Women and the Economy

Seema Kennedy Excerpts

Wednesday 9th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Dinenage]

Our work requiring companies to publish gender pay information will go a long way—much further than the Labour party did in government. The Government are working with businesses to make that a reality.

[Seema Kennedy (South Ribble) (Con)]

I have been following the debate, and I am sure the Minister knows that the gender pay gap has almost been eliminated for women under 40. The hon. Member for Cardiff Central (Jo Stevens) mentioned audits and public procurement, but we want more small and medium-sized enterprises to bid for public contracts, and they do not have the scale to do such things. We would therefore be eliminating such businesses from bidding for any Government contracts.

[Caroline Dinenage]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, and record numbers of small and medium-sized enterprises are gaining public contracts. We cannot have our young women growing up in a country where they get paid less because of their gender, rather than how good they are at their job. One of the most important ways to ensure long-term economic security is to break down the barriers that still hold too many women back, which is why we have given working parents greater choice by enabling more than 20 million employees to request flexible working; why we have introduced shared parental leave; and why we will extend shared parental leave and pay to working grandparents. This will support parents with the cost of childcare and help the 2 million grandparents—unsung heroes such as my mum—who give up work, reduce their hours or take time off to help with childcare.

At the same time, nearly one quarter of women between the ages of 50 and 64 provide unpaid care for a relative or friend. We have invested £1.6 million to help carers who wish to stay in work to balance their different roles. We are doing this using flexible working and innovative technology, and there are now nine pilots around the country exploring ways to help carers manage their paid work while looking after their loved ones.

One of the most important issues affecting parents—both men and women—is childcare, which is why we are investing more than £1 billion more each year in free childcare places, including by doubling the free childcare entitlement from 15 hours to 30 hours a week for working families with three and four-year-olds in 2017. In addition, from early 2017, we will offer tax-free childcare to provide up to £2,000 of childcare support per child per year for working families with children up to 12 years old. This will take the total Government spend on childcare from £5 billion in 2015 to more than £6 billion by 2020.

--- Later in debate ---

[Seema Kennedy (South Ribble) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Sunderland Central (Julie Elliott). I have listened carefully to the contributions to the debate, and particularly to that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller). The motion is very wide and covers a lot of matters, but I shall focus on a couple of them. The first relates to infrastructure investment. Labour Members have spent a lot of time in this Parliament and the previous one talking about productivity, and they often use examples such as France. We could have a debate about whether the productivity figures they cite reflect the fact that we now have record numbers of people in work and those other countries have more unemployed people, but productivity is a challenge of our time, and I am glad that the Government and my right hon. Friends the Business Secretary and the Chancellor have recognised that in their productivity agenda. Labour Members talk about the proposals for infrastructure investment, saying that they are predominantly focused on sectors that typically employ more men than women.

If we look at the autumn statement, we see that we are talking about building roads, railways and flood defences. We are investing in the arteries of the country, but unfortunately at the moment these areas are still dominated by men—roads still tend to be built predominantly by men. I have met more and more women apprentices. I have employed them, in my former life, in the building trade and we want to see more of them. We are setting off down a wrong track if we say that investing in infrastructure will not benefit the whole country. Surely the whole premise of this debate, and of what the Government and all of us here are doing, is that we should be building a stronger country for not only our daughters, but our sons—unfortunately, I do not have any daughters but I do have sons. That should be for all of us.

I was slightly puzzled that the Labour party spent a long time attacking us on productivity, because when we try to do something about it, Labour Members say we are discriminating against—

[Ian Blackford]

The hon. Lady is right to reflect on the fact that between 2008 and 2014 productivity did not increase in the UK. What policies does she think will improve productivity over the next five years?

[Seema Kennedy]

I suggest that the hon. Gentleman reads the productivity agenda that was written in July, as he will see some good activity there. Productivity is the challenge, and if we want to compete in the global economy, we have got to be investing in this area. For his benefit, I should say that the report was called “Fixing the foundations”.

Another part of the same bit of the autumn statement deals with investing in education and in childcare, sectors where a lot of women are employed; childcare does not just benefit those women who can go out to work. We have got more childcare promised in the autumn statement. Those industries predominantly employ women, but again we need to be thinking about men working in them as well. We need to stop this divisive conversation that says, “Only men can be builders and women can look after children.” All of us, particularly those of us who are mothers, know how much we rely on our husbands and partners.

[Mrs Miller]

My hon. Friend is making an important point about de-gendering some of these stereotypical role models that we tend to have in British society today. I rather welcomed the international men’s day debate, which was secured by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), because it gave us an opportunity to recognise that these gender stereotypes can be as divisive for men as they can be for women.

[Seema Kennedy]

As always, my right hon. Friend makes an excellent point.

There are historical reasons for the gender pay gap, but some of the statistics can lead us down the wrong track. The motion says that our pay gap is

“higher than the EU average”

That may be so, but in many of these countries fewer women are actually working. We want more women in work rather than on benefits. I want the gender pay gap to be eliminated not only for women under 40, where we know the gap is closing, but for women over 40. We cannot explain the gap by discrimination, because the Equal Pay Act 1970 has been in force for the whole of my lifetime. When there are instances of discrimination, they should be pounced on. I am looking forward to hearing the Minister’s responses as to how the Government are going to act on that and on maternity discrimination—

[Jo Stevens]

rose—

[Seema Kennedy]

I am sorry but I am not going to give way again, as I do not have much time left.

Our manifesto promised a consultation on closing the gender pay gap: it is due to report shortly, and I look forward to seeing the results. I also welcome the proposal to require businesses with more than 250 employees to publish their salaries in order to eliminate that gap—transparency will work there.

The whole thrust of the Government’s productivity agenda is to make our economy more competitive globally. We need to get everybody—women and men—into more highly skilled, productive jobs. We can do that only through proper, long-term investment in jobs that make us competitive on a global level. Investing in education and infrastructure is absolutely key; it is what all of us should be aiming for. Yes, we need a stronger economy for our daughters—or, in my case, for my niece—but we also need it for our sons.

I endorse the words of my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke and the hon. Member for Sunderland Central. I do not want to see these motions on the Order Paper. I do not want to be seen as a passive recipient of the Government’s largesse. I am an autonomous person, and an economic actor in my own right. What I want is a stronger economy from which we can all benefit.