EBacc: Expressive Arts Subjects

Margaret Greenwood Excerpts

Monday 4th July 2016 Westminster Hall

[Mr Lammy]

I know the figures game, as I have sat where the Minister is. When he replies to the debate, will he break those figures down into state schools, academies and private schools? If he does, I think we will find that the pattern is very different indeed.

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

Will the Minister also inform us what has happened to the provision of individual music lessons for pupils in Sefton?

[Mr Lammy]

My hon. Friend is right. I hope that the Minister comes to that in his round-up, and perhaps he will also talk about Tottenham.

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[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

I want to say first that my sister is learning associate at the Unicorn theatre for children, which works with schoolchildren on drama projects.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) on introducing this important debate, which goes to the heart of the question of what education is for. The English baccalaureate is a performance measure for schools, awarded when students secure a grade C or above at GCSE across a core of five academic subjects—English language, mathematics, history or geography, the sciences and a language—and English literature at any grade. That sets up a hierarchy of value and suggests that English literature is less important than the other core subjects—something that I as a former English teacher would hotly dispute—and that the expressive arts subjects of art, music, drama and dance are of secondary importance. I believe that nothing could be further from the truth.

Through the arts, pupils can explore ideas in the most imaginative of ways. They can develop their powers of verbal and non-verbal expression through physical theatre, painting, music and dance, and can gain an understanding of and a love for our rich cultural heritage. To deny the arts is to deny what it is to be human. Undermine the arts in the curriculum—for that is what the current EBacc does—and we see a spiral of decline in provision, with the expressive arts becoming something accessible only to those privileged children whose parents can afford to pay for after-school activities, with others being left behind.

The hierarchy of value has implications for school planning and resourcing. Entries for GCSEs in arts subjects have fallen by 46,000 this year according to new figures recording England’s exam entries for 2016. It is not difficult to understand that if fewer pupils are taking a subject, demand dwindles and music, drama and art departments will shed staff, damaging the morale of the staff who remain. The uptake of creative subjects fell by 14% from 2010 to 2015, and our creative industries are facing a skills shortage. The Government’s figures show that the creative industries represent more than 5% of the UK economy—more than £84 billion in 2014—and grew by almost 10% between 2013 and 2014. The sector employs almost 2 million people.

The issue is not only about what arts education can deliver to our economy. We are facing a mental health crisis among our young people. We should be providing them with an education that makes them feel integrated and whole and uses all parts of their creativity, and does not just focus on high academic achievement. We know that developing the arts and creativity is important for mental wellbeing. The stories of actors who have been saved by drama at a young age are legion. One such actor told me that theatre had saved him from getting involved in drugs as a teenager. He grew up on an estate riddled with crime, but there was something about theatrical expression that just clicked for him and gave him a way out. I recently met a senior police officer on Merseyside. He felt our education was too obsessed with high academic achievement and that our neglect of educational activities that develop the whole person is leading to real problems in our society, with young people who do not want to or are unable to follow an academic route not being given the opportunity to acquire a broad education that will help them develop as people. That is quite an indictment.

The Government seem to suggest that the English baccalaureate would not be to the detriment of the arts. In response to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) in 2013, they gave the reassuring words:

“The English Baccalaureate measure…leaves space for pupils to study creative subjects alongside a strong academic core. We believe good school leaders will continue to make time for artistic and cultural education.”—[Official Report, 25 April 2013; Vol. 561, c. 1174W.]

In fact, it has not worked out that way. Taking the example of art and design, we find a worrying picture. A recent survey by the National Society for Education in Art and Design found that exclusion from the EBacc is leading arts and creative subjects in state schools to be less valued and accorded less time in the school curriculum, accentuating an existing trend.

At least a third and up to 44% of teacher responses to the survey indicated that the time allocated for art and design over all key stages had decreased in the last five years. For state schools, where respondents identified that there had been a reduction of time allocated for art and design, 93% of those teachers agreed or strongly agreed that the EBacc had reduced opportunities for students to select their subjects. Those changes are in turn affecting the morale of the teachers of those subjects. Some 56% of respondents reported that the reduced profile and value given to their subject by the Government and by school management had contributed to teachers leaving or wanting to leave the profession. We cannot afford to let that happen.

There is a famous quote from Winston Churchill who, when asked to cut funding for the arts in favour of the war effort, said if not that,

“then what are we fighting for?”

That is a key point, because the arts are vital to our culture. We must guard and nourish them. If we do not have artistic expression, we cannot know ourselves and as people we are diminished. I urge the Minister to pause and take time out to reconsider the value of arts education.

Pupils from Overchurch Junior School in my constituency will be performing a production based on the works of William Shakespeare in conjunction with the Royal Shakespeare Company in 10 Downing Street this Wednesday. I urge the Minister to come along, take a fresh look and see at first hand just what drama and the expressive arts can give to our young people. The idea that there is no rigour comparable to that of the core EBacc subjects in mastering the major roles in the works of Shaw, Beckett or Shakespeare is demonstrably untrue.

Finally, the English baccalaureate has been developed as a performance measure for schools, not as the best possible curriculum offer we can provide for our young people. As such, it is distorting the balance of educational provision, and I urge the Minister to think again about the detrimental impact it is having on arts education in our country.

[Mr Christopher Chope (in the Chair)]

I call Carol Monaghan.

Education, Skills and Training

Margaret Greenwood Excerpts

Wednesday 25th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

The Queen’s Speech set out the Government’s intention to publish a life chances strategy, which I understand will be separate from, but run alongside, their new indicators for child poverty, which are being introduced as part of the Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016. What could be more fundamental to improving life chances than improving access to education, skills and training?

On Friday, I hosted an all-party group event on adult education and its future at the Carr Bridge community centre in Woodchurch in my constituency. The event was part of a piece of research being carried out by the Workers Educational Association and the University of Warwick, and it brought together experts in the field from right across Merseyside, including Wirral Metropolitan College, Wirral Council, Unite the union and staff from Ganneys Meadow nursery school who voluntarily provide GCSE maths classes for parents, because they know the value of the trusted community setting.

The conversation that afternoon was rich and valuable, and I wish to focus on two areas that were discussed with real passion. The first was the provision of literacy and numeracy classes to people with no qualifications or with low levels of qualification, and the second was the provision of a broad curriculum for all adults with a desire to learn and the need for us to rediscover a vision for lifelong learning in our country.

We know that there is a real problem with basic literacy and numeracy skills among adults in this country. The latest survey published by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills in 2011 found that nearly 15% of 16 to 65-year-olds—around 5 million people—are functionally illiterate. That is a really damning indictment of one of the richest countries on earth. A total of 23.7% of participants in the survey—around 8 million people—lacked basic numeracy skills.

In 2013, an OECD study of 24 developed countries ranked England 11th in literacy and 17th in numeracy for people aged 16 to 65. Those aged between 16 and 24 fared even worse, being ranked 22nd and 21st respectively.

Last week, when I was walking down a road I saw a couple of children out playing. They were probably aged between three and four years old. All of a sudden, their mother appeared, tearing down the street and swearing at them to get back indoors. As I looked at them, it was clear to me that there was no future for those children. Their mother needs help.

I know from my own experience as a former adult basic skills tutor the powerful impact that the provision of free, friendly and accessible classes in the community setting can have on the lives of people who struggle to find the confidence to read and to write. I know, too, the powerful self-esteem that can flow when an adult is given the opportunity to learn—after all, we have all experienced that ourselves.

Seeing the mother and her children reminded me of the scene in “A Christmas Carol” where the Ghost of Christmas Present shows Scrooge two children emerging from under his robe. He describes them as

“wretched, abject, frightful, hideous and miserable.”

Scrooge asks Spirit, “Are they yours?” The Spirit replies:

“They are man’s…This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware of them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy…beware ignorance the most.”

That message is as true today as it was in Dickens’s time. We all know the adage, “Teach the mother and father and you will teach the child.” If we are to break cycles of deprivation, we must provide opportunities to learn in accessible community settings free of charge. To pass through this world unable to read and write with confidence is to experience a deprivation that few of us in this House can truly imagine. As one of the richest countries on earth, it is unacceptable that we allow this need to go unmet, yet the figures are telling. The total cut in the adult skills budget between 2010 and 2011 and 2015 and 2016 is around 37% in real terms, which has decimated local services, hence the need for voluntary provision, which I find unacceptable.

Then there is the matter of how we value those who teach basic literacy and numeracy. I know myself that tutors are very often on insecure and temporary contracts, and yet the work that they do is often as important as that of psychologists, nurses and language therapists. We need to provide a clear career structure and training for these basic skills tutors that properly rewards them and the work that they do.

Let me now turn to the matter of wider adult education provision, including those classes for which there is no requirement to take an exam or acquire a qualification. Back in the 1970s, we could walk past any number of schools in the evening and see the lights ablaze with classes full of people studying art, maths, Spanish, history, woodwork and yoga—the list was endless. We all recognise the value of having access to a swimming pool to maintain our physical health. Why do we not pay similar attention to public provision to foster creativity and maintain mental health? Why do we not value education for education’s sake and understand that some people want to learn without working to an exam? This is particularly important in an ageing society in which social isolation is a growing and significant public health issue. Education has an important role to play in tackling that. I believe we should foster a positive culture of lifelong learning so that we can all continue to learn, grow and share with others in our communities. To ignore our creativity and our ability to learn is to deny our society its full potential and deny all of us our humanity.

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[Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

This is the climbdown Queen’s Speech or the “as much as we can muster together” Queen’s Speech. It is a Queen’s Speech so fearful of its own destiny—or should I say demise?—that it seeks hardly any powers at all. Nowhere is that more stark than in its flimsy offerings on education and skills.

The Prime Minister said only a few weeks ago that

“academies for all…will be in the Queen’s Speech.”—[Official Report, 27 April 2016; Vol. 608, c. 1422.]

Yet the word “academy” did not even appear in Her Majesty’s Gracious Speech.

The Government had one big idea for education: to force all schools, against their wishes, to become academies. That has been dropped as quickly as it was unveiled to shore up the Chancellor’s lacklustre Budget. There remains a schools Bill, but it is hardly worth the paper it is written on and raises more questions than it answers. If that is the sum total of the new thinking of the first Conservative majority Government in more than 20 years, their education policy is in a very dire state indeed. In the process, their flip-flopping has wasted the valuable time and energy not just of the Department, which is failing to get the basics right, but of school leaders, parents and teachers around the country, who are in open revolt at the Government’s approach.

What a crying shame that after so many years of real progress in education by successive Governments, particularly the last Labour one, this Government are now presiding over a school system in crisis. It is mired by chaos and confusion created by incessant ministerial meddling, and the basics of sufficiency in quality teachers, school places and budgets are woefully lacking. For the first time in a long time, education is right back up there as an issue of public concern.

As we have heard in the excellent speeches by my hon. Friends the Members for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) and for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi), and by many Conservative Members, there is relief at the Government’s decision to U-turn on forced academisation. However, the Government seem to have missed the point of the wide alliance that their plans have forged. It is not simply about the politically inept idea of compelling already good and outstanding schools to become academies against their wishes; it is about wider concerns about the desire for a fully academised system—without the underpinning evidence, capacity or robust oversight and accountability—leading to many more Perry Beeches or E-ACTs. Many of those concerns remain, but the Government have failed to address any of them or to produce any clear evidence. Vague assertions and loose statistics that have no correlation to cause and effect simply will not do.

The evidence remains patchy. Analysis by PricewaterhouseCoopers shows that only three of the biggest academy chains got a positive value-added rating and that just one of the 26 biggest primary sponsors achieved results above the national average. In areas where there is still underachievement at GCSE, most or all secondary schools are already academies. The highest-performing part of our school system is in primary, where more than 80% of schools are maintained and rated good or outstanding, and where most of the Education Secretary’s 1.4 million good new places have been created. There is simply no evidence that academisation in itself leads to school improvement. My right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) made many of those points, and my hon. Friend the Member for Burnley (Julie Cooper) made some excellent points about the fragmented and poor planning that the school system creates. That is why we now have a shell of a schools Bill and a Government with absolutely nothing else to say. I ask the Secretary of State again to get the independent analysis, take stock, ensure that best practice—not worst practice—is being spread and develop high-quality chains to take on more schools before seeking more powers to accelerate academisation.

I support the Secretary of State’s plans to require maths to be taught until the age of 18. Indeed, I think that that should be extended to English, too. But her ambition will fail completely if she does not take urgent action to tackle the chronic shortage of teachers, particularly in maths.

[Margaret Greenwood]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government’s failure to get to grips with the retention of schoolteachers is hurtling us towards crisis?

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[Lucy Powell]

The right hon. Lady shakes her head, but that is the reality on the ground. I could give her a number of examples of that happening in every part of the country.

The Government could have ensured a robust and consistent testing and assessment framework. Instead, we have seen chaos and confusion—calamity after calamity on SATs with baseline testing being abandoned, and new and radically different GCSEs still not ready just weeks before they are due to begin. Today’s kids are guinea pigs for the Government’s chaotic experiments. In every other public sphere, Ministers are championing devolution, yet in education they are going in the opposite direction.

[Margaret Greenwood]

My hon. Friend is being very generous with her time. Does she agree with a point put to me on Friday by a senior police officer on Merseyside that the Government are failing to provide an education that develops our children, particularly those who are not going to gain high academic qualifications, and that that is spilling over in the creation of lots of problems for our police and social services?

[Lucy Powell]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point about the narrowing of the curriculum that we have seen under this Government.

This week’s IPPR North report warns of the growing regional divide. As my hon. Friends the Members for Blaydon (Mr Anderson) and for City of Durham (Dr Blackman-Woods) highlighted, Ministers cannot build a northern powerhouse or a midlands engine of growth if they take away the levers that communities are using to tackle the deep-rooted causes of low attainment. However, the real headline of the report is just how well London has done. Why is that? It is—to name but a few reasons—because of the London challenge, significant resources and the development of a pool of world-class teachers. The Government seem to be ignoring all those lessons. Indeed, they are putting such achievements at risk by taking away further resources.

This is a programme from a Government who are unable to persuade even their own Members of the merits of their proposals, who are out of ideas for schools and education and who talk of improved life chances but whose actions make life much harder for those with the least. The Government’s education record has been one of structural change at the expense of standards, chronic teacher shortages, a schools places crisis, falling budgets and assessment in complete and utter meltdown. Their own record is now coming home to roost, and on it they will be judged.

Oral Answers to Questions

Margaret Greenwood Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd May 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Universities and Science (Joseph Johnson)]

We took the decision to protect the science budget, enabling us to invest and put the UK at the front of tackling diseases such as dementia. In addition, a Government investment of £150 million has been announced by the Prime Minister to establish a dementia research institute. I am pleased to confirm that two leading charities, the Alzheimer’s Society and Alzheimer’s Research UK, have now pledged a further £100 million towards the project. The Medical Research Council will be looking for an inspirational director to lead the institute and bring together the collective experience that exists in the UK and worldwide.

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

T2. Guidance issued by the Government on 8 February on the use of Government-funded research for lobbying caused great concern in the field of higher education and indeed among academics in my constituency of Wirral West. Can the Minister confirm that all grants given out under the remit of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills will be exempt from the anti-lobbying clause? Will he also confirm that he is seeking a similar exemption for research grants given out by other Government Departments and agencies?

[Joseph Johnson]

Yes, there has been concern from academic communities and I can confirm that all grants issued by the Higher Education Funding Council for England and the academies will not be covered by that clause.

Enterprise Bill [Lords]

Margaret Greenwood Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I wonder, then, whether the hon. Lady agreed with one of the comments that Andrew Fisher made in his book:

“The sole focus of economic debate today seems to be about what leads to economic growth.”

“Why”, he asks,

“are we so obsessed with economic growth?”

In the blurb, the shadow Chancellor called it the best thing he has read in years. On the Government Benches we know why sensible people are obsessed with economic growth: it means more jobs, it means prosperity, it lifts people out of poverty, it pays for our health service and our schools, and it allows us to invest in the future of our nation.

We know that growth is not created by politicians or by civil servants. It is not delivered by Whitehall diktat, or by printing money, or by creating an ever-expanding public sector. Economic growth comes from one thing, and one thing alone: successful private businesses.

The role of Government is to create an environment in which businesses can thrive. So, while Labour’s policy chief dreams of handing taxpayers’ money to trade unions so they can buy out companies, this Government are taking action to back British business.

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

In November of last year the green investment bank announced it had raised £10 billion in green infrastructure investment in the last three years. At the time the Secretary of State said:

“As this milestone shows, the Green Investment Bank is going from strength to strength and is having a major impact supporting renewable energy projects across the whole of the UK.”

This, at the moment, is not a private company—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Natascha Engel)]

Order. Lots of Members wish to speak. If the hon. Lady would like me to put her name at the end of my list of those wishing to speak, I will do that, but otherwise interventions must be short, as must the responses.

[Margaret Greenwood]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. We have heard what we need.

Women and Low Pay

Margaret Greenwood Excerpts

Wednesday 18th November 2015 Westminster Hall

[Ruth Cadbury]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: we need action, not words. One of those actions is the living wage—or should I call it the true living wage, so as not to confuse it with the rebranded minimum wage? The true living wage is an hourly rate set independently and accredited annually. It is calculated according to the basic cost of living, not median earnings, unlike the new national living wage. The current living wage is £8.25 an hour, with the London living wage at £9.40 an hour. Employers choose voluntarily to pay the living wage.

Labour local authorities are taking the lead in rolling out the living wage. I am proud of the role I played in Hounslow Council in implementing it for the staff of not only the council, but its contractors, many of whom are women. That is making a difference locally to many women’s lives and workplaces.

During the recent living wage week, my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green)—the shadow Women and Equalities Minister—highlighted the importance of fair pay for women on a visit to a group of school meal staff in Camden who had recently been awarded the London living wage. That pay rise was due to a sustained campaign by the Camden New Journal and Unison, which put pressure on the company that employed the women so that it would give them the living wage they deserved. On receiving her pay increase, one of the women was delighted. She said the extra few pounds a week meant she would be able to save a bit of money each month and eventually have enough to go on a family holiday—her first. That made such a difference to her.

That is good for not just the employees, but their employer, which has seen increased staff satisfaction, leading to higher retention rates. Indeed, it previously had high staff turnover, with 40 vacancies to fill last summer; this year, it had only two. That is the point: having a large section of our workforce on a low wage is bad for business and bad for the economy. The Government consultation on the gender pay gap discovered that equalising women’s productivity and employment with men’s could add almost £600 billion to the economy.

The Government have taken some lessons from the last Labour Government. One is that, for most women, childcare is a barrier to labour market participation, and that is even truer of women on low pay. The Sure Start initiative was introduced because Labour recognised that women were more likely to be in low-paid jobs and, therefore, that childcare needed to be subsidised to help them back into work.

It frustrates me that, to help women back into the workforce, there has to be recognition that women’s employment is, on average, less well paid and of less value. Although it is good to see more women able to participate in the labour market, TUC research has shown that more than half the job growth for women since 2010 has been in low-paying sectors. Why is women’s work less well paid? The work that women do is crucial to the functioning of society, but their pay does not reflect that.

Despite the fact that women’s qualifications are as good as, or better than, men’s, they are not rewarded. Women occupy 78% of jobs in health and social care—a sector where the average salary is £40 per week less than the UK economy average. By comparison, men account for 88% of those working in more lucrative sectors, such as science, technology and engineering.

It is harder for women to find good-quality jobs. Evidence suggests that women become “discouraged workers”, resulting in fewer of them working or actively seeking work. They are discouraged workers because they face real challenges in finding decent-quality work, and the work they traditionally carry out, such as catering, cleaning and caring, is too often low paid and undervalued.

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. Does she agree that, with 4.1 million children now living in poverty, tackling women’s low pay is a crucial part of improving the opportunities of those young people?

[Ruth Cadbury]

My hon. Friend is right. Children growing up in poverty do not have the same advantages and opportunities as many in their peer group. We cannot have a situation in which the adults of the future are not able to develop as they should in an equal, fair society.

Among examples discovered by the TUC of how brazen companies can be when they employ women was an advertisement in Wales for two seasonal roles—Santa Claus and Mrs Claus. Santa was to be paid a fair wage of £12 per hour, while Mrs Claus was paid the national minimum wage of £6.70 per hour. There was no difference in their job descriptions, and they both did the same amount of work, but the woman’s role was deemed to be of less value. That may seem like an interesting one-off, but it perfectly demonstrates how differently men’s and women’s work is valued 45 years after the implementation of the Equal Pay Act 1970.

Occupational segregation and the devaluing of work traditionally carried out by women, such as caring, directly contributes to the gender pay gap. That must be tackled and the Government must do more to diversify the labour market. As I have said, UK women earn on average 91% of what men earn. To put it another way, as of 9 November, just over a week ago, women are effectively working for free for the rest of the year. That is simply not acceptable in the 21st century. Progress has not been quick enough. Under Labour the gender pay gap reduced by a third—a trend that has, I admit, since continued; but while the gap has narrowed for full-time workers, it has widened for part-time workers and we must not be complacent.

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[Colleen Fletcher]

I agree with my hon. Friend on that point, which was also raised by our hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth.

As I was saying, although the types of job I describe are crucial and help to hold the fabric of society together, they are all too often part-time, low-skilled jobs with few progression opportunities, and are viewed and derogatively dismissed as “women’s work”. Consequently, they are undervalued and underpaid relative to comparable jobs in male-dominated sectors. As a result, low, unequal pay for work of equal value is the bleak reality for many of Coventry’s working women in this divided and divisive labour market.

[Margaret Greenwood]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the fact that women in their 50s earn 18% less than men not only is an injustice for those women, but really reflects a failure of our society to harness all the expertise and knowledge of those women? That shortcoming as a society has an impact on our economy.

[Colleen Fletcher]

I absolutely agree with my hon Friend. I have had experience of that, and constituents have written to me about those very things.

One of the clearest examples of this inequity is the widening gender pay gap in the city, which last year increased to 16.2%, up from 15% the previous year. It reached an astonishing 20.6% in my constituency. That means that on average, women in my local area took home just 79p for every £1 earned by a man. That rising inequality and resultant deterioration in the financial position of women across Coventry is extremely worrying and wholly unacceptable in equal measure, but of course the most fundamental and obvious problem facing women in these less valued and less well paid jobs is their inability to earn enough to provide themselves and their family with a decent standard of living, and in some circumstances even to keep their heads above water.

We know that low income as a result of reliance on low-paid work and in-work benefits limits access to adequate housing, education and other services or facilities, as well as to essentials such as food, fuel and clothing. That socio-economic disadvantage is inextricably linked to the significant health and social inequalities seen in Coventry and in my constituency, which impact upon some of the poorest and most vulnerable of my constituents. That is why we simply cannot continue to allow less valued and less well paid work to be the fate of generation after generation of women. We need fundamentally to tackle the undervaluation of so-called “women’s work”, while simultaneously challenging gender stereotyping within the labour market, expanding opportunities for quality flexible and part-time working, increasing affordable childcare provision, and raising pay across the board, particularly within traditionally feminised work sectors.

Coventry City Council has taken a lead on the issue locally by becoming a living wage employer—like my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth, I was directly involved in that as a councillor some time ago. Such a move ensures improved income levels for a substantial number of low-paid individuals, the majority of whom are women. In addition, the council has also implemented a social value policy, which includes payment of a living wage as one of the criteria that the council will consider in its procurement process. That will benefit all workers on low pay, but particularly women, as they make up the majority of those on low pay in my city.

[Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. I congratulate the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) on securing this important Westminster Hall debate. I welcome her noteworthy and impressive contribution, as well as the contributions from other Members who have spoken.

The hon. Lady said that there has been a focus on high-paid jobs. It is important that women are given equal representation in high-paid jobs—and in boardrooms, political parties and Government Cabinets—so I can understand why she makes the point, but I think it is important that we focus on both high-paid and low-paid jobs. She highlighted the fact that three out of five jobs in minimum wage work are held by women. I have to admit that I was not aware of that startling figure, but I am glad that she raised it. That is why sorting equal pay claims from councils across the country is so important.

The hon. Lady highlighted the issue of the damaging branding of the Chancellor’s minimum wage premium as a national living wage. It is not national—it is only available to over-25s—and it is not a living wage; it falls way short of the Living Wage Foundation’s independently set living wage, which is calculated based on the cost of living. She mentioned that having a gender pay gap is bad for business. The statistic that she used to highlight that is absolutely correct and it is worth sharing it again: if we were to equalise the gender pay gap, we would boost productivity by an estimated £600 billion in this country. Frankly, that is astonishing. I thank her again for securing the debate.

The hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) raised a number of very important points about problems with pensions, particularly for women born in the 1950s. Those issues were discussed just yesterday in a Westminster Hall debate secured by my hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford). The hon. Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) made very important points during that debate, as well as during this one. The hon. Lady, on behalf of the WASPI campaign group, made some very important points, which I welcome and which are supported by SNP Members.

My hon. Friend the Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley) made a typically powerful speech. She made the point that gender equality is not a dream and should not be a dream. It needs to be a reality. She also said that women get paid two months short compared with their male counterparts.

[Margaret Greenwood]

Some years ago, I was fortunate enough to have a job teaching on a “women back to work” programme. The vast majority of the women were divorced. It was a really fantastic experience for me to see how quickly they improved their skills and educational base in a very short space of time. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is very important to provide training and educational opportunities for women—not just women in employment, but those who are unemployed, so that they can get back to work and generate the kind of economic activity that will boost their life chances?

[Neil Gray]

Absolutely. There is nothing that I can disagree with in that intervention, and I will come to some of those issues later in my speech.

Returning to the contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Lanark and Hamilton East, the gender pay gap still exists even in what would be traditionally or stereotypically described as “female jobs”. That is still wrong and needs to be addressed. No man wants to see his daughter suffering a gender pay gap—that is absolutely right. I speak as a the father of a one-year-old daughter who I hope will go on to employment where she will earn the same as her male counterparts, so I stand here today on that basis.

The hon. Member for Coventry North East (Colleen Fletcher) effectively highlighted the issues of gender inequality in her city of Coventry. Again, I highlight the contribution made by the hon. Member for Coventry South, who, as I said, also made noteworthy contributions to the debate on pensions yesterday.

It is disappointing that in 2015 we are still discussing matters of gender equality. Nevertheless, it is important to take cognisance of the fact that a real pay gap between men and women remains. Low pay affects women disproportionately. In 1999, the gender pay gap for full-time employees in Scotland stood at 16.7%, but by 2014 it had been reduced to 9%, and it is 9.4% in the rest of the UK. This year, the Scottish Government launched the Partnership for Change programme, wherein public, private and third-sector organisations make a voluntary commitment to work toward a 50:50 gender balance on their boards by 2020. As of 9 November, 160 organisations and businesses have signed up, which I am delighted to see, although more work is clearly needed. On this year’s equal pay day, 9 November, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon pledged to do everything she can to advance equal pay and gender equality in Scotland as part of the Fawcett Society’s pay gap pledge campaign. The First Minister has been leading the way on the issues, starting clearly and publicly with her 50:50 gender balanced Cabinet.

Many women shoulder a disproportionate amount of childcare or family responsibilities, and they are unable to take up promotion and other opportunities because they do not have alternative care arrangements. The Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 provides further assistance to women and young families by providing that all three and four-year-olds and the most disadvantaged two year-olds are entitled to 600 hours of early learning and childcare. By the end of the next Parliament, the Scottish Government will have doubled the hours from 16 to 30 per week. Increasing childcare will not only improve outcomes for children, but support more women into work.

The Scottish Government have also provided Skills Development Scotland with additional funding as part of a wider £3 million allocation in 2014-15 to develop a range of equality activities, including tackling gender segregation. The Scottish Government are doing all they can with the tools on offer to provide tangible improvements.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nick Boles]

I do not want to get into a discussion about what another Minister said in a debate that I was not part of, but the quote that the hon. Lady read out indicated that the Secretary of State would consider transitional arrangements. It did not sound to me like a clear pledge to bring in any particular transitional arrangement. I have described the position and the fact that there will be a further review in 2017, which will allow those issues to be revisited.

[Margaret Greenwood]

What analysis has the Minister made of the impact of the cuts to local authorities that the Government are considering on low-paid women working in councils up and down the country?

[Nick Boles]

As the hon. Lady is aware, all decisions, legislation and regulations are subject to equality impact assessments, in which all those things are considered. Her intervention leads me neatly to my conclusion. For all that the steps that I described—transparency, leadership, childcare provision and increasing the national minimum wage through the introduction of the national living wage—are powerful, the most important source of opportunity to improve the pay of women and close the pay gap is a strong economy that creates lots of new jobs. Those new jobs and employment opportunities give women the opportunity to go out and command better wages.

Although I understand that the hon. Lady opposes public spending cuts, it is nevertheless the case that as a result of the consistent policy of slow but steady deficit reduction, this economy has created more jobs than any other country in Europe, and more women are in work than ever before. It might have been possible for Opposition Members, while properly opposing the Government on specifics, to give some acknowledgement of the fundamental achievement of creating jobs, which create opportunities, including the opportunity for women to improve the wages that they earn.

Trade Union Bill

Margaret Greenwood Excerpts

Tuesday 10th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chris Stephens]

We will discuss that at a later stage. The hon. Gentleman’s point is about the increased capacity for blacklisting that is contained in the Bill, and I agree with him.

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

rose—

[Chris Stephens]

May I move on and make some progress? I apologise, and I will take further interventions later.

New clause 2 would modernise the law promoting democracy and inclusion—the word “modernisation” keeps getting used by the Conservatives in support of the Bill. Currently, all ballots and elections must be conducted on a fully postal basis. Unlike major companies and other membership organisations—including political parties—trade union members are not allowed to vote online. The Government have consistently described the Bill as an attempt to “modernise” trade unions, but to date they have not allowed trade unions to modernise into the 21st century by using electronic and workplace balloting.

The Government argue that the introduction of thresholds for strike action balloting would boost democracy, but that only stifles the possibility of workers’ voices being heard. If the Government were committed to boosting workplace democracy, they would allow secure workplace balloting and balloting by electronic means, as our amendment suggests.

Online balloting is more accessible and inclusive. Today, most people use electronic devices every day to make transactions and to communicate. We in the SNP use online ballots, and as we have heard, so did the Conservatives in the election of their mayoral candidate. Ballot papers are usually sent to members’ home addresses, which can lead to lower turnouts, especially when junk mail is flying through people’s doors on a regular basis and things can easily get dumped in the bin. Modern methods of voting are more efficient and help negotiations to move faster. Using only postal ballots could prolong the length of a dispute because they simply take longer.

According to the latest Ofcom figures, 83% of people now have access to broadband and 66% of households own a smartphone. Those figures are likely to be higher among those of working age, and they are set to rise rapidly. The 2014 Electoral Commission survey involved 1,205 adults aged over 18, and found that 42% of respondents felt that online voting would increase their confidence by “a lot” or “a little” in the way that elections are run.

Trade Union Bill

Margaret Greenwood Excerpts

Monday 14th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

I would like to declare myself as a proud trade unionist all my working life. I am grateful for the support that I have received from the trade union movement.

I believe that this Bill is designed to restrict and undermine the role that trade unions play in our society by making it harder for working people to organise in the workplace. It seeks to do so by tying trade unions up in an excessive amount of red tape, by attacking facility time and by gagging them, thus curtailing their ability to speak out on behalf of working people.

It seems clear to me that, in putting forward this Bill, the Government fail to understand the value of trade unions’ contribution to working practices, health and safety, productivity and the economy. The Government say that the aims of this Bill are to enable the UK to pursue an ambition to become the most prosperous major economy in the world by 2030, and to ensure that hard-working people are not disrupted by strike action. I believe that, far from delivering those aims, the Bill is likely to work against them. Many colleagues have commented on the latter, so I will focus on the former.

Trade unions make a positive contribution to the lives of millions of working people in Britain: they champion the kind of fair, reasonable and safe working environments we all expect as the norm in a civilised society; they secure reasonable contracts of employment so that people can be healthy and productive in their workplaces; they promote equality so that people can be treated fairly regardless of race, religion, gender or politics; and they mediate between employers and employees when difficulties arise. Unions have been responsible for changes in legislation that have benefited all, regardless of union membership, such as the eight-hour day, paid holidays, equal pay for men and women—though we have a way to go on that one—and health and safety at work. This role of ensuring safe workplaces should not be underestimated. I recently met a nurse who told me why she joined a union more than 20 years ago. In her workplace, it had been common practice for nurses to mop up bodily fluids off the floor without wearing gloves. It was only the intervention of the union that led to this practice being stopped. She joined as a result and has never looked back.

I believe it is time for us to look for a more balanced and constructive approach to industrial relations in Britain, yet this Bill is an attack on the facility time of trade union representatives, which flies in the face of good industrial relations. The director general of the CBI said in 2009:

“Union reps constitute a major resource: there are approximately 2,000 workers who act as lay union representatives. We believe that modern representatives have lots to give their fellow employees and to the organisations that employ them.”

In addition, unions have always done useful work in providing training and skills improvement in the workplace. Earlier this year, I visited Vauxhall Motors’ plant in Ellesmere Port, where many of my constituents work. Vauxhall is a global success story. I saw at first hand the work done by Unite the union to develop education and training within the plant, upskilling the workforce and providing working people with the means to reach their potential. In Britain, we are seeing an increase in workplace insecurity, with the number of people on zero-hours contracts rising rapidly, and many of those on such contracts are employed in the health care and education sectors. It is highly unlikely they will receive skills training and education at work, which will add to the trend of ever decreasing pay and skills and the low-pay, low-skill economy, which as a nation we cannot afford.

If we want a more productive economy, the Government would do better to make investment in skills and technology a priority, rather than weakening the role of trade unions. The Bill is an unnecessary and vindictive attack on trade unions and undermines the democratic rights of working people, and I urge everybody in the House to vote against it.