Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Simon Hughes and Jo Swinson(10 years, 11 months ago)
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Jo Swinson
I will not be drawn into giving exact descriptions of women at different stages of life, but I think that the hon. Lady is right to highlight the fact that there is a particular issue for women in that age group. Opportunity Now has recently been undertaking Project 28-40 to research the barriers that those women, in particular, face in the workplace—if Members want to contribute to the survey, I understand that it is open until Sunday. Obviously, the changes we are making for shared parental leave and flexible working will be particularly helpful for those women.
Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)
We all send our love and congratulations to the Minister’s grandma today. Will my hon. Friend assure us that there are rigorous equality impact assessments of all Government policies for women in general, and for black and minority ethnic women and women with disabilities in particular?
Jo Swinson
My right hon. Friend makes the important point that all policies need to take into account the impact they will have on equality. Every Department has a responsibility to ensure that that is taken into account when it brings forward a policy, and not just as some kind of afterthought when it is going through a checklist at the end, but to embed that right through the policy-making process so that those things are considered at the beginning.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Simon Hughes and Jo Swinson(11 years, 2 months ago)
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Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)
2. What plans the Government have to bring forward legislative proposals for equal pay.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equalities (Jo Swinson)
From October 2014, employment tribunals will be required to order an equal pay audit where an employer has broken the law on equal pay. The Government’s “Think, Act, Report” initiative promotes greater transparency on gender employment issues. More than 125 companies are now supporting the initiative, representing nearly 2 million employees.
Simon Hughes
Given that most part-time workers are women, that most low-paid jobs are part-time jobs, and that the average hourly wage for a woman doing part-time work is less than three quarters of the hourly wage of a full-time employee, will my hon. Friend the Minister use her energy and effectiveness with her team to ensure that women in part-time work get a fair deal and equal pay as soon as possible?
Jo Swinson
My right hon. Friend is right to raise the issues of part-time and full-time employment. One problem identified by, among others, the Women’s Business Council, is that there is often a shortage of senior roles available on a part-time or job-share basis. The Government are taking steps to help to improve the situation by extending the right to request flexible working to everyone, which should help to ensure that it becomes more of a cultural norm rather than an anomaly purely for parents. I take his point and we will continue to work on that.
Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill
Debate between Simon Hughes and Jo Swinson
Jo Swinson
I would like to put on the record my thanks for your flexibility, Mr Deputy Speaker, in accepting the late tweak to the amendment that had been tabled earlier this morning in relation to Lords amendment 37 on the issue of caste. I shall come to that issue in a second or two.
We are returning to the discussion on the equality provisions of the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill, which were debated in the other place yesterday. We have paid regard to the strong views and concerns that were expressed in that debate, and have tabled motions to respond to them.
As I have made clear in the course of our debates, the Government want a strong and effective Equality and Human Rights Commission. As part of that and to focus the EHRC on its core functions, we proposed the repeal of its power under section 3 of the Equality Act 2006, which is known more commonly as the general duty. However, in light of the clear views expressed in the other place, the Government have reconsidered our position and will not insist on our disagreement to Lords amendment 35. That will allow the general duty to remain in the 2006 Act. Although it is accepted by all that the duty has a symbolic rather than a practical effect, it is clear that considerable importance is attached to this overarching statement.
We maintain that the commission’s monitoring and reporting should be carried out in respect of its core equality and human rights duties. The EHRC will continue to be required to monitor and report on changes in society, but, as has been agreed to in the Bill, that should relate to the areas that it is uniquely placed to influence and change: equality, diversity and human rights. For that reason, the motion is to disagree with Lords amendment 36. Instead, the EHRC will monitor its progress against the duties specified in sections 8 and 9 of the 2006 Act, and the form of that reporting will remain unchanged.
Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)
My hon. Friend’s announcement is very welcome. She knows that our party has always argued that there should be a general overarching duty—[Laughter.] No, that is completely the case, but the matter had to be worked through within the coalition. Her announcement sends a strong signal that there is a principle and that practical implementation is available to the commission.
Jo Swinson
I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention. He speaks with passion on equality issues and has done so for many decades. I know that he speaks from the heart on this matter. I also understand the strength of feeling on this issue that he and I have heard expressed by activists in our own party and from many other corners.
Ensuring that the EHRC reports on the aims set out in sections 8 and 9 of the 2006 Act means that it will be able to capture the situation more meaningfully over time by reporting every five years and monitoring its key equality and human rights duties.
Retaining the general duty in section 3 requires a consequential amendment to ensure that the word “groups” in the general duty is defined effectively. The amendment that we propose therefore reinserts the parts of section 10 of the 2006 Act that define the term “groups” for the purpose of the Act.
I turn now to Lords amendment 37, which relates to caste, and amendments (a) to (d) that the Government tabled today. In our previous debate on this matter, I made it clear that the Government recognise that caste prejudice occurs in the UK. Even if that happens at a low level, such prejudice is unacceptable and must not be tolerated. I also said that, although we remained unconvinced that there was sufficiently compelling evidence to require the introduction of legislation, the Government were not averse in principle to introducing legislation, should it become clear that that was the appropriate solution to the severity of the problem.
Strong views have been expressed in the other place on this matter. In the light of those views, we have reconsidered our position and agreed to introduce caste-related legislation. However, we need to ensure that any legislation that we introduce will have the desired effect. We therefore propose amendments in lieu of Lords amendment 37 that will impose a duty on the Government to exercise the power in the Equality Act 2010 that would make caste an aspect of race for the purposes of the Act. We think that that option, rather than the amendment proposed yesterday in the other place, is the best way forward.
As has been discussed in this House and in the other place, the issue of caste is very complex. Many people have voiced the opinion that our understanding of the relevant issues would benefit from some form of consultation to ensure that all the pertinent considerations are identified and, where possible, taken into account. Converting the order-making power in the 2010 Act into a duty will ensure that the Government legislate to incorporate caste protection into discrimination law. It will also give us an opportunity to undertake consideration, possibly through consultation, on whether any other factors, such as the need for specific caste-related exceptions, need to be introduced at the same time that caste is given legal protection. One example that has been raised is that we would not want monitoring forms to demand that people say which caste they are from, because we want to see such a characteristic gone from society and do not want to perpetuate it. Ensuring that there is proper guidance, and that we legislate sensitively, is therefore important. We will all welcome the opportunity of a little time to ensure that it is got right. That will help to ensure that the legislation is focused and robust and addresses all the relevant factors.
I turn to the slight tweak to the motion, which now includes a provision enabling review of the duty and the effect of the order once the Act, as I hope it will become, has been on the statute book for five years and periodically thereafter. That picks up on the concern expressed in recent debates that, because caste is inherently an undesirable concept that we want to fade away, we do not necessarily want to be stuck with references to it on the statute book, given that that will no longer be necessary once, as we all hope, the concept has disappeared from UK society. The hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) said in a letter to me at the end of last week:
“Given that we are all united in our desire to see caste as an identifier in the UK erode over time, it would also be possible to put in place a timetable for statutory review to establish at what point the measure could be withdrawn if caste discrimination has become a thing of the past.”
That point was also picked up by Baroness Thornton in her closing remarks in last night’s debate. The new provision addresses those concerns by introducing a review and sunset clause.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Simon Hughes and Jo Swinson(11 years, 7 months ago)
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Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)
1. What assessment she has made of the most recent statistics on differential earnings for women and men in the (a) public and (b) private sector.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equalities (Jo Swinson)
The gender pay gap is falling and currently stands at 19% in the public sector and 26% in the private sector. The causes of the gender pay gap are varied: roughly a third can be attributed to education and the types of jobs women do; about a third can be attributed to work patterns and the need to take time out of the labour market, for example for caring; and the remaining third is unexplained, which could include discrimination. The Government are committed to tackling the gender pay gap and believe that we absolutely need to get it down.
Simon Hughes
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her commitment on this issue. More than one in five of the lowest paid full-time women workers earn under £80 a week, and it is much worse for women in low pay than it is for men. Will she indicate that the Government have that in their sights and have a strategy for dealing with inequality across the wage range, particularly for those struggling at the very bottom end of the income scale?
Jo Swinson
My right hon. Friend is right to raise that issue. Figures from the Office for National Statistics show that the gender pay gap is lowest for those at the lowest end, with a 7% gap in the bottom 10%, compared with a 23% gap in the top 10%, but there is absolutely no room for complacency. This week, as he will know, we announced a 1.9% increase in the national minimum wage, which is set against a 0.8% increase in wages, according to the most recent ONS statistics. Of course, two thirds of the beneficiaries of that rise in the national minimum wage will be women.
Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill
Debate between Simon Hughes and Jo Swinson
Jo Swinson
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention and the work he has done on this issue over many years. I reiterate some of the concerns that we have heard from those groups. For example, GAKM UK, an organisation that represents a community officially recognised as low caste in India, fears that by enacting this provision, Parliament could undo all the work done by communities over the past 20 years to try to remove the differentiation by caste in all aspects of life. I am not saying that these are not important issues or that ultimately it would not be helpful to enact the provision, I am saying that we need to proceed with great caution, because the communities affected have significant differences of view. That is why we want to ensure that the EHRC makes a further assessment of the views and evidence on this issue, on which it will report back later this year. The Government have already said, through the work and the statement of the Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equalities, my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald, and through discussions in the other place, that if the assessment shows that we need to legislate, the option remains open to us.
Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)
I have raised this issue with my hon. Friend. The amendments, on a general duty of equality and on caste discrimination, both had very large majorities in the House of Lords, and I am very sympathetic to them. Bluntly, it seems to me that the only way for the Government to get themselves off the hook is to ask the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which consists of Members from both Houses and all parties, to look urgently at both matters and make recommendations. I sit on that Committee and could make sure that that happens. I think the Committee would recommend that they be supported. I wonder whether the Minister is willing to go down that road.
Jo Swinson
It is not for the Government to instruct Joint Committees to undertake particular investigations.
As I was saying, the reason for caution on the part of the Government relates to a lack of evidence. The NIESR report is clear about the lack of evidence. It states that there is no clear evidence on the extent of caste discrimination and whether it is changing in the UK. Further evidence would therefore certainly be helpful in assisting the Government’s decision making. In addition to what the EHRC is doing, the Government intend to conduct a full consultation and publish a report on its outcome. If the evidence shows clearly that legislation is the right way forward, then, as I have said, powers already exist in law to extend those protections to cover caste by means of a statutory instrument.
Simon Hughes
I say to the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson) that I, like many of our colleagues, support the retention of the general duty on equality. I understand the difficulty that she has in a coalition Government, in that she has to try to reflect different views, but I hope that, whatever decision is reached today, she will be able to persuade her colleagues that we should retain that duty rather than remove it.
On the caste issue, I offered a suggestion earlier on the way forward. If the Government cannot accept the amendment to make caste a basis for discrimination—which I am persuaded that we ought to support—I hope that they will at least give Parliament an early opportunity to introduce secondary legislation to allow the provision to be added to legislation this year.
Jo Swinson
I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) for what must be one of the shortest speeches of his life. With the leave of the House, I shall respond to some of the points that he and others have made, and I genuinely welcome the opportunity to do so.
The shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna), began by accusing the Government of making a U-turn on lettings. He failed, however, to point out his own party’s U-turn on that issue. The proposals in the Government amendment for a redress scheme bear a striking similarity to an amendment that was tabled under the previous Government by my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr Prisk) and supported by the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. It would have introduced a redress scheme, but the Labour Government voted against it. That is why we are bringing forward the amendment today. It is a much more sensible provision than the one that was tabled in the other place, and it will give redress to consumers who are unfortunate enough to be the victims of letting and management agents who are not acting as they should.
The right hon. Member for Stirling (Mrs McGuire) asked where people should go for help in the absence of the EHRC helpline, and I am happy to draw her attention to the Equality Advisory Support Service that has been set up instead. Anyone who needs advice on these issues can ring the service on 0808 800 0082. That service is still available, although it is no longer supplied by the EHRC. It also works closely with the Commission to ensure that general information is passed back to inform the work of the service.
My hon. Friend the Member for Reading West (Alok Sharma) made a powerful speech on the question of caste. He was right to highlight the complexity of the issue. He also asked for confirmation that the Government were not entirely closed to the idea of legislation. I am happy to give him that confirmation, as I said earlier, and indeed as has been said in the other place. The issue is about ensuring that we get the right response. We recognise that, as the EHRC gathers the evidence for the assessment it is undertaking this year, it might ultimately recommend a view that involves legislation.
My hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley) has tabled amendments to deal with various issues, particularly a code of practice for redress. The Government consultation will of course include consideration of how the redress mechanism should operate—