International Development: Forestry
Baroness Parminter Excerpts(7 years, 2 months ago)
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Baroness Parminter
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of the Department for International Development’s Economic Development Strategy, whether they plan to commit to supporting forest programmes across the globe to improve forest governance and reduce deforestation.
The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Lord Bates) (Con)
My Lords, stopping deforestation is an essential part of global efforts to promote sustainable economic development. DfID already supports programmes focused on governance, tackling illegal logging and related corruption, and working with companies to eliminate deforestation from supply chains for palm oil, cocoa and other commodities. This makes an important contribution to DfID’s economic development strategy.
Baroness Parminter (LD)
My Lords, I pay tribute to the work of both this Government and previous Governments in the fight against global deforestation. Given that we are losing an area the size of a football pitch every two seconds, and that deforestation accounts for 10% of our global carbon emissions, will the Minister commit to the fact that the Government will not lose any further funding to take forward this important work?
Lord Bates
I am very happy to renew that commitment, particularly on the International Day of Forests. The commitment is there not only in a government statement on such matters, but also in our signing up to the sustainable development goals. Sustainable development goal 15 puts sustainable managed forests, combating deforestation and reversing land degradation at the heart of one of the key goals that need to be attained. The Government are committed to those goals, and through a number of different mechanisms seek to bring them about by 2030.
Air Pollution
Baroness Parminter Excerpts(9 years, 6 months ago)
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Baroness Northover
My Lords, I assure the noble Lord that we take this extremely seriously and I would refute the latter part of his question. He will know that we have managed to limit most pollutants and these are now below the legally binding EU limit values. The outstanding one is nitrogen dioxide, which has been a challenge not only for the United Kingdom but for 17 of the 27 EU states. We are working very hard to combat this.
Baroness Parminter (LD)
My Lords, many local authorities are starting to introduce low emission zones to tackle air pollution. If they are led locally, these will have different criteria and be introduced at different times. What are the Government doing to ensure an effective network of low-emission zones, right around the country?
Baroness Northover
We work very closely with local authorities to provide support when they seek to introduce low-emission zones. One factor here is that there may be different reasons for air pollution in different areas, and it is therefore important that decisions on how to identify and then tackle it are taken on a local basis. However, we are working very hard to support local areas in introducing appropriate measures.
Agriculture and Food Industry
Baroness Parminter Excerpts(9 years, 10 months ago)
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Baroness Parminter (LD)
My Lords, it gives me great pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord Plumb, and I thank him for securing this debate this afternoon. It is testament both to the importance of the issue and the respect in which he is held around this House as a doughty champion of the countryside that he has secured so many speakers on a Thursday afternoon. I congratulate him.
He has done a very good job of outlining the economic contribution that the farming community in particular makes to our country, to which I would add the significant contribution of the food and drink industry. When we think of our great manufacturing sector, such as it is still in this country, we do not always think first of the food and drink industry, yet it accounts for more than 15% of our total manufacturing turnover in the United Kingdom and more than 400,000 jobs. That is a significant achievement, and one on which we would do well to reflect further.
If we are going to continue the successes of agriculture and of the food and drink industries, we will have to work hard to face the challenges around food security, as my noble friend Lord Plumb said. We have to feed 9 billion people by 2050 in a world constrained by climate change and the resource implications—the loss of nutrients in soil and loss of water—that our food and drink industries and our farming communities will have to contend with, if they are to produce the food that we are going to need in future. We need to find a new way in which to produce that food.
We hear a lot about “sustainable intensification”, which means different things to different people. For me, it means working with nature and the environment to conserve the resources that we will need in future—the soil and water—to grow the food that we will need. We will have to address not only the challenges of producing food more sustainably but the challenges of the effects of some poor diets on people in our country and around the world. It is a salutary fact that 40% of men and 30% of women in this country are overweight, and that one-third of all 10 to 11 year-olds are equally overweight. The fact that we are not feeding our nation healthy food and that at the same time we are struggling to provide the resources that our industries will need in future is something that the Government will have to take more of a lead on in future—linking the health agenda with the agenda for producing food sustainably. I do not say that our Government have not done anything; they obviously have done an awful lot. We have the agri-tech strategy and responsibility deals, but they are not brought together. We do not have a co-ordinated strategy for linking the work that we need to do on health and on producing food in a sustainable way. Therefore, we are not setting our industries and the farming community the clear agenda that they are crying out for.
We are also lagging behind in comparison to other parts of the world. While I know that many noble Lords would not wish us to be compared with what is being done in Nordic countries or within Brazil, there are many similarities between the UK and the Netherlands—not least a very similar agenda for reform of the European Union. There they have a very clear set of nutritional guidelines, which they use as a means to communicate with their public about what foods need to be eaten. They give their industry guidance as to what they think it should produce, and they equally have a very clear public procurement policy, which they use to drive forward the production and purchase of sustainable food.
The Government have a record of doing a number of different initiatives, such as the agri-tech strategy and the responsibility deal. In 2012, they launched the Green Food Project, which was a very welcome initiative, bringing together a large number of stakeholders in this field to look at the challenges that the food and agriculture industries face and to see whether we could find some common solutions. Those stakeholders included the NFU, the CLA, the Food and Drink Federation, EBLEX, WRAP, the Food Ethics Council and the WWF—a whole breadth of organisations involved in the very large food business field. That first report received a ministerial foreword and there were some very clear conclusions. When the report from the second year of the Green Food Project was released last summer, there was no ministerial foreword and no launch; I found it buried on the Defra website. There was no commitment to take forward any further action, and I found that a great pity—particularly since all those diverse groups together had come up with a set of principles to produce healthy and sustainable food to which they all jointly agreed.
There were eight simple principles to be used as a guide for outlining nutritional standards for our country and for driving important public procurement. Those eight principles included an agreement on moderating meat consumption and encouraging the production of plant-based foods. I remind noble Lords that that group included EBLEX, the lobbying and representative organisation for the beef and lamb sector, the WWF and the Food and Drink Federation. These groups, which would not normally come together, are in fact coming together under a government initiative and producing a clear and coherent set of principles to guide the industry in giving it a mandate to do something different about the food that it offers and equally to drive public procurement.
My worry is that the list that was produced by the group will sink without a trace. My understanding is that it went out for peer review. What do the Government intend to do with the set of principles that the Green Food Project steering group has drawn up? My understanding is that it could be buried in some website that Defra co-funds, but that it will not be used to drive forward a clear vision for the industry or drive forward procurement. That is a great pity, particularly since this week we saw the launch of the Government’s public procurement plan, which is a very welcome step forward. However, when it talks about some of the steps that we would like to see in procurement—and let us not forget that the public sector in the UK spends £1.2 billion on public procurement—it says nothing about meat moderation. Several of my colleagues might say that it is not the Government’s job to intervene in such a sensitive area, but this public procurement plan, which we launched this week, makes it clear that if you are in receipt of a government contract for food to serve meals, you have to provide fish twice a week, and one of those has to include oily fish. So it is prepared to say something about fish, but it should really say something about meat.
The Government have some initiatives in this field, but if we are to develop our food and drink industry properly we must make sure that we carry on with the work that we started with the Green Food Project and take it forward so that our industry can carry on in the way that we know it can and should.
Water Bill
Baroness Parminter Excerpts(10 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Crickhowell (Con)
My Lords, at Second Reading I said I was green with envy that the environmental regulators will now have the Bill rather than the legislation that I had to deal with as chairman of the National Rivers Authority when I was in almost continual friendly conflict—I emphasise the word “friendly”—with Ian Byatt the economic regulator. It was so friendly that I have two cartoons at home, which were sent to me by a notable newspaper, showing both of us in the boxing ring. In the first, we are engaged in a vigorous fight, and the second shows us collapsing together exhausted at the end of the exchange. We have made huge progress since then, and the existing sustainable development duty, as I understand it, is now being given statutory authority in the Bill. The clear steer that has been provided by the Government is now being given statutory effect in the Bill. As I understand it, Ofwat now has sustainable development as a central objective. It will have to take account of that. It will have to carry out its functions in accordance with the strategic priorities and objectives identified by the Secretary of State.
So while I entirely understand and, indeed, sympathise with the arguments advanced by the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale—and perhaps it is because we have made such a huge advance from the position with which I had to deal when the economic regulator just did not think he had any obligations to provide for the environment and blocked almost every proposal that came from Europe or from us—I would like my noble friend to clarify what is to be gained or lost if we accept the proposition put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, over what we have already in the Bill. I find it very difficult to understand exactly what benefit we would gain. If there is nothing to be lost by including it, I would not be against including it. Against the background of a huge step forward having been taken, I am seeking from my noble friend clarification of the benefits and possible downsides of having this written into the Bill in the way proposed.
Baroness Parminter (LD)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Redesdale for raising this issue yet again. He has done so on numerous occasions, as have many other noble Lords. It is an important debate. It is quite clear that the Government are committed to sustainable development, but they believe that they do not need to elevate the primary duty of sustainable development for the regulator in the water industry because it has a secondary duty. What they are prepared to give is the new primary duty for resilience. I think we are going to carry on arguing about whether resilience delivers the environmental and social benefits that those of us who are concerned about sustainable development believe it does. The Government say it does and I am sure that the Minister will reiterate today that he believes that resilience will deliver the sustainable benefits that we believe are crucial for the regulator to deliver. There are others who believe that the resilience duty does not.
I would like to pick up on what my noble friend Lord Redesdale has said. We should try and move the debate on from arguing about what “sustainable development” and “resilience” mean to what we actually want to achieve. It is significant that my noble friend Lord Redesdale raised the issue of water efficiency. That is, bluntly, what we want to achieve—a more resilient future for our water industry which protects the scarce resources that we have, to the benefit of the environment and communities. I urge the Minister to reflect again between now and Report on a duty to promote water efficiency. I think that is a constructive way forward. There will be a difference between those of us who believe resilience is sufficient and those of us who would have liked to see a primary duty on the regulator. I do not think the Government are going to move, but I do think that a duty to look at the issue of water efficiency is a helpful way forward.
Lord Whitty
My Lords, I have tabled an amendment in this group which attempts to deal in a slightly different way with exactly the same issue as the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale. Which is the closest approximation to perfection I am not entirely sure, and whether either of them is perfectible in the eyes of the Government, I am not entirely sure.
We do have an issue. The noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, stated the current situation correctly. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, that, since 2003, Ofwat has had a sustainable development responsibility but it is a secondary objective. What these amendments attempt to do is to put it on a par with the economic objective for consumers. There is an economic, a social and an environmental dimension of sustainability which goes wider than that responsibility to consumers, now and in the future. The reason why relations and general coherence are better than the early days which the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, described, is that Ofwat has recognised that it is more than an economic regulator, and the Environment Agency has recognised that it has economic objectives as well as environmental objectives. Some of those have become a little controversial in recent days, in that, for example, flood defence priorities are determined largely in terms of economic effect. Both agencies now have all three—certainly environmental and economic objectives—which they routinely integrate within their operations. For that reason it is slightly odd that there is a differential between the objectives to consumers on the economic side and the objectives of sustainability on the other side, in terms of Ofwat’s requirements. The Government have made two attempts at convincing those of us who are interested in this subject through some very well written briefs. They were much more understandable than the Bill itself, or indeed the Explanatory Notes. By and large, I understood those briefs; they have nevertheless failed to convince me. They are arguing in terms that are now obsolete. They argue that the economic regulator is Ofwat and the environmental regulator is the EA. They both overlap and they need to operate a coherent approach to this in relation to sustainability.
The Government have moved significantly, as the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, was hinting, in stretching the definition of “resilience”. Resilience is a jolly good, robust term. We all approve of resilience, and long-term resilience is clearly a responsibility of Ofwat and indeed the EA, in relation to water resources and their delivery. It is not quite the same as sustainability. It is part of sustainability but it is not the totality. The noble Baroness and the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, have both pointed to the energy efficiency dimension, which, let us be fair, has been lacking until at least very recently in some of Ofwat’s priorities, when it allows expenditure during the price review. It is that which worries people—that this issue will fall out.
The Minister told me the other day that resilience includes social resilience; it presumably therefore includes issues of affordability and access as well as environmental and social issues. That may be so but the normal meaning of “resilience” is protection and upgrading of the assets that you have, and which need a long-term permanence to protect them. The Government are in danger of stretching the term rather beyond what the Oxford English Dictionary would term as resilience.
Baroness Parminter
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, for his probing amendment. My Amendment 133, also in this group, seeks to amend the Water Industry Act 1991 to allow water companies to introduce compulsory metering, if supported by their customers.
Current legislation means that water companies are able to introduce domestic water meters on a compulsory basis only where the Secretary of State has determined that either the whole or part of their area is an area of serious water stress. My amendment would simply remove this barrier, allowing water businesses to do what they felt was in the best interests of their customers and increasingly scarce water resources.
We know that metering gives consumers greater control over their water consumption and so can improve affordability. It also helps water companies to target households using large amounts of water, provide water efficiency support and tackle leaks. On that point, perhaps I may say how welcome it is that this Bill transfers the responsibility for supply pipes from customers to water companies as this should help to drive down leakages. The case for smart metering, combined with advice on how to reduce water usage, and social tariffs that minimise affordability issues for disadvantaged heavy-use households, is strong, and has been well made by the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh. As he has said, the independent Walker review in 2009 recommended a widespread switchover, as, indeed, did the EFRA Committee in the other place.
We know now that some water companies denied pursuing this course of action by current legislation want it. The chief executive of Northumbrian Water, Heidi Mottram, supports it. The company knows that it has to plan its businesses for the future, when climate change and other constraints may well impact on areas not presently water stressed. Given the opportunities in this Bill to trade water, they want all the tools they can get to maximise the precious and increasingly valuable resource that water is.
This seems to be a reasonable amendment. All it would do is give companies the right to speak to their customers and manage their businesses to their benefit, with increasingly scarce water resources. It does not force, rather it enables water companies to consider the wider social and environmental benefits that metering brings.
Lord Curry of Kirkharle (CB)
My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister and the department for the very helpful briefing notes we have been given, and for the opportunity to explore the Bill with him and his team. I fully endorse the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, on Amendment 133. I also firmly support the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh. I declare an interest in that I chair the management board of a rural estate that has an extraction licence.
At a time when the management of water is such a critical issue, I would go even further than this amendment. I think that a timetable should be set, by which time all consumers of water are charged for the volumes they use. These amendments mark a step towards that objective. I cannot understand the reluctance to expand the use of water meters. I know that there is an installation cost involved and that it will take time. The potential costs of installation could be fairly significant, as the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, pointed out, and of course meters have a limited life and will need to be replaced over time. However, these costs need to be set against the fact that metered customers use between 10% and 15% less water. Some will use more and some less, but the overall net benefit of a saving of 10% to 15% is massive.
The current policy of allowing companies to apply for the right to install water meters in areas of water stress has a certain logic. However, we have seen vividly over the past two years the dramatic impact of extreme weather events, whether they are the result of climate change or whatever. Flooding in winter and drought in summer could become much more frequent occurrences than has been the case historically, and water stress could become a reality well beyond the south and east of England. Even using the existing definition, we are likely to see a requirement for increased water use. Better, I would suggest, that we should extend the option of charging now in anticipation of the inevitable pressures on supplies, as mentioned earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale.
I come back to the issue of managing water. The well-known maxim, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it”, seems to apply very precisely to the subject of water. As I have mentioned, I chair an estate. We are now well advanced in the process of installing meters in every household and enterprise across the entire estate. We know where every litre goes and we can charge appropriately. We are also able to monitor, remotely in the office, how much water is being used, where and by whom. It is very effective and much more efficient. The water industry needs to become much smarter in its management of water, and measuring is essential. I understand that Anglian Water now has around 90% of its customers metered, not through compliance but because it makes sound economic sense. Other companies, particularly in the freed-up market that we are trying to achieve through this Bill, need to be encouraged to do the same.
I would like to make one final point. It costs all of us £14 every year to cover the costs of unpaid water bills. It is a fact of life that if we do not appreciate the value of water, we are likely to be much more indiscriminate in our use of it. We should take the opportunity in this Bill to further establish the principle of charging for water use. The Walker review, which has already been mentioned twice, firmly endorsed this approach, and I hope that the Minister will give this proposal his serious consideration.
Animal Welfare: Methods of Slaughter
Baroness Parminter Excerpts(10 years, 4 months ago)
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Baroness Parminter (LD)
My Lords, I wholeheartedly support the case made by the noble Lord, Lord Trees, and the evidence that he outlined that slaughter by throat-cutting without pre-stunning is absolutely unacceptable in animal welfare terms. However, like other speakers, time is short, and therefore the important issue for me today is to put on record that, yes, we must respect the rights of religious communities, but equally we must respect the rights of consumers for them to be able to make informed choices about the food they eat.
At present, a concerned consumer can go and buy red tractor meat or freedom food meat, or go into Waitrose, where all meat is pre-stunned, or if they are in Southall they can go into the McDonald’s and buy a halal burger which is pre-stunned. However, there are millions of animals slaughtered in the UK without pre-stunning, as the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, has outlined. With the Muslim and the Jewish community only comprising about 4% to 5% of the population, that means a vast percentage of people in this country are unwittingly buying food which has been slaughtered without pre-stunning.
It is an incredibly timely debate today. It is surprising that we have not debated it more frequently in this House, but it is timely because at this very moment the regulations are being discussed in the European Parliament. Those certainly should help consumers make informed choices about the food they buy, and they could do even more, if they included mandatory labelling of the slaughter methods, by exception—that is, only the meat that is slaughtered without pre-stunning requires labelling.
I therefore add my voice to that of the noble Lord, Lord Trees, in asking the Minister what discussions the Government have had with the European Commission on the study it is commissioning at the present time, due out in April, into the effectiveness and applicability of labelling meat products on the methods of slaughter. If those draft proposals were to emerge as a result of that study, would my Government support, as I do, the EU-wide mandatory labelling of non-pre-stunned meat?
Badgers
Baroness Parminter Excerpts(10 years, 11 months ago)
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Baroness Northover
The noble Lord has, of course, huge expertise, having been such a power behind the earlier, randomised controlled trials into this, which established the 16% figure that he has just talked about. That is why, faced with this enormous challenge, we are taking a range of measures, including more cattle testing, greater biosecurity and investing in research in vaccines. I noted his point about the herds that do not seem to be suffering from TB yet are in TB hotspots. I point him to the £250 million fund for new vaccination projects. It is undersubscribed. I suggest that he directs his research students to it, and I look forward to the enlightenment that he and his students bring on bovine TB, in the UK and around the world.
Baroness Parminter
Will the data from these trials, alongside the criteria against which free shooting will be judged humane or not, be published at the same time that the Secretary of State announces whether badger culling will be allowed in future?
Baroness Northover
The Government expect to be able to announce a decision on the reports in the early part of next year, when the information is in. I can assure my noble friend that the outcome of the monitoring of the pilot culls will be published. In the mean time, of course, other measures to seek to control bovine TB will also be taken.
Ethical and Sustainable Fashion
Baroness Parminter Excerpts(11 years, 2 months ago)
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Baroness Parminter
My Lords, on entering this House in 2010 I wore fur-free “non-ermine ermine”. However, I am not just passionate about cruelty-free fashion, so I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Young, for securing this debate and for chairing with such pizzazz the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Ethics and Sustainability in Fashion, of which I am proud to be an officer.
Sustainability, green, eco, organic and ethical are increasingly a part of the fashion conversation. That is to be welcomed although I am not sure everyone has the same view of sustainable fashion. Is it a timeless, classic handbag I can pass on to my daughter—the opposite of the cheap, disposal fashion epitomised by Primark? Is it a dress made from locally sourced materials, with limited transport and a light carbon footprint, or is it a Fairtrade cotton T-shirt produced in a factory where the needs of employees are taken into account?
The London College of Fashion defines “sustainable” as,
“harnessing resources ethically and responsibly without destroying social and ecological balance”.
I like that definition; it does not go so far as to pin it down but allows the creativity of individuals to flourish as they interpret what it could mean for their business. As the impacts of climate change hit harder, with resource constraints and more severe weather, we need the clothing industry to develop the necessary resilience to satisfy the colossal appetite for clothing sustainably. The commitments from the Business Secretary in support of the UK textile manufacturing industry are very welcome but more needs to be done to future-proof the industry and to support sustainable and ethical fashion.
Sadly, 20 years after the first child labour and labour standards scandals in our high street fashion chains, we still face the same problems. Clearly, current audit approaches are failing. They rely too much on cheap, bribable inspectors. It is analogous with food supply chain issues, reflecting huge pressures to reduce costs combined with an “unlikely to be found out so don’t worry” mentality. Some companies are trying hard to address these issues. One is BBC Worldwide, which refuses to rely on third-party certification and makes its own unannounced checks of its suppliers, has credible and enforced sanctions and promotes its speak-up line to managers and workers in supplying factories.
However, spot checks alone will not address all issues. The fires in a number of Bangladesh factories just before Christmas highlight a problem of ethical culture. During the audits the fire doors were open but when the fires happened they were locked. We need companies such as the GoodCorporation, which argues powerfully to encourage debate about ethics and culture in factories, to move away from blame, to push managers and to take more responsibility for standards.
We also need more opportunities to showcase best practice, such as the Estethica at London Fashion Week and the RSPCA’s Good Business Awards, which have supported the development of animal-friendly clothing policies. Can the Minister say what plans the Government have to address this and to help give companies advice and support as they develop the standards to take on the ethical and sustainability issues, and to provide more platforms to share best practice?
We need also to focus on clothing, from creation right through to disposal. With around £140 million-worth of used clothing going to landfill each year, we urgently need to address the issue of reuse, exchange and disposal of clothes. I was therefore very pleased to see that the Government’s consultation on waste prevention, launched last week, identifies clothing as one of the priority areas for action. We have come a long way with compassionate fashion, largely thanks to powerful campaigning by organisations such as PETA. Opinion polls show that 95% of Britons would never wear real fur and top designers including Vivienne Westwood, Ralph Lauren and Stella McCartney leave fur out of their designs. Even on the high street, icons such as Topshop, H&M and New Look are fur and exotic-free.
Green is not the new black; it is not just another trend to come in and go out with the seasons. I applaud the work of the all-party group with partners in industry and government to develop a new space for fashion which respects the need for social and ecological balance and can help create more British jobs.
Women in Society
Baroness Parminter Excerpts(13 years, 10 months ago)
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Baroness Parminter
I add my thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, for initiating this debate today. As a new girl, I have much to learn from her and from others in this House who have vast experiences and careers across a vast array of areas. Equally, as a new girl, I would like to thank their Lordships for the warmth of their welcome and also the staff for their unfailing courtesy and kindnesses since I took my seat on Monday.
In taking my seat I was proud to take the name of the town where my family and I live. Godalming is a town with a strong sense of community, situated in some of the loveliest countryside in the south-east of England. It has a proud history. It was the birthplace of General James Oglethorpe, the great social reformer who went on to found the American state of Georgia. It was the first town in the world to have a public electricity supply and it was the home of Gertrude Jekyll, the landscape designer, whose gardens still grace so much of our corner of Surrey today. We have a proud past and I hope to be part of an equally proud future for our town.
This debate, which focuses on gender equality, lies at the heart of what it means to have a fair society, the issue that brought me into politics in my early 20s and which has since taken me into a career in the voluntary sector and also local government. It is disappointing that, in some areas of society, women are still regarded as second-class citizens. As someone who studied theology at Oxford, and a practising Christian, I am heartened that at long last women look likely to take their rightful place in our church. Equally bold measures are required in other parts of our society. To that end, I welcome the recent remarks by my honourable friend the Equalities Minister that there will be no roll back on gender equality on our watch.
In that spirit, I shall focus on three areas where discrimination towards women still persists in our society. First, there is discrimination in politics. Men still vastly outnumber women in our democratic bodies. Part of the reason is that women are still the principal carers in many families. However, other equally demanding and high-profile jobs have been performed successfully through securing flexible work patterns. As a trustee of the think tank IPPR, I have been privileged to see at close quarters a successful model of job sharing between the two female outgoing directors, Carey Oppenheim and Lisa Harker. As we have a Government who are rightly taking a radical look at how we do politics, it might be time to look at the issue of MP job shares.
The second area of discrimination against women is in business. Companies are still choosing far more men than women for senior roles. Clearly more flexible work patterns will help, but we should not be fooled into thinking that the glass ceiling is only for women with children. It is vital that the Government keep acting to ensure that boards address this issue seriously. Further, we need to consider the aspirations of women in society. Mentoring can help and I am pleased to be a mentor to a woman in business. I hope that I can encourage her and others to take the steps forward in society that they need to undertake. Beyond government action and mentoring, we also should look to civil society because—as a former chief executive of the Campaign to Protect Rural England your Lordships might expect me to say this—there are some areas of civil society from which business can learn.
A snapshot of ACEVO—the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations—shows that nearly half of its 1,700 members are women. Admittedly they are from smaller voluntary organisations, but those women are taking vital leadership roles in the many organisations which are the backbone of civic life in our communities. I hope it will not be too long before a number of them rise up to join the distinguished women who are leading some of our larger civic organisations, such as Dame Fiona Reynolds at the National Trust.
The third area of discrimination is in pay. The majority of people on low income are women and I therefore welcome the fact that the Budget raised the level at which income tax is to be paid. However, we should be clear that the gap in pay is not only at that level of the pay sector. Recent figures show that the highest paid female director of a FTSE 100 company received almost 10 per cent less than her highest paid male equivalent. Of course the removal of gagging clauses in City contracts may help, but it remains clear that much more needs to be done 40 years on from the adoption of the Equal Pay Act, not only in the issue of equal pay but in the equally important area of flexible working. I welcome the noble Baroness’s comments about the coalition Government’s intention to extend a historic right for all employees to request flexible working. I look forward to campaigning in this House to ensure that that is introduced as soon as possible.
In addition to speaking out, I hope, as a Member of the House, to play my part in the vital work of outreach to encourage more young women to take up their place in politics. However, I hope I have more success than I did when I accompanied my six year-old daughter to her “take your Mum to school” day recently. Despite the excellent resources from the parliamentary education department, my attempts to persuade her class of the importance of this place in civic society counted for less than whether or not the Queen brought her corgis on her regular visit to our House.
It is a great privilege to speak today and even more of an honour to listen and, it is to be hoped, to learn. In learning over the years I hope that I can play my small part in helping other women to achieve more for themselves, their families, their communities and our country.