Women: Contribution to Economic Life

Debate between Lord Rooker and Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone

Thursday 6th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone (Con)]

My Lords, it is a privilege to speak in this debate, particularly following the noble Baroness and my noble friend. I strongly endorse their comments and the approach of trying to balance the huge opportunities in the developed world for women—transformational experiences, compared to our mothers and grandmothers—with the serious concern about the marginalised and underprivileged, not only in the West and the developed world but all around the world. It is that tension that we will have to address.

Last night in another place, a reception was held by Coca-Cola. I did not myself attend, but I will share with noble Lords the comments made by the global chairman of Coca-Cola, Muhtar Kent. When asked about the future, he said:

“The real drivers of the post American world, I believe, won’t be China, won’t be India, won’t be Brazil, won’t be any nation. The real drivers are going to be women: women entrepreneurs, women business, political, academic and cultural leaders, and women innovators. The truth is that women already are the most dynamic and fastest-growing economic force in the world today”.

I share that sense of energy and optimism. Time and again, we have seen new conquests. We have had the first woman Prime Minister; I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, complained about having only five women in the cabinet but, to me, geriatric as I am, that seems a mass. I think that I was the eighth woman in the Cabinet, and it was extraordinary to have two women together in the Cabinet. We have had the first Appeal Court judge. Many women firsts are in this House, such as the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. We have had the first woman chief constable and prison governor, and our second female Lord Speaker. The dramatic change is extraordinary; the question is how that can then be broadened and deepened.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

May I intervene on what the noble Baroness has said, because she is a rarity herself? Female Members of this House who were previously Tory Members of the other House stand at half the percentage of the Lib Dems or Labour. There have only been eight since the late Baroness Thatcher, and the noble Baroness is one of them; there have been six Lib Dems and 16 Labour Baronesses. What is the problem among the Tories with sending female former Members of the Commons to this place?

[Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone]

I do not want to be unduly provocative. I know the answer to this question. It was the case that people came to the House of Lords as a sign of achievement, so, generally, only people who had been in the Cabinet would come to the Lords. If the noble Lord looks at the situation, a disproportionate number of Labour Peers kindly made way from their safe Commons seats for an individual of No. 10’s choosing. The noble Lord may think that this is harsh, but that has always been the nature of the journey from the other place to the House of Lords for Commons Members. However, I am pretty confident that we will see more. I do not want to go too far with this partisan view, because I feel quite strongly about it. As the noble Lord is an endangered man, I do not want him to become too emotional and irrational as I proceed with my comments.

We now have slightly more females in the Lords than the Commons but, again, 22.5% in the Commons compared with the 23 out of 600 when I started seems a long way. So much so—as I have been diverted—because for four years, when I was first in the other place, I only ever wore a grey, black or blue suit, with a little bow at my neck and four buttons on the wrist, on the basis that if nobody mentioned that I was not a man, I would not mention it either. As time has gone on, maybe because of our own children, I have now come out as a fully fledged battleaxe, and I plan to continue with my thoughts.

Of course, there have been very interesting developments in the church. The first female priest was ordained in 1994, which was extraordinary for the Church of England, and now something like 22.5% of the clergy in the Church of England is female. We are all on tenterhooks to hear from the right reverend Prelate, but we very much hope that by the time we have this debate next year there will be a female bishop; whether that will be a female bishop who is entitled to sit in this place I know not. I very much hope that before I get carried away I will see progress in what must be one of the greatest Christian faiths of the world, the Roman Catholic Church, which to me simply has no leg to stand on. In case any noble Lords think that I am presumptuous to speak of another faith, there is an internal battle within my family on this subject, and I know the strength of feeling that exists on it. There should be change, because neither parliaments, God nor business should define us by our gender; what matters is our humanity and contribution.

I will start on the economy and business. Many in this House know that I am slightly impatient with the simplistic figure of the number of women on boards, as it does not reflect what is happening to women in the workplace. Be that as it may, we have to give credit to the noble Lord, Lord Davies, and I give credit to the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, who was one of the great champions of Opportunity 2000, and to many other women. However, I regret to confess that a man leading that cause with his energy has been even more successful. We seem to have reached a tipping point. As my noble friend said, in 2010 12.5% of FTSE directors were women and the figure is now 20.4%. Of course, if you look only at the non-executive directors, the figure is right up at 25%. Executive progression is the issue, and it is too easy to overlook that.

I applaud the Lord Mayor of London, Fiona Woolf, who has undertaken a great deal of work on diversity during her year as mayor, developing a toolkit for what the key issues are for women as they go through the workplace: flexible time, mentors, work-life balance—arrangements that technology can make much easier. I have been very interested by the mentoring. Men often ring me and say that they have been mentoring a woman and tell me how impressive she is, to which I say, “I am so pleased that you have met her and understand her. I’ve known her for several years”. Therefore, I do not know what the mentoring is doing for the women, but it is very good indeed for the men and has taught them a thing or two. There are four chief executives of FTSE 100 companies, and there will soon be two chairmen, but of course, much more needs to be done. We are learning more about how that can be achieved.

I will move to another area. Too much time is given to women on boards, and quotas, which are ludicrous. I will look at education. My noble friend is herself an academic by background. When I became a Member of Parliament there were no female secondary school heads at all in my constituency. Now 71% of primary schools have a woman head, and 37% of secondary schools have a woman head, but still only 17.5% are vice-chancellors. What is the problem? Many people would think that academia was quite a female-friendly environment. Of course—and these are factors that you see in business and elsewhere—you continually have to publish, promote yourself, assert yourself and be a peacock. As we understand, the real difference between men and women in the workplace is that women are far less likely to push themselves forward and to be assertive and confident. But to have only 17.5% of university vice-chancellors as women puts the issue about women on boards in perspective. Nobody is talking about having 30% female vice-chancellors, but I think that that is rather more important, particularly as we all agree that it is in education that people learn about gender, expectations and stereotypes. The first female vice-chancellor was the Vice-Chancellor of the University of London, Professor Lillian Penson, and it has been steadily going up. In Sweden, 53% of the vice-chancellors are women, while in the US it is 26% and in Australia 23%. As we now know, more than half of graduates are women. So I ask people to look at the issue of women on boards in the context of other professions and activities, and we could cover many other areas.

If we are to have quotas, there is only one quota that I care about. The last figures that I had—I hope that the Minister will be able to explore this further—was that there were 4,370 schools in the UK in 2011 that had no male teacher. I feel much more strongly about having one male teacher in every school than I do about quotas and percentages. Many noble Lords will know that in many schools in disadvantaged areas children have little experience of a supportive man, and this seems critically important.

However, the world situation is optimistic. Quite soon, there will be four more female millionaires, and in the UK female millionaires will outnumber male millionaires by 2020. By 2025, women will control 60% of the UK’s wealth; globally, women control £13 trillion, while 70% of all US and UK personal wealth is held by over-65s, and the majority are women. In China, one in three of the millionaires is female. He who pays the piper calls the tune, and overall I am optimistic.

But I need to go to the other end of the spectrum, because this is the contradiction in women’s matters. Many in this House speak about the problems of women in prison. Some 38% of women in prison are simply there for theft, or stolen goods; overwhelmingly, 81% are there for non-violent offences. Women in prison have huge and complex needs; there is suicide, drug and alcohol abuse, sexual abuse and violence. It is appalling, quite apart from the estimated 17,000 to 18,000 children who experience their mothers being in prison, which is quite unlike the situation for men. Concern is frequently expressed in this place about that, and I am looking forward tomorrow to going to HMP Bronzefield, the largest female prison in Europe, with category A and young offenders, to see Pimlico Opera perform “Sister Act”. The degree to which people outside prisons are becoming involved—not only in education but in the arts, including the Watts Gallery, which does a great deal at HMP Send, a female prison—is exciting and special. But this is a highly needy and disadvantaged group.

Similarly, I commend to the House the comments of Dr Suzanne Clisby of the International Council for Human Rights, when she spoke at the UN about the appalling situation of female violence in conflict zones. My noble friend referred to DfID, and I am very pleased about her comments on that, because the work that it has undertaken on the theory of changing tackling violence against women and girls, which I urge interested noble Lords to consider, is highly regarded. Dr Clisby, like others, works at the gender institute of the University of Hull, at which I am so proud to be chancellor. This is an internationally regarded institution for gender studies, addressing in much greater depth than any of us can the topics that we have been discussing today.

The noble Baroness, Lady Northover, mentioned her visits to two Indian villages. In India, the literacy rate for women is 65%. As she said, it is 26% in Pakistan, and I am very proud to have a niece working for DfID in Pakistan. I share the views of the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, on the work done by Sir Michael Barber, but who in this House knows that there are eight female chief executives of banks in India, including those of Merrill Lynch, the Bank of India, Credit Suisse, HSBC, ICICI, JP Morgan Chase and the State Bank of India? Again, it is a case of looking at the paradoxes and trying to chart a way through.

I hope that this debate, as with previous debates on this subject, will help us celebrate the successes, while taking nothing for granted, and re-energise our determination to ensure that women the world over and throughout our own country can maximise their potential and make the rich contribution that they so much want to make to not only the economy but society at large.