International Women’s Day 2016

Tom Brake Excerpts

Tuesday 8th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

This is the second debate I have spoken in on international women’s issues recently. At an event last week, the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) commented on the fact that it was much harder for women to get elected to Parliament than it was for many of the mediocre men who are here. I am therefore happy to speak on behalf of mediocre men.

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of meeting two young women, Alalea and Liza, who came here as part of the SET for BRITAIN event. They are both PhD students from Imperial College—my old college. Alalea is working on the subject of concrete, and Liza is working on wear particles. Although neither subject might sound totally stimulating, I can assure Members that the two young women’s presentations were absolutely brilliant.

However, we cannot deduce too much from what those young women are doing. Clearly, at an international level, a huge amount of work still needs to be done on women’s rights. Many Members will have received the email from Amnesty International setting out the six reasons why it thinks we still need an International Women’s Day. One of the examples it provides is that in Ireland, for instance,

“women with fatal health conditions are often refused life-saving treatment because of the risk it poses to the foetus.”

Clearly, therefore, we still need to make major advances on women’s rights abroad.

[Naz Shah (Bradford West) (Lab)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Tom Brake]

I am afraid I will not, because many Members want to speak, and if I give way, that will mean less time for others.

There are still strong international challenges that need to be addressed, and there is certainly no room for complacency at a local level. The domestic violence statistics from my own borough show that domestic abuse forms 40% of all violent crime in Sutton, in the south-west London suburbs, which is relatively affluent. Of course, domestic violence is also severely under-reported, so perhaps only 50% of incidents are reported to the police.

The right hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) made a rather ungenerous comment about the Liberal Democrats as a party. She and I have discussed gender issues, and she could have asked me what the Lib Dems have been doing. I would have explained to her that our five most winnable Westminster seats in Scotland have been allocated to women candidates, so barring a dreadful election result in 2020—which I know some will wish on us—there should be a significant improvement. The same will be true in England, because our party conference is going to agree, I hope, to something for which I have been pushing, namely an all-women shortlist for every English seat from which a man is standing down. Barring unforeseen bad results, there should be a significant improvement.

I want to finish on the subject of female genital mutilation. My colleague Lynne Featherstone, who is now in the House of Lords, pushed very hard on the issue when she was a Minister. I want to leave the Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equalities and Family Justice, who will respond to the debate, with one point, which is that if we are serious about doing something about FGM, there needs to be mandatory personal, social, health and economic education, because otherwise the issues will not be addressed in some schools. I hope she will respond positively to that point.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equalities and Family Justice (Caroline Dinenage)]

May I, too, start by congratulating the right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House who secured the debate? I congratulate everybody who has taken part. We have had outstanding and excellent speeches from male and female Members from across the House.

I am pleased to be able to chart the significant progress that has been made under the Government. There are now more women in work than ever before. There are more women on boards than ever before. There are no all-male FTSE 100 boards. There are more women- led businesses than ever before—about 1 million small and medium-sized enterprises in the UK are women-led. The gender pay gap is the lowest on record and has virtually been eliminated among full-time workers under the age of 40. While it is important to celebrate how much progress we have made, we must be clear that, in today’s society, there is no place for any pay gap. The theme of this year’s International Women’s Day is the pledge for parity, and I am delighted the Prime Minister has pledged to close the gender pay gap within a generation.

It is vital to the Government that our economy benefits from the talents of everyone, and that everyone is able to fulfil their potential in the workplace, regardless of gender or background, so this year the Government are taking a bold step. We will redouble our efforts to complete the fight for equality, starting with the introduction of regulations to require large employers to publish their gender pay gaps. By working with businesses and employees, with a focus on transparency, I am confident that we will begin to see results.

The gender pay gap usually starts in the type of work that women do in the sectors in which they typically end up. As we have heard in some of today’s excellent speeches, occupational segregation is particularly apparent in the science, technology, engineering and maths sectors, where jobs carry a significant wage premium, but a shortage of girls and women are entering them and working their way to the top. We are working closely with schools and businesses to deliver initiatives such as the STEM diversity programme to address that.

Crucially, our work on girls’ aspirations is about dispelling the myth that there are girls’ jobs and boys’ jobs. There are, simply, just jobs. Last year we published guidance entitled “Your Daughter's Future”, which empowers parents and teachers to support girls in making decisions about subject and career choices, free from gender stereotypes.

There is also much more that we can do to support women in their careers and in achieving their potential. Women now lead about 20% of UK small businesses, which are the lifeblood of our economy, yet they are still setting up businesses at about half the rate of their male counterparts. The Women’s Business Council estimates that if women started businesses at the same rate as men, there would be 1 million extra businesses, yet research tells us that many women say that they lack the confidence, or perceive themselves to lack the necessary skills, to be able to do that.

We must not let the fear of failure hold back talented female budding entrepreneurs from achieving their full potential. That is why we continue to fund the £1 million women and broadband programme, which has been incredibly successful. In fact, many of our women and broadband projects across the country, from Durham to Devon, are themselves celebrating International Women’s Day.

We have also endeavoured to address the issues that are most pertinent to women in work. From the introduction of the right to request flexible working, to shared parental leave, we are helping women to achieve a better balance between work and motherhood. Realistically, however, women’s caring responsibilities rarely end when their own children fly the nest. The challenge of balancing care with a fulfilling career can often become most acute in the later stages of a woman’s working life, whether they are caring for an elderly relative or for grandchildren. Let us not forget the remarkable sandwich generation, either, who are somehow doing both. We need to find ways to support them all. That is why the Women’s Business Council has established a working group on older workers and will consider what business can do to support them. We have also invested money in nine pilots across England to explore ways to support carers to balance work and caring responsibilities. When we talk to women—and men—it is clear that, on work-life balance, childcare is the most important issue. That is why we are investing more than £1 billion more a year on free childcare places.

Turning to parity of representation in politics and public life, we come full circle. We know just how valuable female role models can be to young girls and women—raising aspiration is vital to the talent pipeline. We all take great pride in being part of the most gender diverse Parliament in British history. The Government are committed to improving the public appointments process and have set an aspiration that 50% of new appointments should go to women.

Equality, however, is about more than just economic parity—protecting women and girls from violence, and supporting victims, are also key priorities. The list of murdered women at the hands of domestic violence that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) read out earlier makes that argument more powerfully than any speech. I wholeheartedly agree with her that the voices of those murdered women must remain at the forefront of effective Government policy making. Our new violence against women and girls strategy, which was published today, will focus on service transformation and prevention.

We are also working with partners such as the PSHE Association to ensure that schools have access to safe, effective and high-quality resources. We have launched the next phase of our teen relationship abuse campaign, Disrespect NoBody, which encourages young people to think about their views on violence. We have funded the revenge porn helpline and the Freedom charity, which educates schoolchildren and their teachers about forced marriage.

We have made significant progress since 2010, including by criminalising forced marriage and revenge porn, as well as strengthening the law on domestic violence. We have strengthened the law on female genital mutilation so that it includes mandatory reporting and introducing FGM protection orders.

[Tom Brake]

Will the hon. Lady give way?