Women’s Contribution to the Economy

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2014 Westminster Hall

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to participate in this debate under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. I particularly thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Mrs Spelman) and the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) for securing the debate through the Backbench Business Committee. I agree with the hon. Member for Slough about the unfortunate timetabling error, which I hope we will not see again next year. I hope we will be celebrating the achievement of women in our society—in the economy or elsewhere—in the Chamber in 2015.

Mr Robertson, may I draw to your attention, and perhaps to the Clerk’s, my disappointment at the fact that the Library chose not to produce a full debate briefing pack for this debate? There was a small contribution, but I was informed this morning that, in contrast to other Adjournment debates that have taken place here—for example, the future of the A303, which had the full works—a full debate pack was not available. Although the information that we have is relevant, we should have had a better briefing from the Library. I hope you will use your offices to communicate that, Mr Robertson.

I welcome the positivity of my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham) and her insight into international development issues. She will be aware that 22 March is world water day. I have in the past supported charities such as WaterAid. We must recognise the international development work—through charities, direct aid and the initiatives of former Prime Ministers—to get children, particularly girls, into school. That is something of which we should be proud as British Members of Parliament.

I want to talk more about the contribution to the economy. As my hon. Friend suggested, I intend to talk about the executive pipeline of talent. I will start with my own inspiration and why I decided to go into business. Both my parents are teachers, and I did not have much experience of the private sector worlds as a child growing up. My granny had worked in the private sector, which was kind of news to me. She started her career with matchboxes at Bryant & May, but ended up working for a company called Dista, which is part of the Eli Lilly group; I was showing an interest in chemistry. She was involved in packing, so I will not pretend she was on the executive board or anything like that, but she started to show me some of the information that used to be sent to all the pensioners by Eli Lilly. That got me more and more interested in the business side of life.

While I was doing my PhD, I was lucky enough to host Helen Sharman, the first British astronaut, when she spoke at University college London. She was a chemistry graduate—that was why she came to UCL to speak to us—and she worked as a chemist for a company called Mars, which the hon. Member for Slough knows well. She also does a lot of work highlighting the importance of science and engineering. I found that woman, working in an international business, inspiring. She was one of the reasons why I applied to join Mars.

Also during my PhD, I went off on a business school. At the time, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council used to run business weeks and everyone on a Government-funded PhD could go to different parts of the country to meet new people and, more importantly, to do things such as business games with all sorts of companies. As I was doing that, I found another lady who worked for Mars, Ingrid Uden, inspirational. I had met two ladies from Mars, so that was the only company that I wanted to work for. I was successful there and, through various bits of careers—admittedly some up, some down—my last role working for Mars was as a finance director of one of its UK subsidiaries.

Mars is an unusual company, but what struck me when I was there, which might not have been particularly well known among most employees—associates, as they are known—was that the Mars board had, as one of its key measures, the number of women in certain roles, in a certain zone, and above. Measuring that recognised the board’s desire to ensure that women were well represented in the pipeline of talent at management level—those with the potential to become future board directors at Mars.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

The present chief executive of Mars in Slough is a woman, which is rare in a manufacturing company of that size.

[Dr Coffey]

It is. I know Fiona Dawson well, and she is an inspirational lady. She is a busy lady as well, but she is an inspiration to many who are interested in getting involved in business, because she shows that running a leading manufacturing and retail business is an exciting career. It has taken her to different parts of the world, but she is particularly good at leading in the UK.

That takes me to the pipeline of talent report, which I was pleased to co-author with my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Mary Macleod), who cannot contribute to the debate because of her Parliamentary Private Secretary position in support of the Government today. I want to place on the record my thanks to her, to everyone who participated in the evidence-gathering sessions, to the witnesses and to my researcher, Edward Winfield, who is leaving next week to get a job in industry. He certainly pulled together a good report.

Rather than going through all the inputs to the report, I will focus on the executive summary—if any hon. Members do not have a copy of the report, I am happy to circulate it to them. Our starting point was a quotation from my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. Little more than two years ago, he said:

“If we fail to unlock the potential of women in the labour market, we’re not only failing those individuals, we’re failing our whole economy.”

It is right to get that kind of emphasis. Women can and should be playing a more important role, if they wish, in contributing towards the economy of this country. My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire has already referred to the increase in the number of women going on boards and the hon. Member for Slough said, accurately, that we should not focus only on non-executive directors. To get more executive directors, we need to focus on the executive pipeline of talent.

In our report, we came up with a series of recommendations, because, as anyone who works in business knows, if we do not measure something, it will not get done. Our concrete recommendations are not meant only for companies and head-hunters or to inform the views of investors; they are also aimed at women and the Government.

Women should actively seek out mentors and sponsors—they are different roles—and everyone needs a champion on the top board for that to happen. We should not be too shy about asking for help. Interestingly, when some women are offered coaching, they see that as a bit of an insult, reflecting on their performance, as opposed to regarding it as an important tool to improve their performance and attainment. One of the things I have not been investing in as a Member of Parliament, but should have been, is the element of coaching. I can honestly say that it is one of the best tools for any successful person.

Women who have risen to the top of business often focus on one particular discipline—whether human resources, marketing or finance. Certainly some of our expert witnesses recommended taking on responsibility for profit and loss, managing budgets and programmes and being prepared to take on an international role early in a career as important parts of the toolkit. Such things give the wider business experience that can lead to someone who wants to be considered for promotion, or to be poached to go elsewhere, eventually making it to the board. Seeking out stretching assignments is also important; I do not know of any successful woman who stays in her comfort zone. I could use exactly the same words of any successful man. The issue is always about seeking to be extraordinary, to go up the pipeline of talent and up the ladder of promotion.

In our report, we also recognise that people should establish and use networks to increase their spheres of influence. I remember a discussion I had at a Conservative party conference with my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd), as she is now. I was moving within the company, but I was concerned that my salary would go up only slightly, because of traditional rules, so I was on a considerably lower salary than fellow directors. We chatted about it, and she said bluntly, “You’ve got to ask for it and be prepared to negotiate.” She was absolutely right. I did, and my boss was probably surprised, but he recognised the fairness of the challenge and I got a reasonable pay rise and was level with other directors of similar standing in the company. We should not expect life to be handed to us on a plate; it never is. We need to ensure that we grab the opportunities.

As for the Government’s role, I want to see gender diversity reporting extended to senior management under the corporate governance code for financial reporting. The “Think, Act, Report” initiative is about capturing the data at almost every level to assess what is going on. Personally, I think that it is a bold initiative. Some of the larger companies probably already have the IT systems to add that information to the reported indicators, but even for relatively small companies, going three levels down from the board is probably not a difficult task. Any good company regularly does promotion and talent reviews, so such information should be readily available, if it is not already. The reason for putting it in the corporate reporting is to provide a spotlight on the issue and to ensure that companies are thinking about it. I hope that the Government will take that recommendation up, although I recognise that my hon. Friend the Minister will not be able to make any such commitment today.

Another thing we want businesses to do is to be more formal about establishing mentoring and sponsorship programmes. They happen in many companies, but often tend to be more informal. We also want to see more formalising of career breaks and return-to-work schemes. It was interesting to hear from a head-hunter that although some women who go on maternity leave come back more quickly—we now have flexible shared parenting leave, which is welcome—for most the issue is about keeping current.

“Keeping current” does not mean simply receiving a newsletter; it might mean having back-to-work days or making sure that people on maternity leave are still invited to go on team building exercises. The key is to put more choice into the hands of the women themselves. We also learned that women in the professional services might want to do courses to keep up to speed.

Just today, over lunch, I was discussing this debate with my hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley). She told me that she had been an accountant, but through her professional network she learned that the Law Society had a successful method for getting and keeping people in touch. I would recommend that other professional bodies learn from the Law Society. What it does in that regard was news to me and I shall be following the information up.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

I have been consulting with women in my constituency about child care. One thing a number of them have said is that while on maternity leave they would like to be able to participate in training at the workplace that they want to go back to, and have the associated child care costs met—some have the right to access training, but the child care costs are not met. That seems a simple thing to bring into workplaces or even put in legislation. What does the hon. Lady think of that?

[Dr Coffey]

It is an interesting idea. The hon. Lady will probably realise that I am not into legislating for every outcome, although I recognise that that might be her approach. However, the idea could be established as good practice. As we know, companies recognise that they miss out on talent when they do not provide those kinds of initiatives. If the businesses that are, dare I say it, more forward-thinking have not heard that idea before, I am sure it will ring out from the Chamber today. I am also sure that it will be mentioned to Mars when she next visits that company. It is a good idea.

In compiling our report, we looked at child care policy. I do not have children, so I do not pretend to have the same experience as others, but when I was working in the private sector I managed a team of 24 people at one stage. I think I am right in saying that 16 of those were women working part time and balancing other responsibilities. I often found that people who worked part time were the most diligent employees, partly because they valued the fact that they had a reasonably well-paid job that was part time and partly because they were very organised. I will not pretend that we came to a unanimous view on child care, but we encouraged the Government to bring forward the tax-free child care policy. The Budget is on 19 March. I will be astonished if the policy makes an early entry, but nevertheless we can say with confidence that next year we will have a new policy that will be very welcome indeed.

As for other aspects of our report, we wanted to extend the work of Lord Davies to include public sector and professional services. I thank my noble friend Viscount Younger—my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth and I were fortunate to go to present some recommendations from our report to the Professional Business Services Council, and I am conscious that Viscount Younger is keen to do something about this issue with the professional services.

More young women than young men are currently entering the legal profession—I think that these data are widely known publicly—but at the moment a man is nine times more likely to become a partner than a woman. I am sure that that will change naturally anyway—I would not expect people who have joined a law firm in the past few years to be partners by now, as that takes time—but I would like to raise the consciousness of the professional services on that, as something needs to be done. In accountancy firms it is about three times more likely at the moment that a man will become a partner than a woman. There is work to be done there.

Lord Davies has also focused significantly on non-executive directors. I know that the Government are looking at what more they can do on that issue. Although I am confident that we will reach the 25% target for board directors by next year, we need to continue working on the percentage of executives.

Another key aspect that we asked the Government to focus on was improving careers advice for girls, particularly in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM. I was pleased to see that 40% of STEM ambassadors are women. I note the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden about maths being a key enabling subject for engineering. Interestingly, I have had quite a debate with the Minister for Universities and Science, my right hon. Friend the Member for Havant (Mr Willetts), on that matter. I am astonished that people can get on to engineering degrees without A-level physics. But my discussion with him on the issue was enlightening, and I recognise that quite a lot of young women who do triple science A-level tend to take biology, chemistry and maths, and do not focus on physics.

Last week we saw the Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel, during her visit here. She has a PhD in physics. She is an experienced politician and a clever lady, who did the hard sciences, as Mr Speaker pointed out. I recognise there is an issue with women taking physics, but I believe that people who can achieve grade A at maths, chemistry and biology are probably just as capable of achieving at physics. If there is some way in which we can do a physics catch-up course to get more women into engineering who might not have been successful at getting on to their first choice degree course, that will be welcome. After my initial reservations, I encouraged my right hon. Friend the Minister for Universities and Sciences to progress those kinds of schemes.

[Mrs Spelman]

My hon. Friend might find it interesting to learn that a lot of university engineering courses require maths and further maths. That combination is putting off quite a lot of aspirant engineers. They might well have physics but perhaps do not have the double maths A-level. It is important to put that on the record.

[Dr Coffey]

I thank my right hon. Friend for making that point—I was not aware of that. I could spend another 20 minutes talking about what has happened to A-levels. Sadly, almost all worthy undergraduate degrees in science and engineering have stretched to four years now, partly because the curriculum covered at A-level is not as broad as it used to be. I am not saying, by the way, that that is necessarily a bad thing, but so far those four-year courses are how universities seem to have reacted to the fact that now such breadth of knowledge is not covered by the time people are 18.

I acknowledge what my right hon. Friend has said and I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will pass on to my right hon. Friend the Minister for Universities and Sciences those thoughts on that barrier to becoming an engineer. Unless it is specifically connected to a curriculum issue, it seems a bit arbitrary.

I have skipped forward in my speech somewhat. I appreciate I have been talking for some time, Mr Robertson, but I would like to cover a few more issues. When I have discussed some of them in the past, I have been accused of being a bit nutty and thinking people are sexist. One thing we talk about in the report is implementing training about unconscious bias. That is simply a way of challenging people about their instinctive bias. We all have it, by the way: nobody can say that they are not biased at all. Training on unconscious bias is a sense check for people, so that when they are recruiting or promoting, or are discussing talent, they are not simply looking for people who are like themselves. It stops the mini-me syndrome that is evident.

[Mrs Spelman]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Coffey]

I will in one moment. One of the most interesting witnesses we talked to was from British Aerospace. That company has taken unconscious bias training to quite a new level. All managers are trained in it. When it has talent reviews, it makes sure that women are represented. Indeed, with recruitment and promotion it ensures that there is at least one woman on the panel of interviewers and one on the panel of interviewees. British Aerospace has seen a significant change in its recruitment and promotion and believes that its business is better as a consequence. I pay tribute to British Aerospace for that approach.

[Mrs Spelman]

My hon. Friend is being generous in taking a further intervention. Does she agree that we ought to lead by example? Parliamentarians should have unconscious bias training, and perhaps a good time to do that is during the induction programme for new MPs. In particular, new male MPs who come from a male-dominated profession would benefit hugely from unconscious bias training.

[Dr Coffey]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s thinking on that point. She should make that suggestion in writing to Mr Speaker and the Clerk of the House of Commons; it is a good idea.

[Pauline Latham]

Further to that point, would it not be better to give unconscious bias training to Members of Parliament who have been here for a long time, rather than new Members of Parliament? Members who joined Parliament in 2010 do not have the same bias as some older Members.

[John Robertson (in the Chair)]

I will not take that personally.

[Dr Coffey]

I am sure nobody was talking about you, Mr Robertson. I recognise that issue, too. I will not get into the discussions that I have had with other colleagues, but I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden and my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire that it would be useful for there to be such training in the current Parliament.

[Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is being incredibly generous in giving way. I want to give grist to her mill by saying that the oldest law firm in our country routinely undertakes unconscious bias training. If it is good enough for that firm, it must be good enough for Members of Parliament.

[Dr Coffey]

I thank my hon. Friend for that comment. I understand that the management board and Ministers in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills were invited to do unconscious bias training, although I believe that the only Minister who was able to do it was my hon. Friend the Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson). I agree that we should be proactive. There are companies that have offered to run courses for MPs. That has been on my to-do list for some time, and I will ensure that it gets done.

Our report recommended that companies should normalise flexible and part-time working. We should encourage companies to review their culture so talent does not drain away from the pipeline unnecessarily. Evidence shows that the best way to make flexible working a standard practice is to ensure that it is a non-gender issue. Companies know that they have a role in inspiring members of the next generation in the subjects they take and their career choices.

Finally, I come to our recommendation about head-hunters, for whom there is already a voluntary code of conduct. I want to draw Members’ attention to the review undertaken by Charlotte Sweeney at the instigation of the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, my right hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Vince Cable). It was launched earlier this week, and it looks at the voluntary code of conduct.

Head-hunters can play a significant role in helping us to reach Lord Davies’s target of ensuring that 25% of board members are female. I welcome the report’s ambition that the code should be a minimum standard and that we should aspire to more. To achieve that, we must encourage as many head-hunters as possible to sign up to the code.

One way of promoting the code is for the Government to lead by example. I am encouraging the Cabinet Office to ensure that all head-hunters used by the Government and their agencies are signatories to the code. We know that currently they are not. I had a conversation with my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden about that issue, and I will take it up further.

[Mrs Hodgson]

I recently met some senior women in higher education, who said that head-hunters are a barrier to their progressing to senior positions, such as vice-chancellorships of universities. The hon. Lady is talking about a good measure.

[Dr Coffey]

I find that fascinating. I have not thought about higher education because I have been focusing on business, but I will add that to the discussion that we will soon be having with Cabinet Office advisers.

Charlotte Sweeney’s report stated that the use of the code should be extended to the executive pipeline. That is music to my ears. We seek to persuade the Government and business to back the initiative. It is where the most difficult challenges lie, but it is vital to ensuring long-term progress. The report that I co-authored made a similar recommendation. I look forward to the forthcoming head-hunter summit, which my hon. Friend the Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth and I will be chairing, and which will allow us to have a discussion about what is happening to the code, how we can improve it and what we can do to extend it further. I am excited about that initiative, which will take place within the next month.

Locally, we in Suffolk recognise the value of women’s contribution to the economy. I pay tribute to the New Anglia local enterprise partnership, which has launched a campaign to help women fulfil their economic potential. A report by the LEP established that a woman working full-time in Suffolk will, over her career, earn £332,000 less than a man, and will pay £83,000 less in tax. The LEP is right to note that those employment and pay gaps represent lost income for families, lost opportunities for growth and lost prosperity for the county.

I have spoken for considerably longer than is my wont, but I feel that the report that we put together last year and whose recommendations we continue to follow up deserves a good airing in Parliament. We can all unite around this issue, although I expect that Government Members are not keen to legislate; our ambitions are elsewhere. There are a number of initiatives that we should support. We should be pleased that 37% of start-up loans went to women, and we should be pleased by the recommendations and initiatives undertaken by the Women’s Business Council. We should be pleased that this agenda is firmly on the map for the Government and the Opposition.

It is a waste to our economy if women who want to are not able to work at the top of industries, universities and the public sector. We should put our shoulders to the wheel and keep pushing. There will be a tipping point at which women start to play a full part in business, the economy and politics.

[Mr Jim Sheridan in the Chair]