Women (Government Policies)

Naomi Long Excerpts

Wednesday 8th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

The hon. Member for Leicester South (Jon Ashworth) is no longer in his place, but I too pay tribute to him for a very assured and interesting maiden speech. It was a privilege to be in the Chamber to hear it.

I had not planned to speak today until I saw this patronising and paternalistic motion on the Order Paper—this drivel that we have had to debate all afternoon. I am absolutely incensed by it, because the way in which we address the fact, which we all acknowledge, that women earn and own less on average is not by ensuring that they continue to receive a stream of benefits throughout their lives or only state-sponsored child care options.

From some interesting points that Opposition Members made, we learned that at the next general election the right hon. Members for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) and for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls) will stand on a platform of restoring their household’s child benefit, which is worth £2,400 a year tax-free, despite their combined income being well into the hundreds of thousands of pounds. That will be a difficult message for them to sell on the doorstep, but it was certainly a fascinating insight into planet deficit-denial on the Opposition Benches.

I also thought that I was living on a different planet when we heard no acknowledgement of the fact that over the past 12 months more than 530,000 jobs in the private sector have been created, with 400,000 more, net of the necessary reductions, in public sector employment. How is it good for families and women to be paying £120 million a day in interest? How is it good for families and women if Opposition Members put their heads in the sand and refuse to identify a single cut or alteration that they support? This Government are introducing welfare reform that will incentivise the economic choices of women in recognising that at the end of the day only additional work will help them to address the earnings gap and the asset gap.

As someone who has fought all my life for greater equality for women in the workplace, I feel somewhat differently about pensions. I think that we should welcome the fact that men and women will be retiring at equal ages and that women and men will be treated equally as regards pensions.

[Naomi Long (Belfast East) (Alliance)]

I agree that the equalisation of pension rights and ages is an important and necessary thing that we should all support. Does the hon. Lady accept, however, that the real crux of the issue for Opposition Members is the amount of time that certain women will have to prepare for the change because the goalposts have been moved so quickly?

[Harriett Baldwin]

We should bear in mind what these women are preparing for. An average 55-year-old woman today will live to 88, on average, and many more women will live to see their 100th birthday. Having the extra year to prepare for saving for that very old age is not at all a bad thing. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Lorely Burt), I have absolutely no intention of retiring in my early 60s, and I welcome the fact that men and women will be treated equally regarding pension age.