Women and the Cost of Living

Stephen McPartland Excerpts

Tuesday 19th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

I will make some progress. There will be an additional 100,000 families who will eligible for child care support under universal credit. We have also ensured that our changes help the record number of women who have entered self-employment under this Government. That is a critical step. If women started businesses at the same rate as men, we could have an extra 1 million female entrepreneurs and a million more entrepreneurs, which would mean a million more people creating wealth, jobs and growth for our economy.

[Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con)]

Does the Minister agree that things are very positive in my constituency of Stevenage? More than 30% of local start-ups are by women, which is something that we need to encourage further.

[Nicky Morgan]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and it is a critical point. The tax-free child care policy that we have announced will, for the first time, benefit self-employed women, and that is something that the current voucher system does not do.

In conclusion, it is clear that, despite some of the claims put forward by the Opposition, the Government’s plan for recovery is the only plan that will create sustainable long-term growth for our country. It is the only plan that will support employment. It is also the only plan that not only puts faith in the abilities of the women and men of this country to help us work our way back into prosperity, but puts money, through our rise in the personal allowance, back into their pockets. I, like the hon. Member for Ashfield, want to see even more women working, setting up businesses and rising to the top of businesses. The Government want to make that happen, so I ask the House to reject the motion before us.

Several hon. Members rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to contribute to the debate, and a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Tom Blenkinsop). He and I will have been the only two males who have made formal speeches in a debate on women and the cost of living, and I think Parliament should celebrate that.

Following every election there is an increase in the number of female Members of Parliament, and I think we should be positive about that as well. I am a natural optimist, and I always look for the positive aspects of events. Today I was rather saddened by Opposition Members’ attempts to create a Dickensian view of our present society, because that is not a view that I recognise. I understand that there are challenges to be faced, and I understand that some families are struggling, but I think that we take a step backwards when we try to create an issue between men and women, and between women and men. In my opinion, we should look after every member of society irrespective of gender, and extend the range of the equality laws that have been passed over the past few years.

The issue of women and work has been raised in the debate. This morning I had the pleasure of opening the Hertfordshire Business Expo at Knebworth house in Stevenage. A large number of local businesses were represented, and many of the stands were staffed by females. Moreover, many of the business owners were female. In my constituency, nearly 30% of new businesses are started up by females. That too is a positive development that should be celebrated, and we should see more of it.

I am interested in issues such as the employment of women in engineering, My constituency contains the headquarters of the Institution of Engineering Technology. Thousands of people are employed at Astrium, which builds 25% of the world’s telecommunications satellites, and at MBDA Systems, which builds complex weapons systems. Just under 4,000 are employed at GlaxoSmithKline, which develops pharmaceutical drugs, and whose research and development facility is the largest in Europe. We also have Fujitsu, and a range of other companies. However, 93% of the companies in my constituency have a turnover of less than £1 million, and many of them are led by females.

I am proud of the contribution that women make to my constituency and to society as a whole. I think that a suggestion that women are victims has been allowed to creep into today’s debate, but I agree with the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore) that they are not victims—although of course domestic violence is an issue: I deplore it, would support 100% anything that could be done in my constituency and throughout the country to reduce it, and believe that it must be stamped out.

It is clear that young women often achieve more than boys at school, and that needs to be encouraged, but why is there a gap later on? Why do those young women not also achieve more in the workplace? Some Members on both sides of the House have tried to suggest that there is a structural issue, and that may well be the case, but I am never very interested in playing politics. What interests me is trying to resolve the issue that is in front of me, and trying to create an holistic society in which people can succeed. What interests me is aspiration. I want every young woman in my constituency who is at school or a college of further education, who is going off to university or who wants to set up a new business, to go out there and think “Yes, I can succeed.”

I accept that I am an optimist. When I was growing up I saw a poster in the 1992 election which read “What does the Conservative Party offer a working class kid from Brixton? They made him Prime Minister.” So I will maintain my approach. [Laughter.] I am not setting my stall out; I am merely saying that we need to aspire, and to encourage aspiration. We need to say “Whether you are male or female, if you think you are good enough and want to give it a go, then give it a go, and let’s see how far you get. If you fall down along the way, so what? We will try to help you get up again so that you can have another go.”

That, I think, is what the Government are doing. They are trying to help by increasing the personal tax allowance, cutting tax for 25 million people and taking 2.7 million out of tax altogether. I do not care which party does this, but I should like income tax thresholds to rise by as much as possible, because I believe that the best way of making it easier for people to deal with challenges involving their personal finances is to put money in their pockets and allow them to choose how to spend it, because they know what is important to them personally. I should like the threshold to rise to such an extent that no single person on the minimum wage need pay income tax. That would be a positive step for British society, and something I would wholeheartedly endorse.

There has been a lot of talk about what we are doing in terms of child care. Some 800,000 three and four-year-olds are benefiting from the 15 hours a week of child care we give them at present. That is fantastic, and from next September we will be expanding that to disadvantaged two-year-olds, which is wonderful. I sound a note of caution, however. I worry about primary schools having extended hours where a five or six-year-old is dropped off at school at 6 am, perhaps, and then collected at 8 pm. That is a very long day, especially for someone aged five, six or seven, and we need to think about the impact of that on the child and their family as they are growing up.

I celebrate the women in my constituency, just as I celebrate the men in my constituency. We need to do everything we can to ensure that everybody does their best. I stand here incredibly proud that when the unemployment figures came out last week they showed that unemployment in Stevenage is now down to 3.7%. I have more women who are employed than men who are employed in my constituency. Anybody who is unemployed is one person too many, and we need to do all we can to support everyone.

I want to celebrate the contribution that women, whether working or stay-at-home mothers, make to society, to my constituency and to the families up and down this country as they go out every single day. The reality is that they are all contributing in their own way and we should be proud of them and do everything we can to support them.