrepreneurs and a million more entrepreneurs, which would mean a million more people creating wealth, jobs and growth for our economy.

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[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

A few weeks ago I was listening to “The Morning Show” on Radio Nottingham. They were discussing whether people felt better off now that the economy is growing again. A mum rang in. She was working but finding it a real struggle to make ends meet. She admitted that sometimes, in order to get by, she had to ask her son if she could borrow some money from his piggy bank. That is just one story—an anecdote—but I think that it says a lot about life under this Government. Government Members talk about intergenerational fairness. What is fair about a mum having to borrow money from her child to manage until her next payday?

Of course, it is not just one mother who is struggling to get by; millions of women are, and not just in Nottingham, but up and down the country. It is not just women who are struggling, because families up and down the country are facing a cost of living crisis, but it is women who are being hit hardest of all, through cuts in public services, cut in public sector jobs, cuts in the real value of their wages and cuts in the social security benefits they rely on. It is women who are unable to access or afford care for their children or disabled or frail relatives, who are being denied adequate support when they experience domestic abuse, who are losing good jobs in the public services and who are unable to cope with longer waits for the social security benefits they have earned.

[Stephen Metcalfe]

The hon. Lady talks about responsibility. Does she think that it was responsible for the previous Government to borrow £1 of every £4 they spent? Is that not one reason for the problems we now face?

[Lilian Greenwood]

I am not going to take any lectures from Government Members who have doubled the amount of debt in this country.

Of the £14 billion the Government are taking from people’s pockets to pay down the deficit through changes in tax, benefits, pay and pensions since the general election, £11 billion is from women, even though they still earn less and own less than men. More than 40 years after Labour’s Equal Pay Act 1970 outlawed paying women less than men for the same work, women still face a lifetime of earning less. For every £1 a man takes home, a women takes home just 85p.

Under this Government, the situation is likely to get worse. The cuts mean that women are losing employment in the public sector, but they are not getting comparable jobs in the private sector. The Women’s Budget Group analysis shows the following: although unemployment across the whole UK has fallen by 0.6% for men, it has increased by 0.8% for women; the number of women who are unemployed has increased by nearly 15% to over 1 million, the highest level for a generation; and long-term unemployment has increased eight times faster for women than for men. For older women aged over 50, the situation is even worse: unemployment is up by 42,000—more than a third—since the general election, while for older men it has fallen. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Gloria De Piero) said, unemployment rates are particularly high among black and ethnic minority women.

Some jobs have been created in the private sector, but overall 63% of them went to men and only 37% to women. For women who are still working in the public sector, while wages have been frozen, at least progress was being made year on year to close the gender pay gap, with the difference between the hourly pay rates for men and women narrowing from 18.2% to 14.2% in recent years. There has been no comparable reduction in the private sector, where women earn, on average, 25.1% less per hour than men. As the Fawcett Society warns:

“Unless the government takes urgent action, women will lose their precarious footing in the workforce. We face a labour market characterised by persistent and rising levels of women’s unemployment, shrinking pay levels for women and a widening of the gender pay gap.”

Even the recent return to growth will not necessarily help if the Government do not act. Professor Diane Elson of the Women’s Budget Group says:

“Our big concern is that…women are going to be so far behind they will not be able to catch up.”

Is there any reason to hope the Government are listening and will act? Not if recent announcements are anything to go by. The Tories’ Free Enterprise Group wants to extend VAT—a deeply regressive tax that hits the poorest hardest—to essentials such as food, children’s clothes and bus fares. The Lib Dems tell us that the answer is to increase the income tax threshold. The Deputy Prime Minister claims that that will help those on low incomes, but any gain will be far outweighed by the Government’s tax rises and unfair changes to tax credits—and of course the very poorest will not benefit at all.

[Mr Newmark]

As a member of the Free Enterprise Group, I want to put it on record that I oppose the suggestion that was made by one individual in that group. We should not impose VAT on children’s clothing and food, in particular, as that would be regressive and punitive. It was not said by the Free Enterprise Group but by one individual in that group, and I certainly oppose it.

[Lilian Greenwood]

I am sure we have all read about the proposed changes and know who to believe.

The Government’s own impact assessment on the tax threshold rise to £10,000 shows that 57% of those gaining from the measure are men and only 43% are women. The Women’s Budget Group notes that three quarters of the gain will go to the better-off half of all households. On average, households in the poorest 10% of the distribution gain just £6 per year; in contrast, the richest 10% of households gain an average of £87 per year. What has the Government’s priority been? It has been a tax cut for those earning over £150,000 a year and a massive giveaway to millionaires, while child benefit—a lifeline for many mums—has been frozen not once but for three years in a row. Tax credits and other benefits that many low-paid women rely on will rise by just 1%, condemning families to falling living standards and increasing the pressure on women, who are most often responsible for making ends meet. It is not a record to be proud of.

These changes threaten women’s economic autonomy. Women who live on their own lose most from the combined impact of changes to taxes and cuts to benefits and services.

[Mr Rob Wilson (Reading East) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way on that point?

[Lilian Greenwood]

No, I am not going to take another intervention.

Single mothers lose out the most, losing 15.6% of their disposable income compared with single fathers, who lose 11.7% and couples with children who lose 9.7.%. Among pensioners, single women lose 12.5% compared with single male pensioners losing 9.5% and pensioner couples losing 8.6%. Even among working-age families with no children, single women find that their spending power is cut the most. No wonder Mumsnet found that women of all ages and all backgrounds are fed up with this Government.

It does not have to be this way. Governments can act, even in tough times, to support women rather than making life harder. They could support more women to get into work or stay at work when they start a family by extending free nursery places for three and four-year-olds from 15 hours to 25 hours a week. I remember what a difference it made to me and my friends when our children started at nursery, and that was in better economic times. Now, under this Tory-Lib Dem Government, the cost of nursery places has risen five times faster than pay, with Sure Start centres closing at a rate of three per week and child care places falling by more than 35,000. The Government could support the parents of school-aged children by providing a legal guarantee for breakfast and after-school club care. Instead, they have scrapped Labour’s extended schools programme.

In Nottingham, a rise in pupil numbers has left an increasing number of parents and children without access to the care they need. An e-mail from a mum in my constituency, who wrote to me on behalf of a group of parents at her children’s school, says it all:

“The problem is that we need after school childcare provision for our children and are running out of options—the likelihood is that some of us will have to give up jobs or take career breaks to fit in around available childcare provision”.

This Government could provide real incentives to reward firms that sign up to be living wage employers. Earlier this month, I was proud to join Nottingham Citizens and Nottinghamshire living wage employers to launch the new national living wage for the country. At that launch, Jhudari Scholar, who is 18 and head boy at his school, explained how hard it was for his mum, a cleaner working three jobs on below living wage rates. It is just shocking. KPMG reported recently that the number of people earning less than a living wage has risen by more than 400,000 in the past year to 5.2 million, and it is women who are disproportionately stuck on those wages.

Women in my constituency deserve better. They deserve better than a Government who stand by as their living standards are eroded. They deserve a Government who are on their side. I just wish they did not have to wait another 534 days to get one.

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[Tessa Munt]

I could not disagree more. The most important thing is that we raise the tax threshold so that those women who are working get the benefit of keeping the money they earn.

[Lilian Greenwood]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Tessa Munt]

I am going to continue.

We are creating more jobs for women, which is the best way of helping them with the cost of living. There are 427,000 more women in employment and almost 100,000 more women in self-employment since 2010.

We have helped create more than 1 million apprenticeships, of which more than half have been taken by women. We are taking steps to narrow inequality in the labour market. The proportion of female FTSE 100 directorships has increased by 50% since February 2011, and the gender pay gap has fallen from 20.2% in 2011 to 19.7% in 2012. That is small but undeniable progress.

The Liberal Democrat pensions Minister has helped women by introducing a new single-tier pension. Under the existing system, many women have lost out because the years they spent raising children were not properly counted towards their national insurance contributions. Under our scheme, those years will now count in full. That is so much fairer for women, who currently receive, on average, £40 less than men from their state pension.

We have helped drivers and consumers by freezing Labour’s fuel duty escalator for 41 months. At present, this is saving the average motorist about £7 every time she fills her tank, and it is likely to save her £10 a time by 2015. In my area, where there is little or no public transport, and in most rural areas in general, that, of course, directly affects women who spend a lot of their time needing to use a car, particularly to transport elderly parents or younger children around.

The Lib Dem policy of free child care has started to assist families of about 130,000 two-year-olds to become eligible for an early education place. As well as helping to improve living standards, our scheme will transform children’s life chances. The Deputy Prime Minister has announced that the scheme will double in size from September 2014. We recognise that looking at child care can be key to building a stronger economy.