Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Kirstene Hair

Thursday 17th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

The hon. Lady will be delighted by the Chancellor’s announcement that we are increasing the national living wage. As she will know, 60% of people who are paid the living wage are women, so that increase will have a huge impact on many women. The hon. Lady and I can agree on at least this: we want women to be treated properly and fairly in the workplace, and I am sure that we all want to close that gap.

[Kirstene Hair (Angus) (Con)]

Flexible working gives many parents with young children an equal chance to work, and they would therefore support the narrowing of the gender pay gap. Does my hon. Friend agree that all job advertisements should specify whether the jobs are flexible, and that employees should have the right to request that flexibility?

[Victoria Atkins]

Very much so. My hon. Friend is right to mention flexible working and childcare. The message for employers is that flexible working not only improves diversity in their business models, but helps the bottom line. It is good for business, it is good for our country, and I think that, in particular, it is good for women to have the ability to earn their own incomes and to have the independence that we all cherish in this place.

Gender Pay Gap

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Kirstene Hair

Wednesday 5th December 2018 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Women (Victoria Atkins)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. I congratulate the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) on securing the debate. We all know how committed she is to this important issue and to gender equality generally. It is a pleasure to discuss it with her in this forum, as it is to meet her behind the scenes to try to get things done.

I also thank other hon. Members for their contributions; I am delighted that so many strong women contributed. I was particularly delighted that the hon. Lady seemed to describe my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) as a unicorn—she said there were discussions about unicorns in the main Chamber and he was on his feet at the time. I will treasure that comment and keep it close to my heart.

This year has been one of milestones: data from the Office for National Statistics shows that the gender pay gap has fallen to a record low; more than 10,000 employers have published data for the first time under the new reporting regulations; and the pay gap became one of the biggest news stories of the year. Those are all indications that the issue has climbed up the agenda, which we know is being translated into conversations in industry and business. People are finally talking about this injustice.

I recently met some senior businesspeople who run some of the most powerful businesses in the country—indeed, the world—to discuss modern slavery. One of them told me, “I was at a meeting in New York recently and, in a room full of investors and businesspeople, we talked about the gender pay gap regulations in the UK.” It is not just us in this country who are having this conversation about the regulations and the injustices they have revealed; other countries and businesses around the world have noticed too. We are under no illusions that this is just the first step, but it is still a huge step forward. Employers across the country are now aware of the challenge that they face, and we are committed to supporting them and tackling the issue together.

I want to start by discussing the women who are perhaps most affected by gender pay gaps—those who are the lowest paid—which is an issue raised by the hon. Member for Walthamstow. The emphasis has tended to be on well-paid women and on directorships, because we want to get the symbolism right and put the message out there that women can run businesses and so on.

[Kirstene Hair (Angus) (Con)]

I commend the Government’s record on trying to narrow the gender pay gap. It was a pleasure for me to address female electricians in this place on Monday. One of the top issues that came up in discussions with them was the engrained workplace cultures that really curb female progression. Can the Minister update us on what she is doing to solve that?

[Victoria Atkins]

I was at the same event, and a female electrician corrected me by saying that only 1% of electrical engineers are female. As in our earlier discussion about pilots, there is no reason why more electricians and electrical engineers should not be women.

Let me turn to the work we are doing to help the lowest paid. The Minister for Women and Equalities, my right hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt), recently announced that the work of the Government Equalities Office will be broadened to include an explicit focus on low-paid, low-skilled women, who have often been left out of the conversation, despite possibly requiring the most support, given the multiple barriers they face. The message that she wants to give, and which I echo, is that this is not a question of forgetting about directorships or the highest-paid women; this is about multitasking and ensuring that we reflect the whole economy and women’s contributions to it. We know, for example, that the lowest-paid women tend to feature in four industries: retail, childcare, caring and cleaning. We are looking at those sectors to ensure that the figures for the gender pay gap translate into real-life policies that have the greatest impact for the lowest-paid women.

The shadow Minister mentioned some figures quoted by the OECD. She will have to forgive me—obviously I am doing this on my feet—but just to put them in context, we understand that the OECD figures use a different methodology and go much wider than our gender pay gap measures. We are working with colleagues across Whitehall to increase women’s economic empowerment. In terms of Government recruitment, those factors are very much taken into account when we look at contracts. I hope that reassures her.

I turn now to the drivers of the gender pay gap. This is clearly just one of the steps we are taking to tackle the gap; other steps include introducing shared parental leave and pay, and running a £1.5 million campaign to promote the scheme. Hon. Members have made the point about fathers wanting to play a much greater part in raising their children, particularly in the early years. I think there is a lot more that the scheme can and should do. We want to raise awareness of it, so that employers understand the regulations and can ensure that their male employees can contribute to family life in as powerful a way as their female employees do.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Kirstene Hair

Thursday 11th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

As I say, the Government continue to keep this under review. Following the Supreme Court judgment on employment tribunal fees, we stopped charging fees immediately and arrangements are being put in place by the Ministry of Justice to refund the fees to those who have paid in the past. As I say, this point on discrimination against new mothers and pregnant women is very much being kept under review.

[Kirstene Hair (Angus) (Con)]

8. What recent discussions she has had with her counterpart in the Scottish Government on plans for the suffrage centenary fund.