Equal Pay and the Gender Pay Gap

Martin Docherty-Hughes Excerpts

Wednesday 1st July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Helen Whately]

My hon. and learned Friend makes an important point. While many of us here and outside this place are fighting for more opportunities and support for women, we must not forget how difficult life can be for young men, who have much higher rates of mental health problems and suicide, and for young boys who are not doing so well in school. We need to think about both genders when considering how people can achieve their potential in life. As he suggests, there is no longer a pay gap for women under 40, so we must take care not to try to solve a problem that no longer exists. We must now ensure that that achievement is extended to women over 40 so that there is no gender pay gap at all, because there certainly is today.

When looking at the progress made in recent years, we should look beyond pay and consider the success of women on boards. The work of the 30% Club has been very influential in that area. In 2010 only 12.5% of FTSE 100 board members were women, but now the figure is up to 24.7%. The UK leads many countries around the world in that regard, including America, Canada and Australia. We should also appreciate the increasing number of women in leadership positions in both the private and public sectors.

It might be helpful to reflect on what has worked so far and how we have achieved that progress. Legislation has certainly played a role, going all the way back to the Equal Pay Act 1970, which the motion refers to, and the Equality Act 2010, which, beyond the pay problem, ended the gap in contractual terms so that other terms do not favour men over women. That also put a stop to confidentiality clauses getting in the way of fair pay. There is huge support for childcare, with the introduction of breakfast clubs and after-school clubs making a big difference for working parents. Hon. Members have also mentioned flexibility for women in the workplace, and for men.

Corporate organisations such as the 30% Club have worked to make data available on the pay gap. One thing that has made a difference in the decisions of big businesses is the fact that the data show that companies that have women on their boards do better. Companies have then said, “Okay, in order to do better we need to ensure that we have women coming through the organisation and on our board.”

As many case studies show, private and public sector organisations often do well through informal methods, such as supporting women with mentoring, networking and coaching, recognising the challenges they face—often they relate to mindset—and helping them overcome them. The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, which has focused on supporting women in the workplace over the past couple of years, makes a very good case study: unlike the civil service as a whole, in which women fill only 38% of leadership positions, more than 50% of its senior leaders are now women. Progress really is being made.

[Martin John Docherty (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)]

The hon. Lady is raising many important points for the House to take on board. Does she agree that it is not just the private and public sectors, but the charitable bodies that work with the Charity Commission for England and Wales, the new Charity Commission for Northern Ireland and those under the regulation of the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator—I am sorry about the long names—that should take cognisance of this debate, because they are substantial employers and should also be setting an example in their charitable works and management?

[Helen Whately]

I support that; I do not know the data for the charitable sector, but it makes sense. I wonder whether the charitable sector might be like the healthcare sector and the NHS, where women make up a greater proportion of the workforce as a whole but the top tier of leadership is still male-dominated. Any organisation in which that is the case cannot simply say, “We have more women across our workforce. Aren’t we doing well?” There should be an equal proportion of women at the top as across the whole organisation.

Things are happening and more needs to happen. On the increase in transparency, the Government will rightly make the reporting of gender pay information for companies with more than 250 employees mandatory and give employment tribunals the power to require employers to conduct a pay audit. Those things are really important. I am a huge advocate of transparency in healthcare, which was my area of expertise before coming here. I also want to see more voluntary transparency. Companies that are competing for top women graduates and school leavers should surely publicise their effectiveness and success in supporting women in work. They should be transparent about their pay and the progress they are making for women in the workplace.

Making the workplace more supportive of women and family life, for women and men, is incredibly important. I am proud that my Government are moving forward on the equal right to request flexible working and the opportunity to have shared parental leave, tax-free childcare, and state-funded early education. I know the difference that having state-funded early education makes in enabling women to go back to work earlier, as they are more often the primary child carer. I have heard women say that they would like to be able to go back to work sooner and ask that that support therefore be provided earlier. It is incredibly important that we encourage men to take up the opportunity to have shared parental leave so that there is genuine equality in the workplace. Children need their father figures just as much as they need mothers in their lives.

I am getting an indication from the Speaker that I should move towards the conclusion of my comments, so I shall do so. We are rightly supporting women and girls to make choices that enable them to make the most of their potential. The Your Life campaign aims to increase the number of girls and young women taking up careers in science and technology. Beyond that, we need to encourage girls to study STEM subjects and to aim higher.

On the confidence gap, 69% of women executives surveyed expected to reach board level compared with 81% of men. There is a persistent gap in women’s confidence in their ability to succeed. Fabulous research is being done on centred leadership and what works for women. We should encourage companies and organisations to draw on that, and schools could also use it to ensure that girls are supported in taking the approach to their life that they need to take to be successful. Being a woman leader is different from being a male leader—we now understand that.

We all have a part to play in our constituencies and in our work with our colleagues to ensure that the improvement seen for the under-40s continues for people who are over 40. Pay is important, but let us recognise that this debate is broader than that and look at all the ways to improve opportunities and achievements for women.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Phillips]

I acknowledge the hon. Lady’s point to this extent: she is absolutely right that, throughout history at least until now, white men, of whom I am one, have had a much easier ride in life. Even to this day, with all the laws that we have designed to ensure equality, women in every single walk of life have a much harder time than any man ever does.

To return to the university story, many women continue to choose courses in so-called traditionally female subjects such as education, health, arts and the humanities, but in mathematics, women are drawing level, and in the life sciences, social sciences, business and law, they have moved ahead. That means that women are moving closer to equal pay when they start their working lives. However, we still see a gap, which widens to a chasm when women reach the point at which they want to have children. No end of studies have shown the impact of motherhood on women’s pay, with hourly pay dropping relative to men’s. Just a few years ago, the Institute for Public Policy Research estimated that a woman with middling skills who has a baby at the age of 24 loses more than £500,000 in lifetime earnings compared with one who remains childless. That is simply unacceptable. It is far too often the case that women must see motherhood as a choice that will affect their entire careers—an irreversible move either to the mummy track or the career track.

Mothers’ average hourly pay recovers slightly by the time their children leave home, and their employment rate increases steadily as their children grow older, but it never returns to the level it would have been had they not had children, much less to the same level as a man’s. That is something of which all hon. Members should be aware, and something of which, as a society, we should be deeply ashamed.

[Martin John Docherty]

Given what the hon. and learned Gentleman says, does he recognise that, even in this Chamber, we perpetuate stereotypes of gender? Hon. Gentlemen are not allowed to bring a bag into the Chamber, and yet hon. Ladies are more than delighted to bring in a small handbag. That perpetuates stigma and gender stereotypes.

[Stephen Phillips]

As one of the few Members of the House who has a man bag, I will stage a protest with the hon. Gentleman. We will both bring in our bags and see whether we are upbraided by the Chair and receive some sort of censure for doing so.

There is much debate over whether women should be protected from the consequences of their reproductive choices, but improving things is good not just for the women concerned, but for the economy. We need more women in the workforce to pick up the demographic slack as our society ages, and more families rely solely on women’s earnings to live these days. Low pay for women increases child poverty, it makes families more vulnerable to sudden shocks and it costs the taxpayer in benefits and other supports. Low rates of female employment also contribute to socioeconomic marginalisation among immigrant communities.

Social change has done more to encourage women to enter higher education and the workforce than any deliberate policy. The contraceptive pill and a decline in the average number of children, together with later marriage and childbearing, have made it easier for women to join the workforce. As more women went out to work, discrimination became less severe. Girls saw the point of studying once they were expected to have careers, and once they saw that careers in all sectors were open to them and that they had the same opportunities as their male colleagues. These days, girls nearly everywhere seem more ambitious than boys, both academically and in their careers.

Given the impact of motherhood on earnings, the Government can do a lot of good by supporting women in the workforce. I am pleased that they are doing just that. Flexible working, childcare provision, shared parental leave and better careers advice will all help women who want to have children and to be able to do so without such a huge impact on their careers. We now have the highest number of women in work and in self-employment on record, the highest ever employment rate for women and record numbers of women-led enterprises.