Women’s Contribution to the Economy

Mark Garnier Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Spelman]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend that maths is an A-level that is prized by all employers, and both men and women who are good at maths have good career prospects; there is no difference between men and women in that respect.

There was a lively event on Monday in the House of Commons, where MPs were invited to come and mentor, for 15 minutes at a time, groups of secondary school students who had come in from different London boroughs. It was interesting that, even then, I picked up among these school students that the girls did not fully appreciate the passport that is a maths A-level. I would say to them, “If you’re good at it, go for it!”

Alongside these gender disparities across economic sectors, there are, of course, income differences, which are a consequence of occupational differences in income. Men are far more likely to be in professional occupations associated with higher pay, for example software development, while more women are found in lower- paid professional occupations, including those in the caring professions. According to the 2012 annual survey of hours and earnings, programmers and software development professionals earned on average more than £20 per hour—£20.02, to be precise—excluding overtime. By comparison, nurses earned on average £16.61 per hour, according to the survey. We might reflect on that kind of disparity. The ONS report from September 2013 showed that men make up the majority of workers in the top 10% of earners among all employees.

[Mark Garnier (Wyre Forest) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on securing this debate. Does she share my concern about industries such as banking? Big high street banks are making great claims that they are introducing a tremendous amount of gender equality, yet below the figures there is a tremendous amount of gender imbalance; it tends to be women who have the lower-paid jobs in the banks and men who have the more senior and higher-paid jobs. That is despite the fact that there is an advantage in having women in certain areas, such as dealing rooms, where they can “de-testosterone” and therefore de-risk some of these organisations.

[Mrs Spelman]

Testosterone is far too racy a subject to start talking about mid-afternoon on a Thursday. Actually, my hon. Friend makes a good point. I applaud moves such as the one by the chief executive of Barclays, who is introducing quotas for women within his company, so that women get a really good opportunity to be represented in the higher-paid echelons of the banking business. I wish that we saw more of that.