Child Sexual Exploitation

Sheila Gilmore Excerpts

Tuesday 13th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sandra Osborne (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (Lab)]

I warmly congratulate the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood) on securing this debate and on the way she introduced it.

I want to address the issue from a slightly different point of view. I speak as someone who worked with survivors of incest and child sexual abuse for a number of years, so I am speaking mainly from the perspective of adult survivors of child sexual abuse. I am concerned that their voices are being drowned out by this whole stramash, which I am afraid yet again illustrates only too clearly a pattern that is often repeated when child sexual abuse is highlighted. All of a sudden people who do not know the first thing about it feel qualified to be judge and jury, going from outrage to denying the very nature and extent of the problem, saying things such as, “I don’t believe this could happen today, as attitudes have changed. Attitudes were different back then.” Perhaps things are better in the care system now, as the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) said, but personally I would not be the least bit surprised to hear that the whole thing had happened again.

What is people’s evidence for thinking that things are so different today? I was astonished to hear Lord Steel on “Any Questions?” last week suggesting that the extent of the problem could be greatly exaggerated. He also said that in all his years as an MP, no one had ever come to him about sexual abuse. Well, they have certainly come to me, and I have been an MP for far fewer years than he ever was. I am quite sure that that is also the experience of many of my colleagues. In any case, what Lord Steel said is to miss the whole point: that people do not find it easy to come forward, and certainly not to MPs.

Of course, that pattern is always followed by a “blame the victim” mentality, which we have already seen surfacing in the last few days. Victims have often been discredited in the past, accused of false memory syndrome, with a collective denial that such a thing as satanic abuse may actually exist, or, because they do not come from respectable backgrounds, are frankly written off by the whole system. When that has happened, I have been acutely aware of the effect on those who have come forward. Sometimes their confidence is so shattered that they even wish they had never said a word. We will never know how many others are deterred from coming forward at all, feeling that they will not be believed and certainly not expecting justice to be done.

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

Many years ago, I, like my hon. Friend, was involved with a rape crisis centre. As a result of that work, I became involved in setting up incest survivors groups. Does she agree that we should not allow child sexual abuse to become a fashionable moral panic for a few brief weeks, only to be ignored afterwards, as has often happened with other issues? We should take a responsible attitude to the way in which we discuss these things and ensure that there is a proper investigation.

[Sandra Osborne]

I could not agree more.

All the agencies that deal with child sexual abuse on a daily basis say that the incidence is much higher than people think, and that they are dealing with increasing numbers of survivors. As other Members have said, more people might be coming forward to name their abuser from the past because there are more resources available, but it certainly does not mean that it is a problem only of the past and not of the present. It certainly does not mean that it could not happen again. There has been scandal after scandal in the Catholic Church, involving children in care who are already vulnerable, so why are people so surprised? There are few areas in which criminal investigations have not taken place into institutional abuse. Every time, we say that we must learn the lessons to ensure that it does not happen again, but it always does.

The opportunities for grooming on the internet make today’s children even more vulnerable than they were in the past, but it is vital to remember that the majority of abuse takes place in the home and is perpetrated by a trusted adult, often the child’s father. There is a huge danger that that will be forgotten while the present debate rages on. Let us face it: it is far easier to believe that sexual abusers are an aberration, some kind of monster, rather than people like ourselves. Even when it turns out to have been a much-loved celebrity, we simply react with moral outrage, saying that he has let us all down as well as his victims, rather than face the fact that children are subjected to sexual abuse day in, day out in what is lauded as the safe refuge of the family. We also hear the myth that incest happens only in particular communities.

The reality is that, more often than not, the abusers are so-called respectable upstanding members of the community in positions of responsibility, trust and power—family men who portray to the outside world the image of a loving husband, father or close family member while using that as cover for the gross abuse of power which they believe entitles them to abuse their own children. The recent high-profile cases of child sexual exploitation show many similarities, such as the abuse of power, children not being believed, and adults with concerns not coming forward.

That is the unpalatable truth, as was the case with domestic violence in the past, when Women’s Aid was accused of being anti-male and anti-family. The same is true of tackling the taboo of child sexual abuse. Blaming the messenger for stating the obvious—that not all families provide the safe, loving and nurturing environment that every child deserves—is just another form of denial. All of this results in children being abandoned and remaining unheard, and not expecting to be heard, which suits the abuser just fine.

The media might fulminate against political correctness and describe Criminal Records Bureau checks as “bureaucracy gone mad”, but perhaps they should think again. Inquiries should of course be held to identify failings in the system, but the media should think again before they damn social workers if they do and damn them if they don’t. Or perhaps they should just try doing a social worker’s job for a week and seeing how they get on. We all know about social workers’ desperate lack of resources and huge case loads.

The air is thick with institutions desperately trying to cover their tracks, including the NHS, the BBC and the police. Inquiries, as we have heard, have been set up all over the place, and those with their own agenda are taking great pleasure in kicking the BBC. As far as I am concerned, those involved are big enough and able enough to defend themselves—children are not.

Many survivors, as I have said, will not disclose their abuse until adulthood. There is an assumption that people who have suffered childhood sexual abuse are damaged and incapable of living a normal life. On the contrary, it is testament to the strength and courage of many that they manage to have successful lives in a wide range of professions, achieving important goals in life, careers and relationships. This may apply even to MPs, if I may say so. Many survivors of abuse develop incredible coping mechanisms and carry them into adulthood. It is possible to recover from the many effects of abuse and to come to terms with what has happened by people realising that the abuse was not their fault. Some survivors find that difficulties remain with them for the rest of their lives. That is true, but it is not a hard and fast rule. Some people manage to push abuse to the back of their minds only for it to re-emerge unexpectedly like post-traumatic stress disorder later in life.

Some survivors—it has been my privilege to work alongside them—channel negative feelings into campaigning to improve awareness of abuse, and they find that helpful and life affirming. We should thank them for the work they did when they were not heard for many years but tried to raise the issue.

Thankfully, yes, there are now numerous charities and agencies providing support and treatment, but they do not have enough resources. Barnardo’s has said that

“local areas in all four nations”

of the UK

“will be best placed to respond if they acknowledge that this abuse could be occurring and adopt a collaborative approach to identify and tackle the problem.”

Again, some progress has been made in that respect over the last few decades. In Scotland, we have the children’s panel system—an example that has been praised in many different countries. But when it comes to adult survivors of sexual abuse, in Ayrshire, for example, our three local authorities and our health services have failed to provide a co-ordinated or coherent approach or adequate funding for services.

In conclusion, this whole sorry mess has provided us with an opportunity, and I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen). As a society and as a Parliament, we have a chance to look at why this phenomenon occurs across races and creeds and in every country in the world, particularly our own. If we do not take that chance, we will have missed out on an opportunity, and children will suffer even more for decades to come.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sheila Gilmore Excerpts

Monday 21st May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I have indeed undertaken, as I think my hon. Friend knows, to look at how deportations are managed in other countries, and not just in Italy but in France which, as has recently been mentioned, was able to deport two individuals rather more quickly than we have been able to deport Abu Qatada. I will report to the Commons when that work is complete. We want to be able to deport as quickly as possible people who should not be in the United Kingdom, and I am pleased that we are now closer to deporting Abu Qatada than we ever have been.

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

T2. Given that the vast majority of international students leave the UK at the end of their courses, why do the Government insist on counting them when calculating net migration figures, which other countries do not do, to the detriment of institutions such as Edinburgh university in my constituency that are competing with other countries for those students?

[The Minister for Immigration (Damian Green)]

First, I assure the hon. Lady that there is not a limit on the number of students coming in. The reason we include them in the immigration system is simply that the UN definition of an immigrant is someone who comes to a country with the intention of staying there for more than a year, so any student who comes to stay for more than a year, according to the UN definition, is an immigrant.

Alcohol Strategy

Sheila Gilmore Excerpts

Friday 23rd March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

We obviously had a lot of consultation with local authorities when we were putting through the changes in the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011, and we saw that they welcomed what we were doing, which will give them more freedom to be able to exercise powers. One problem was that in some areas the Licensing Act was drawn quite rigidly, in terms of what authorities were able to do and how they were able to interpret it. They will welcome the extra freedom that we are giving them, particularly the late-night levy which, as I said in my statement, will defray the costs of late-night policing.

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

The Home Secretary’s statement repeats an awful lot of things that have already happened, which illustrates that it has been cobbled together—announcing new powers from an Act that this Parliament has already passed. Further powers such as heavier fines for those serving under-age people, which I think is very valuable, will work only if they are properly enforced. How does the Home Secretary square that with her reductions in policing budgets?

[Mrs May]

It ill behoves an Opposition Member, given the extra burden that the police felt as a result of the Licensing Act 2003, to stand up and refer to policing. The hon. Lady talked about the strategy being only about what has already been passed. No, it is not. Of course, we have brought together a number of issues, some of which we have already legislated for, such as changing local authorities’ powers in relation to the 2003 Act, and some of which we have not yet introduced, such as minimum unit pricing. Also, we have included more action with industry and on public health, dealing with health issues related to the harm that can be caused by excessive drinking. This is the first time that the Government have produced a cross-Government strategy across the board, addressing every way in which this Government can deal with the problems of alcohol which, sadly, we see in too many people in this country.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sheila Gilmore Excerpts

Monday 6th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Immigration (Damian Green)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for revealing how effective UKBA enforcement is in his constituency and elsewhere. Along with measures to bring down immigration and ensure that those who come to this country can contribute to it, enforcement against those here illegally continues to be important. I am happy to say that over the past year, the UKBA has conducted nearly 6,500 illegal working enforcement visits, making more than 4,000 arrests and serving more than 1,700 penalty notices to employers of illegal labour. Such tough action will send out the message that Britain is no longer a soft touch for illegal immigration.

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

T2. The Secretary of State has already explained what an exciting summer this is going to be for Britain. Can she reassure us that, given the cuts in the staffing of the UKBA, we will not see a repeat of the problems that took place last summer?

[Damian Green]

I am happy to tell the hon. Lady that, as we said at the time, the initial look at the pilot measures taken over the summer actually showed that the enforcement that was going on was more effective for being more targeted. As she knows, there were clearly difficulties, which are being looked at by the chief inspector. When his report comes in, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary will report back to the House on what he has found.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sheila Gilmore Excerpts

Monday 7th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

11. What estimate she has made of the future number of staff employed by the UK Border Agency.

[The Minister for Immigration (Damian Green)]

Our priority remains to secure the border and to control migration while we help to reduce the public deficit. We expect to have reduced by about 5,200 posts from the start of the review period to around 18,000 by March 2015. We are on track to meet our staff reduction target.

[Sheila Gilmore]

Will the Minister tell us how many of those 5,200 staff are being cut from the front line of the border force?

[Damian Green]

The hon. Lady will know that later this afternoon my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary will make a statement covering the issues that she is interested in. The reductions in staffing are not affecting the front line because we are improving the front line by, for instance, having airline liaison officers overseas. Over the past few years, that has prevented 60,000 people whom we did not want to travel from travelling in the first place. The use of facial recognition technology and e-gates also makes our borders more secure.

Gangs and Youth Violence

Sheila Gilmore Excerpts

Tuesday 1st November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. This is an area in which the Government do not have all the answers and cannot achieve the necessary results by working on their own. As I indicated in response to an earlier question, what is often going to be most effective at helping young people to come out of gang membership or at preventing them from getting into a gang in the first place is groups in the voluntary sector and operations such as Kickz through which the Premier League and the Football Foundation are working to provide alternative activities for young men on a Friday or Saturday night.

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

The Home Secretary has praised the Strathclyde project greatly. That project cost about £5 million over two years, so how can £10 million being spread over 30 areas get anywhere near the success of the Strathclyde project?

[Mrs May]

I have commented favourably on the Strathclyde project but it is not the only project that is working across the UK. The Matrix project in Merseyside, the Excalibur project in Greater Manchester, and the work of the Met in certain parts of London have also been effective, and in Birmingham, the West Midlands police are also doing very good work in this area. I come back to a point that I have made on a number of occasions in response to questions from Opposition Members—this is about ensuring that money is spent in a way that will be effective. Sadly, in nearly an hour of questions, no Opposition Member has sought fit to recognise that the cuts in spending taking place across the public sector are because of the financial deficit left by the previous Government.

Women (Government Policies)

Sheila Gilmore Excerpts

Wednesday 8th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Claire Perry]

It was a disaster, and was recognised as such. However, we have not heard much about the hollowing out over the previous 13 years of the health visitor profession. The health visitor is often the only point of contact that a young mother, particularly one from a disadvantaged community, will have with the medical profession. Health visitors are the most trusted people involved with pregnant women’s and young children’s lives, yet that profession was hollowed out and almost entirely disregarded. Indeed, its professional status was completely downgraded by Labour.

We have not heard anything about the complex, byzantine welfare system that was built up over 13 years—a welfare system that now costs every family in this country £3,000 a year. Yet in my constituency, it appears to trap people on welfare—particularly single mothers who would love to get back into the work force—and trap them in poverty.

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Lady not accept that it was in fact Labour’s policies that got 350,000 single parents back into employment? Yes, before that we had a very bad record compared with other European countries—I fully endorse that point—but it was Labour’s polices that made inroads into that.

[Claire Perry]

I agree with the hon. Lady, who I know has campaigned on this issue for years, that some progress was made, but it was not enough. The welfare system is incredibly complicated and provides huge disincentives to work. Yes, women were helped back into the work force, and the hon. Lady and I both completely support that. However, we hear time and again about women who do not know if it is even worth their while to work—who cannot work out, given the complexities of part-time and voluntary working, whether they should even look for child care for their daughter or son in order to go to work. It is simply an expensive mess that has not helped the women and men across this country in the way that it should.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)]

Let me begin by adding to those of others my congratulations to the hon. Member for Leicester South (Jon Ashworth). I can see that he is no token man, as I know that he has a two-week old baby and I can see the shadows under his eyes from here. I welcome his comments celebrating the cultural diversity of his constituency. Clearly, he is going to be a great advocate for Leicester South.

I think that the previous Labour Government and this coalition Government have a lot in common. We both want to redress the imbalances between men and women through public policy. It is fair to say that Labour did many things that benefited women, such as increasing the maximum age for children at which parents could apply for flexible working. That change followed a very similar private Member’s Bill that I had introduced the year before, which would have extended the right of request to the parents of children up to the age of 18. My Bill was unceremoniously voted down by Labour, which then reintroduced the measures in a form that applied to the parents of children up to the age of 16. I do not mind the previous Government’s doing that: they saw a good idea and grabbed it. Indeed, I think we should all work together more to pool our best ideas, particularly in the current, grave economic circumstances. That might be too radical a notion for this debate and this Parliament given the way things have been going so far but it is an aspiration of mine. I am very glad that this Government are consulting on extending the right to request for all employees. That will remove the stigma when some staff have a right that is denied to others. It will also acknowledge the fact that employees are more loyal and productive when there is an acknowledgement that they should be able to have a reasonable work-life balance.

Another thing that Labour did that particularly benefited women was allowing any years they spent caring for others to count towards pension entitlements in future. Why the Labour Government never restored the earnings link during their 13 years is beyond me. Why would they not have done that if they believed that the economy was strong, not knowing that the so-called growth was based on a house of cards and unsustainable debt? How much more difficult has it been for us, while we are trying to deal with the biggest deficit in peacetime history, to redress some of those injustices at the same time? We put our actions where our mouth was and immediately committed to restoring the earnings link with the triple guarantee. A much fairer and better pensions system that will raise the level of a single person’s pension to £140 in today’s money will be introduced by the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate (Steve Webb), who has responsibility for pensions. That system will help the poorest pensioners more than anything that was introduced by the previous Government. Of course, the poorest pensioners are mostly women. Two thirds of people on pension credit are women and the average woman receives £40 less per week in her state pension compared with men. Even with the changes brought in by Labour, it would have been 2050 before pensions were equalised between the sexes.

Something else that will greatly help is the move to the universal credit system of benefits, which has been mentioned by several hon. Members, rather than the complex system that we currently use. That change will mean that work always pays and will encourage people to return to work rather than stay at home on benefits because that is more financially beneficial.

[Sheila Gilmore]

But surely even in the Government’s projections and the impact assessments of the Welfare Reform Bill, it would be an exaggeration to say that work will always pay, particularly for those people who have child care costs.

[Lorely Burt]

The Government are investing more than £3 billion in this, but every single factor cannot be taken into account in determining whether the outcome will be better or not. The Government are looking into what we can do about child care costs. The hon. Lady raises an important issue, which I know is being taken very seriously by my hon. Friends on the Front Bench.

Under the proposed system, 31% of women who are entitled to benefits will be better off than they are at the moment. In addition, women returning to work after having children will be able to build up their hours gradually without being unfairly penalised by the system. It will also help take-up. In 2008-09 only 80% of people took up child tax credits. There has been much discussion about that today. I hope that changing to a simpler system will ensure that those who need the money get it.

However, I agree with the sentiments expressed in the motion about the disproportionate effect of the planned increase in the pension age on women born between December 1953 and October 1954. I am delighted to see that the Minister of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate, has come into the Chamber. I declare an interest: I am one of those women. Although I expect still to be going like a train at the age of 70, I entirely understand where those women are coming from and the unfairness of imposing change too late for many to do anything about it. I therefore ask my hon. Friend the Pensions Minister to do all he can to ensure that the proposal is reconsidered and a measure introduced that will be a little fairer to that tranche of women.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

Some newspapers have an item where they talk about the word of the day or word of the week. For the Government Whips Office, the word is presumably “bandwagon”, because expressing opposition is suddenly seen to be jumping on one. I do not think that the Government have necessarily gone about a deliberate policy of targeting women, because I do not believe in conspiracy theories, but some of their policies, when added together, are having precisely that effect. Perhaps people have not realised or noticed.

I want to take a slightly different tack. I will be very brief in the hope that I get other opportunities to amplify these issues, because they are important. What happens to women, in particular, when they separate from a partner in coming out of a relationship? There is a lot of research that says that women in that situation end up worse off anyway, but some things that are happening will exacerbate it. For example, legal aid is going to be taken away from family cases. In my experience as a family lawyer, it is not going to court and getting embroiled in some dramatic procedure, but good, solid legal advice that will get people the kind of financial settlement that enables them to get back on their feet more quickly. If that is not available, they will be financially worse off.

In addition, there are changes to child support that will require people to go through an obstacle race to get it. I urge the Government to remember why the child support system was introduced in the first place—precisely because people were not getting that form of support.

As well as not getting a good financial settlement and not getting easy access to child support, what else is going to go wrong? The big thing that people need when they are separating is housing, because two into one will not go, so what is happening on the housing front? People in the private rented sector who need housing benefit will get less of it. We are not even sure how mortgage costs will be covered under universal credit. The homelessness rules are changing so that more people will end up in the private rented sector. That costs more money, so it is not actually a cost-saving measure. It will also not give people the long-term security that they want. Women who separate from their partners will therefore find themselves in a more difficult position in terms of housing.

Finally, I turn to benefits. Women will have to re-enter the work force at a younger age because the age at which the youngest child will affect their benefit is being reduced to five. There are also changes to tax credits and to the amount of money to cover child care.

If one thinks about the journey that a woman makes from separating from her partner to re-establishing herself in her new life, I contend that the effect of those Government policies will make her much worse off. I am sorry that I do not have time to amplify those points, because I certainly could. I look forward to having another opportunity to do so.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I call Mary Macleod, to sit down at five minutes to 4.

Public Expenditure Reductions (Women)

Sheila Gilmore Excerpts

Monday 6th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Lynne Featherstone]

I will come to that point later if I can.

I wanted to address the point that the hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington made about the public sector. Although there are a majority of women in the public sector, the Government have made efforts to support the most vulnerable public sector workers—those earning less than £21,000 a year, who will be exempt from the freeze. That will affect about 1.7 million public sector workers whose salary falls below the threshold—mostly women—who will see a flat pay rise of £250 in both years of the freeze. The Government are aware of the statutory obligations when assessing options for spending reductions.

I shall move on to a more general response to the hon. Lady. Fairness is a key theme, along with freedom and responsibility, and underpins our new Government programme. We see it as even more important during difficult times than in good times, not just because we believe it is the fundamental right of every individual to have the opportunity to fulfil their potential, but because we realise that fairness is the key ingredient to getting the country back on its feet. We cannot afford to continue wasting the talents and skills of women, of ethnic minorities and of disabled people—of all those who have been held back for no reason other than their background. Without fairness we will never achieve economic recovery, let alone full economic growth.

Yes, we have to take some tough decisions to tackle the unprecedented deficit we inherited, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West (Esther McVey) said, we should not forget that the cuts are Labour’s legacy. Labour doubled the national debt and left us with the biggest deficit in the G20. We have to clean up that situation to get the economy moving. Unless we address the deficit first and foremost, more women will be out of work and more women will suffer the consequences of the recession.

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Lynne Featherstone]

No, not at the moment.

Fairness is at the heart of all our decisions, so that the most in need are protected. Lord knows, the coalition Government have made extreme efforts to address the issue of protecting the vulnerable. We have spent more than £5 billion to try to equalise. That is why we are refocusing Sure Start, which the hon. Lady mentioned. We are ring-fencing its budget for this year and introducing 4,000 health visitors dedicated to helping the most disadvantaged families. That is why, as was mentioned, we are determined to make work pay by raising the tax threshold, lifting 880,000 of the lowest paid workers out of tax. The majority of them are women, who will come out of income tax each year progressively until the threshold has risen to £10,000. That will aid the lowest paid workers.

That is why we are determined to reform welfare to get people into work, creating a new Work programme to give the unemployed tailored support. It is why, as I said, we are protecting the lowest-paid public sector workers. It is why we are increasing child tax credits for the poorest families, protecting against rises in child poverty. Child poverty rose in the past few years under the Labour Government. [Interruption.] No, the whole point of tax credits for the poorest families is to protect against rises in child poverty. It is precisely why we are getting to grips with the deficit—so that we do not have to keep spending more and more on debt interest, leaving less to deliver the crucial public services that women need and depend on.

We are absolutely committed to a fairer future for women and their families, but the Government are not just about supporting women and their families through the tough times. I forgot to mention the index linking of pensions. I remind the hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington that it was the Labour Government who made the derisory 75p pension offer, and who abolished the 10p tax band. I did not hear Labour Members cause uproar about either of those measures—well, the hon. Lady may have mentioned them, but in general terms, those were Labour policies that affected the poorest and most vulnerable, and they definitely hit women hardest.

We want to give people better prospects for a brighter future. We want to create the kind of cultural change that will enable people to escape the vicious cycle of inequality and poverty, so that they can improve the quality of their life and the lives of their family. The hon. Lady should know as well as I do—our constituencies are not dissimilar—that more than 2 million children live in poor housing, in crowded rooms and in squalid conditions. One in five children lives in poverty. I see for myself in my constituency the consequences of that vicious cycle, which people could never get away from because there were no pathways out. That is totally unacceptable. She and I both know about the pressures on housing in areas such as Hackney and Haringey.

We are putting bold new measures in place that will tear down the discriminatory and cultural barriers holding people back. The Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister have set up a childhood and families taskforce to tackle the barriers that prevent a successful family life and happy childhood. One of the main issues that the taskforce will consider is how we can help parents to balance their work and life. The hon. Lady raised the issue of single parents; nine out of 10 single parents who are out of work do not want to live off the state. They want a paid job. They want their independence. The problem is that there are not the flexible jobs out there that could fit with family life.

Many couples and individuals find it enormously difficult to strike the right balance between work and home. Traditional arrangements, in which mothers take the lion’s share of leave, simply do not suit everyone’s needs in the modern world. I totally refute the hon. Lady’s suggestion that the coalition Government are in any way old-fashioned. Our commitment is to moving the agenda forward. That is why we have already committed to looking at a system of shared parental leave and at extending the right to request flexible working to all. The latter, in particular, will tackle the old-fashioned notion that women ought to perform the bulk of caring—