Oral Answers to Questions
Esther McVey Excerpts(4 years, 4 months ago)
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Esther McVey (Tatton) (Con)
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Priti Patel)
The Department has long-term plans and proposals to change the way we accommodate asylum seekers.
Esther McVey
Residents of Tatton are concerned about the ongoing nature of supposedly temporary accommodation for immigrants who arrive in the local area. Some hotels are becoming full-time immigration centres and those residing there are in limbo in our town centres. What is the timescale for processing these individuals and for reverting the accommodation back into hotels?
Priti Patel
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right in her comments. Through changes linked to the new plan for immigration we will end the use of hotel accommodation for asylum seekers, which was a result of the pandemic—we had to take decisive action to ensure that those seeking asylum in the UK were protected under covid measures. It was a short-term solution and the new plan for immigration includes long-term changes in the offing for asylum accommodation.
Immigration Rules
Esther McVey Excerpts(4 years, 8 months ago)
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Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
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Esther McVey (in the Chair)
I remind hon. Members that there have been some changes to normal practice in order to support the new hybrid arrangements. Timings of debates have been amended to allow technical arrangements to be made for the next debate. There will also be suspensions between each debate. Members attending physically should clean their spaces before they use them and as they leave the room, putting the cleaning materials in the bin.
Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered Immigration Rules and highly skilled migrants.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairwomanship, Ms McVey. With yesterday’s announcement of the new Nationality and Borders Bill, I am pleased to have the opportunity to lead this debate on the immigration rules and highly skilled migrants. I want to start by thanking the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms), who originally secured this debate and asked me to take it on. I know he is doing a lot of work in this area.
I also want to mention my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss), who recently challenged the Chancellor and the Home Secretary on the introduction of yet another scheme to bring in highly skilled migrants in the 2021 Budget. I echo her sentiments that the Chancellor, the Home Secretary and the UK Government must sort out this injustice once and for all before another person is given a highly skilled migrant visa. I am sure that people of colour from Commonwealth nations contemplating bringing their talents to the UK, including under the new scheme, will want to know of any potential risks to their and their families’ immigration status prior to applying. I also want to commend BBC “Newsnight” for covering the issue a few weeks back, raising awareness and prompting people to contact me.
What is it that has got everyone so exercised? It is complicated and simple. The nub of it is this. Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs has been sharing information about a subset of non-white highly skilled migrants from specific Commonwealth countries in the global south with the Home Office. That enables the Home Office to then refuse their visas to remain in the UK. The basis for the refusals are historical, non-criminal tax discrepancies, some very minor—I understand one was for only £1.30—and most dating back years, long ago resolved, and none of which HMRC felt required further action. Let us bear in mind that the people we are talking about have been here for 10 years or more. Finally, the legal basis on which this has been done is questionable. So that is the summary.
These individuals, who were invited to these islands to contribute to our economy and wider society, now find themselves in a precarious immigration limbo, without any investigations into the circumstances or nature of people’s tax discrepancies before the visa refusals. There remain many questions about whether the decisions taken have allowed fair assessments and hearings, and how proportionate visa refusals are for something that has not even been proven to be deliberate or careless under HMRC’s own threshold for discrepancies and within HMRC’s normal 12-month timeframe for investigation.
Through a number of Government initiatives spanning decades, there has been a consistent call to invite the brightest and best to these islands, with the idea being that the UK would take control over who they allowed to work and live here. Yet somehow the UK Government have systematically failed to build the immigration system that they say they want. Instead, they have adhered to a policy of hostility, exclusion and really disproportionate punishment. I am sure the Minister will likely talk about “minded to refuse” letters that allow migrants to explain the discrepancies, but, in 80% of the remaining cases, those have not been received and, where they have, some have contained more than 100 questions for response within 14 days. Also, it is about issues much wider than tax discrepancies.
There is a concern that the letters are being used not to give a fair and timely hearing of evidence, but to double down on the initial decisions made. The deeply precarious situations that many of these highly skilled migrants and their families are now experiencing highlight the issue only too well.
Highly skilled migrants in the UK have been criminalised and denied indefinite leave to remain based on the Home Office’s discretionary and subjective bad character or dishonesty judgments in paragraph 322(5) of the rules, as I said, for historic tax discrepancies, many up to 10 years ago. Paragraph 322(5) sets out the general grounds for refusal. Unlike other immigration provisions for criminal behaviour, which this is not, it seems to be still applicable even after 10 years. Clarity is needed—I hope the Minister will provide it—about how this immigration rule will be used in future immigration applications of highly skilled migrants who have been granted some form of leave.
I also note with concern that paragraph 322(5) and related clauses in the immigration rules have recently been redacted online. I hope that this redaction is not a means of limiting scrutiny of how these clauses are being used in immigration decisions, and I expect the Minister to have an explanation for that.
I am not the only one saying that the Government are wrong; the Court of Appeal has already ruled in two separate cases that the Home Office has acted unlawfully in this regard. Paragraph 322(5) permits refusal when an applicant is considered
“undesirable…in light of their conduct, character or associations”,
or the fact that they represent a threat to national security. This measure also allows discretionary refusal by inferring “undesirable” character. According to the latest guidance, that could be because of criminal-related activity short of a conviction, or for what are called “wider reasons”. So, with no convictions and no reasoning, the Home Office can unfairly label someone as being “undesirable” or of bad “character”. Can Members imagine how such labels affect someone’s ability to live and work in a community, or impact on their self-esteem?
Being denied their indefinite leave to remain has left these highly skilled migrants in a legal limbo; they are unable to work, rent, drive, receive NHS healthcare, open bank accounts, or get vital access to public funds. Imagine a situation in which someone has a minor tax discrepancy hanging over their head. And bear in mind that, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, around 60% of self-assessment tax returns in the UK contain discrepancies. For anyone who has had to complete one of these returns, that is not difficult to believe; they are not easy. For most of us, a minor tax discrepancy would just mean reminding ourselves to amend our tax return, or we would call an accountant to sort the problem out for us; the worst that can happen is that we will get a slap on the wrist and a cursory fine. We would not be in a situation where we were left destitute, as is the case with so many of the people who we are talking about today.
Understandably, this situation has been described as a “personal purgatory” by some of those experiencing it: a half-life, in which someone is unable to contribute, without any recourse to appeal or explanation. It must be a truly devastating prospect for someone to think that they could be treated as criminal under an immigration rule that was reserved for those deemed a national security threat, based on a simple discrepancy in a tax return.
Although the actual amount of these discrepancies ranges widely, some of the figures involved are shockingly small. As I have already said, a discrepancy of around just £1.30 could see someone being deemed as dishonest or of bad character by the Home Office. In the two cases that were heard in the courts, one involved a small amount of money and one involved a larger figure, but the courts found the people concerned to be honest and granted them leave, which shows that the amount of tax discrepancy per se should not matter and does not automatically mean that the person responsible for such a discrepancy is a criminal. The courts certainly did not think so.
Investigation into the circumstances and a balancing exercise regarding the person involved and their family is key. Indeed, this cohort of people are not criminals. They are hard-working migrants who were invited to this country, which is now determined to use a system of legal loopholes and loose statutory interpretation, which I will come on to, in order to remove them.
Tax discrepancies are neither a criminal nor an immigration offence, and in all of the cases reported, HMRC did not independently pursue the discrepancies at the time of filing. So why is the Home Office pursuing these migrants? Why are the thousands of other cases are uncovered every year—including those of the 60% of people who fill in tax returns inaccurately—not being pursued with the same vigour? And I am not suggesting that they should be.
Tellingly, UK Visas and Immigration has refused applications under this rule, instead of using certain other provisions in the immigration rules that it could use, such as those related to dishonesty. I would suggest that UKVI has done that because of the broad wording of this measure and the lower burden of proof required, because using this rule is an easy and fast way to dispose of the migrants we invited to these islands.
Paul Garlick QC, who specialises in extradition and human rights law, said the following in regard to the Home Office investigations:
“They genuinely have no idea of the difference between tax years and accounting years, or what is a legitimately deductible expense. My feeling is that since Theresa May’s announcement of a ‘hostile environment’ for immigrants, caseworkers have been told to look for discrepancies that could form the basis of an accusation that the applicant is lying, because that’s the quickest way to dispose of an application”.
That is some accusation, and not one that any QC would make lightly.
Since 2016, 1,697 of these highly skilled migrants have been denied indefinite leave to remain after the establishment of a very untransparent Home Office and HMRC data-sharing memorandum of understanding—one that allowed HMRC data to be analysed if an immigration offence had been suspected. I will come on to that point in greater detail later.
These highly skilled migrants have been living in the UK for at least 10 years and contributing significantly to our skills base and our economy. They were once welcomed here because they were needed. What is most worrying of all is that all of those affected are migrants of colour, from six south Asian and African countries. More than half of the remining indefinite-leave-to-remain refusals are Pakistani nationals, and 70% are Muslim. Tellingly, no one whose data was shared and used to refuse their visa was white. As a long-standing antiracism activist, that profiling and targeting of ethnic minorities by the state chills me.
I want to focus on the worrying aspects of data sharing. The people we are talking about were refused indefinite leave to remain through the use of detailed, historical, HMRC-held tax data. According to research by the Migrants’ Rights Network, it is unclear whether any due processes or protections were in place for the access and sharing of that data, especially those that would now meet GDPR requirements.
The memorandum of understanding for data sharing between both Departments was accessed via a freedom of information request. It is an enlightening piece of evidence. It is not a contract, nor is it legally binding. It does not in itself create a lawful means for the exchange of information. It simply documents the processes and procedures for information sharing agreed between the Departments. Yet, when I pushed the Treasury on this issue recently, the Minister who responded leaned heavily on the provisions within the MOU as being
“well-designed, information-sharing gateways…grounded in strict obedience with the law.”—[Official Report, 22 June 2021; Vol. 697, c. 748.]
The annexe of the document provides the legal basis for the sharing of information and conveniently links to several pieces of legislation, including the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006, the UK Borders Act 2007 and the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001. There are others. What we discover when directed to the signposted sections is that the minor tax discrepancies in question do not amount to the offences described in the memorandum of understanding that could permit the sharing of data between HMRC and the Home Office. The MOU provides no evident lawful due process or safeguards for sharing the data that was used to refuse indefinite leave to remain to highly skilled migrants.
There are huge questions to be asked about how this information was accessed and shared and whether unlawful lists of people of concern, based on a traffic light system of nationalities, were used. I appreciate this cannot all be resolved today, but I would very much appreciate if the Minister would agree to meeting me, other interested Members and the Migrants’ Rights Network to unpick all this and to, I hope, put an end to it.
The tech justice group Foxglove successfully forced the Home Office to scrap its visa streaming algorithm in response to legal action in 2020 and there are analogous similarities with the data-sharing system that I am talking about today. The streaming tool took decades of institutionally racist practices, such as targeting particular nationalities for immigration raids, and it turned them into software. The Home Secretary was willing to admit that the system was required to be rebuilt from the ground up. Surely serious consideration should be given to the system currently persecuting highly skilled migrants.
The Government’s threat to increase their use of data sharing and data matching is now, unfortunately, becoming a reality. There are plans to expand the national fraud initiative. If that happens, we will see the current data-matching powers used in tackling fraud extended to cover other criminal activity, as well as debt recovery and data quality.
I knew little about data matching until this highly skilled migrants issue was brought to light. It involves combining, comparing or matching personal data obtained from multiple sources. The national fraud initiative already collects more than 20 data types over 8,000 datasets from 1,300 participant organisations. That can include public sector payroll, housing benefit, social housing waiting lists, council tax and the electoral register—the list goes on.
An information law specialist, Chris Pounder, has already given examples of how migrants’ details are mixed up in the national fraud initiative, with housing benefit, tenancy waiting lists and the electoral roll all cross-matched with immigration records. We have seen the Home Office go from losing application forms, passports and all sorts of documentation in 2001, to being determined to gather every single tiny piece of data that it can on every migrant in 2021. Information sharing or data matching—call it what you will—has been utilised to unfairly target highly skilled migrants. This cohort sets an incredibly important precedent for how personal tax data could be gathered, shared and used in immigration decisions, highlighting why we need to ensure transparency around data sharing for immigration enforcement.
Through freedom of information requests, we now know that between 2015 and 2020, 463,000 people’s HMRC tax data were shared with UKVI at the Home Office. That is a staggering amount of data sharing that the public are simply not aware of. Any expansion of this already expanding regime will mean a lot more data being shared about migrants, and it will provide numerous opportunities for abuse by the Government, who are already determined to pursue a hostile environment policy. Such data needs protection and safeguards. Any system that seeks to share the data must be built with legal restrictions and strict adherence to GDPR.
The UK Government consultation document on data matching refers to the need to recover debt post covid, but it fails to recognise that any inequalities present before the covid pandemic have both increased and widened, and that extending the powers will serve only to unfairly discriminate further against minorities. I am aghast that the cover of covid recovery is being used to usher in further intrusion into our personal data, and I have no doubt that the wider public would be just as alarmed if this was affecting their right to work, rent, drive or even open a bank account.
When previous and successive Governments implemented schemes that were designed to welcome highly skilled migrants to these islands, it was done with fanfare. The brightest and best would help us fill the gaps that our economy desperately needed to be filled. Nobody arriving on these shores to such a welcome would ever suspect that, a decade later, they would be subjected to an invasive sweep of their personal and financial data in a bid to remove them and their families from the country they now call home. Nobody would have dreamt that, 10 years later, they would be labelled dishonest or as being of bad character, when they are clearly not. Nobody would have imagined that they could have been made unemployed, bankrupt or homeless by the state that invited them to build their lives here, but that is exactly what is happening.
I hope that today’s debate will allow a conversation to be started where it has not been possible thus far. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response, and I repeat my request for him to sit down with me, the right hon. Member for East Ham, the other Members who have been pushing this issue and Migrants’ Rights Network, in order to resolve the situation for the families suffering now, but also for the success of the Chancellor’s new highly skilled migrants scheme.
Oral Answers to Questions
Esther McVey Excerpts(4 years, 9 months ago)
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Kit Malthouse
I share the hon. Lady’s view that no one benefits from long drawn-out investigations, and it is absolutely our aspiration to shorten investigation times as much as we possibly can, bearing in mind the impact on both the officer who is under investigation and those who are making the accusation. It is worth bearing in mind that delays in investigations often happen for complex reasons, particularly in very difficult investigations, which are not necessarily within the control of the investigating body. While I understand and sympathise with the Fed’s desire to shorten investigation time, it is worth bearing in mind that our overriding interest should be in quality and thoroughness, rather than in hitting some kind of arbitrary deadline. However, I do meet regularly the director general of the IOPC and we do monitor very closely how long investigations are taking. It did inherit 538 investigations from the Independent Police Complaints Commission, which it has now managed to get down to three, and I think currently it only has 30 investigations that have taken longer than 12 months.
Esther McVey (Tatton) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Chris Philp)
This Government are serious about fighting crime and making sure the criminal justice system is one the public can have confidence in. That is why the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill currently going through this House sees the sentences for causing death by dangerous driving being increased to life. It is why many of the most serious offences, including rape, will see the perpetrators spend longer in prison, while at the same time we make sure that those people with drug and alcohol addictions get the treatment they deserve. I hope my right hon. Friend will agree that these are measures that will build public confidence and keep the public safer.
Esther McVey
I want to congratulate the Government on their plans to extend sentences for the deplorable crime of assaulting our emergency workers. Is not it now time for a specific offence of assaulting shop workers and other customer-facing frontline workers, given that the number of assaults on them since this pandemic started has doubled?
Chris Philp
My right hon. Friend is right: we are of course doubling the sentence for assaulting—for the common assault of—an emergency worker from one year to two years, which I think is widely welcomed across the House. In relation to other people who deal with the public—not just retail workers, but transport workers, teachers, postmen and women and other people who deal with the public—that is already taken account of in the Sentencing Council guidelines, which makes it an aggravating factor if the victim deals with the public. Therefore, judges can reflect that when handing down sentences. There is a Westminster Hall debate later on today on this very topic, and I am very much looking forward to discussing it in more detail then.
Oral Answers to Questions
Esther McVey Excerpts(6 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Hurd
I am a bit puzzled by what the hon. Lady says, because I have spoken to her police and crime commissioner, the excellent Matthew Ellis, and he is extremely animated about how he is going to use the additional money from the funding settlement to move 100 more people into neighbourhood policing by the year end and to get behind proactive policing to disrupt crime, including drug dealing, in hotspots. I hope that she welcomes such plans, and she certainly needs to sit down and discuss them with him.
Ms Esther McVey (Tatton) (Con)
We all agree about the importance of neighbourhood and community policing, but does the Minister agree that effective community policing does not rely on police officers having degrees? Yes, it is critical that we have enough officers; yes, it is crucial that they have common sense; but does he agree with me and other blue collar Conservatives that it is ridiculous to say that all police officers must have a degree, as proposed?
Mr Hurd
They do not need a degree to go into policing; that is what the apprentice route is for. I know plenty of people with degrees who would make very poor police officers. What we are keen to do is upskill the force and, critically, ensure that the very considerable skills that people coming out of policing have developed are accredited.
Oral Answers to Questions
Esther McVey Excerpts(7 years, 2 months ago)
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Sajid Javid
The hon. Lady will know that action is required on many fronts to fight the rise in serious violence, and that is why we have our serious violence strategy, which includes more than 60 different measures. On resources, if that is what she really believes, the best thing is for her to support the Government’s police settlement.
Ms Esther McVey (Tatton) (Con)
I, too, welcome the Government’s domestic abuse Bill and the announcements today. Will the Minister meet me to discuss issues of continuing emotional abuse where a couple have divorced but share the parenting of their children? Constituents of mine in that situation have some very practical suggestions for reducing such emotional bullying.
Victoria Atkins
Very much so. The Bill is just part of our response to tackling domestic abuse; there is a range of non-legislative measures as well. Including emotional abuse in the definition of domestic abuse will help victims of this terrible crime, and I would be delighted to meet my right hon. Friend.
Oral Answers to Questions
Esther McVey Excerpts(12 years, 9 months ago)
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Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)
5. What progress she has made on ensuring equality for disabled people.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Esther McVey)
Our disability strategy, Fulfilling Potential, has been developed with disabled people. Through that we are removing the barriers that prevent disabled people from taking a full part in society. Recent indicators show that disabled people are seeing improvements in key outcomes and reduced inequalities between them and non-disabled people. We will drive that progress further when we publish a full detailed plan next month.
Barbara Keeley
The Government have refused to do cumulative impact assessments on their welfare changes, but these were done recently by Demos and Scope for the report, “Destination Unknown”. They found that thousands of disabled people will be hit by four, five or six different cuts to their welfare benefits simultaneously. Does the Minister think the Government have their priorities right when disabled people will be hit by a loss of £28.3 billion of support, while millionaires are enjoying a tax cut?
Esther McVey
The hon. Lady raises this point time and again and I have answered it. We do equality assessments on every policy change. A key reform that we have brought in for public sector duty is to ensure that equality is embedded from concept to development to delivery, right the way through. Cumulative impact assessments are not taking place because we have taken advice that they could not give a proper measurement as these changes in policy are being introduced gradually and those would therefore be inaccurate assessments. But we are doing independent assessment throughout to ensure that we are getting these policy changes right.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
We already know that Government reforms are pushing tens of thousands more disabled people into poverty and 440,000 households which include a disabled person are being hit by the bedroom tax. Today’s figures from the Employment Related Services Association show that 94% of the largest group of employment and support allowance recipients joining the Work programme have not even been offered a job. Even the providers say that the Work programme cannot meet all the costs of getting a disabled person back to work, yet the Work programme is costing us billions, so can the Minister explain why it is not working for disabled people?
Esther McVey
I would like to correct the hon. Lady. These things are working. For the first time ever, we have looked to support disabled people and have them fulfilling their potential. I am sure the hon. Lady will be delighted to hear that for the first time ever we are putting in place an employment strategy for disabled people, bringing together businesses and disabled people to look at how they can fulfil their potential. So far from what the hon. Lady is saying, it would be better if she looked at the figures and got it right.
Oral Answers to Questions
Esther McVey Excerpts(13 years, 1 month ago)
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Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)
2. What recent discussions she has had with her ministerial colleagues on the effects on disabled people of the Government’s recent consultation on judicial review.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Esther McVey)
I routinely meet my colleagues in Government to discuss the impact of policies on disabled people. Before Christmas, I met the Lord Chancellor to discuss areas of common interest.
Grahame M. Morris
I thank the Minister for her reply, but may I draw her attention to the chronic lack of funding that has led to a crisis in social care that is particularly affecting working-age disabled people? May I also draw her attention to the report “The Other Care Crisis”, produced by five leading disability charities? There has been a colossal 45% increase in applications for judicial reviews of local authority social care policies. Does she think it is acceptable to undermine the judicial review process for disabled people who are simply trying to get the social care that they need?
Esther McVey
There is no undermining of the judicial review process. In 1974, 160 applications were made, but last year alone, there were 11,000. Only about one in six of those applications was granted; fewer still were successful. We are ensuring that the right appeals proceed and that the unmeritous ones do not. This is about ensuring the integrity of the judicial review system and the smooth running of the legal process.
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)
A phenomenon that I see in my constituency is that private landlords are saying, “No housing benefit.” The Minister knows that it is illegal to say, “No blacks, no Irish” and so on, but disabled people are more likely to be dependent on housing benefit than other people. Does she believe that what those private landlords are doing is legal or illegal? If it is illegal, will she enable disabled people’s organisations to take cases through judicial review to stop the landlords doing it?
Esther McVey
Good local authorities work with good local landlords. As I have said, we will ensure that the correct cases go through. We want to ensure the integrity of the system, and those people who need to take cases to review will be able to do so. We are on the side of disabled people and we will ensure that their views are heard.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
4. What recent discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for Education on measures to end violence against women and girls.
Women (Global Economy)
Esther McVey Excerpts(13 years, 9 months ago)
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Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Esther McVey (Wirral West) (Con)
It is a pleasure, Mr Turner, to serve under your stewardship today. Today’s debate is on women in the global economy. It is true to say that women now drive the world economy. Globally, they control £20 trillion of annual consumer spending, and that could climb as high as £28 trillion by 2015. Their £13 trillion in total yearly earnings could reach £18 trillion in the same period. In aggregate, women represent a growth market more than twice as big as China and India combined. Given those sums, it would be foolish to underestimate that economic force.
Carol Bagnold, HSBC’s regional commercial director for London, said:
“The female economy is hugely important for the UK and globally in terms of the international stage. Wealth is shifting, and the scale of contribution from women in both the business and consumer world is growing.
The States have recognised this with a plot of research done. In the UK the statistics show the same opportunity and we need to grasp this. 60% of personal wealth will sit with females by 2025, 37% of start-ups are now female owned, within the corporate world there”
is a
“growing number of females controlling the finances.”
Women are now the largest emerging economy. British women in their early 20s already earn 3.6% more than men of the same age. Women in full-time work are seeing their wages grow at more than twice the rate of men’s, and if that growth continues the average pay of women in the UK will overtake men’s by 2020.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
I apologise for interrupting my hon. Friend’s flow so early in her speech. Does she agree that those figures show that there is no need for politically correct positive discrimination, quotas or targets, because women are more than capable of competing on equal terms with men, and that we should focus on jobs and opportunities being given on merit alone?
Esther McVey
I agree with half of what my hon. Friend says. We are taking significant steps forward, and I will refer to various women and business executives who make similar comments, but they include the caveat that different sorts of support are essential for women to enable them to achieve the positions they want, and to continue their jobs and professional advancement through a complex cycle, because women are the carers and nurturers in society.
In the UK, 700,000 businesses are female-owned and estimated turnover in 2011 was £130 billion according to the International Centre for Entrepreneurship. For the first time, there are more young female millionaires than young male millionaires, so women are becoming wealthier younger. It seems that women are now truly an unstoppable economic force. However, in tandem with those positive statistics is the fact that although women may be earning more when younger, things change dramatically in their 30s when they have families. Between the ages of 40 and 49, there is a significant difference—about £3—in the hourly rate of women and men of the same working age.
We are often told that if women set up businesses at the same rate as men, there would be 150,000 new starts a year. As well as that, if we increased women’s participation in the workplace, we could add another £15 billion to £22 billion to the UK economy. We are also told that it will take another 70 years to achieve gender balance in the boardroom, such is the state of affairs there. Both sets of statistics are true, but neither does justice to the full role that women play globally.
Academics talk of women’s achievements reaching a plateau after a high point pre-2000 when a diverse raft of ground-breaking women took to the national and international stage. In this House in 1979, Margaret Thatcher became the first and only female Prime Minister. Elizabeth Butler-Sloss was appointed the first woman law lord in 1988. Stella Rimington was appointed the first female head of MI5 in 1992, and Debbie Moore was the first woman to establish a public limited company in 1984.
The rapid rise of women to leadership roles faltered as we approached the 21st century. Martin, Warren-Smith, Scott and Roper commented on the alarming lack of progress, and Vanhala stated that there has not been a significant increase since the early 1990s. That prompted Broadbent and Kirkham to write that:
“after a promising start why aren’t women moving on, even in ‘feminised’ professions such as accountancy”.
In their book, “Through the Labyrinth”, Eagly and Carli wrote about the distinct lack of women in powerful roles. However, others, including Broadridge, Broadbent and Kirkham are now asking whether we have reached a pivotal point in the advancement of women in leadership, and suggesting that to deliver the next level of progress a new understanding of female leadership might be required.
Philip Davies
I am sure that my hon. Friend is too modest to mention it, but I commend her work with her book “If Chloe Can”, and the magazine that she set up and has delivered to thousands of schoolgirls throughout the country in scores of schools. She turned it into a play, and what she has achieved is remarkable. Does she agree that role models are crucial, and that women and other people can achieve their ambitions, whatever their background, if they have other people’s paths and examples to follow?
Esther McVey
I thank my hon. Friend for his kind words. I do indeed believe that, and I am not the only one. A huge body of work has been done on that. Ofsted did a report last year, and this year Girlguiding UK did a report on the importance of role models. I came to the same conclusion after 10 years of research on the Genda Agenda, and in the Ideopolis report and the Merseyside Entrepreneurship Commission. I originally sought to look specifically at Merseyside where evidence unfortunately showed that the statistics for girls claiming benefit were double the national average, but for those setting up in business they were half the national average. That was not because of the academic qualifications they did or did not have, not because they did not have drive and determination, and not because they did not have the wherewithal; it was purely because of a lack of role models. If girls do not know what opportunities are out there, they cannot follow a path and achieve.
If I wanted to make a chocolate cake, I would not try to fathom out how much butter, flour and chocolate I would need. I would go to a recipe book, or follow the recipe of someone who had got it right. If I then wanted to tweak and perfect it with extra chocolate flakes and buttons, I would. In the same way, I teach young girls and older girls that there is a path that they can follow, and show them the raw ingredients that they need to achieve.
Another positive comment I always make to young girls from all backgrounds—this is key—is that when I did an academic qualitative and quantitative study of the top 100 women in the world from all backgrounds, the determining factors were not who someone was related to, or what academic qualifications they had. Personality and character traits determined their future. Being persistent, determined, consistent, a good team player, optimistic, and able to find a way of doing things even when hurdles were put in the way were the key determining factors for whether people achieved. That was a long answer, but it encapsulates 10 years’ work.
Philip Davies
I thought that at this point I would urge the Minister—if my hon. Friend wants to comment, she can—to do the following. It seems to me, having been one of the many colleagues who went to see the performance of “If Chloe Can” when it was turned into a play and who also saw the production in Speaker’s House, that if the Government and the Minister really want to do something useful, giving some support and funding to allow that to go around the country as my hon. Friend envisages would be far more worth while than just talking about these things.
Esther McVey
I thank my hon. Friend very much. I would never have been so bold as to make such a plea, but as he has, on my behalf, I shall endorse it thoroughly.
I argue not only that women have reached a pivotal point, but that we need to understand and ensure that we in the broader sense—all of society—support the complex female life cycle. I am talking about the life cycle of a woman as mother, carer and nurturer. We also need to understand how those biological and atavistic needs drive, motivate and influence women’s choices. Women’s natural predisposition to be carers and nurturers regularly dictates the style and type of job that they do, the type of business that they establish and the choice of hours worked in order to fit around the needs of their family. Perhaps targets for the extra number of businesses that women should set up, how much extra they could add to the economy or how great a percentage could be on a board are artificial and too simplistic a range of targets and do not take into account innate human desires.
As we look to the global stage and look at businesses, we are noticing that there has been a change from a hierarchical structure in business and organisations to a flatter one. Executive leaders are seeing and feeling that, but is everyone else convinced? Targets are not enough. They do not work sustainably and are not as effective as they need to be. We can look to other countries. In China, the Philippines and Thailand, things are very balanced. In Japan, that is not the case. There, women take only 6% of the top jobs. We have to look at the cultural effects. The McKinsey study in Europe showed a much improved gender balance. In China, 70% of women are in work, but India is far behind, with 35%. Again, that shows the cultural significance and difference.
Eve Baldwin, the global human resources director for Unilever, says that she has noticed that 50% of entry-level positions are taken by women, but 80% of promotions go to men. Why are we still not landing job promotions? It seems that organisations still prefer a male style. Perhaps there is still a lack of acceptance of different styles. Perhaps organisations do not appreciate the different dimensions and character types that women can bring to the business world. That needs to be fixed internally.
Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate and on the very thoughtful and extremely well-researched speech that she is giving. Does she agree that one reason why women are not progressing in the way that we would all obviously like them to progress is that for many there is an absolute tension between wanting to have and rear a family and, at the same time, wanting to nurture a career? We have not resolved that tension yet. One reason why we have not resolved it is the cost of child care, which of course went up under the previous Administration. The current Government must address that in a significant way if women at all levels are to make progress at work.
Esther McVey
That was a very pertinent point and well made. Child care is key and needs to be addressed in many ways. It is not just a question of costing it out and paying for it. There could be tax incentives. There could be tax reliefs. We could perhaps start with just women setting up in business or look to help people on the new enterprise allowance. Obviously there will be budget constraints, but we have to think smarter. We have to think about how we will use Government money, but we also have to facilitate women so that they can add to the economy, because a woman’s life is, as we have stated, a complex life. The desire to have children is one of the most basic desires and needs to be fulfilled.
Anna Soubry
One change that has occurred in recent times is that the number of child minders has gone down—in my view, because of over-regulation. Does my hon. Friend agree that we must ensure that there is less regulation to enable more people to act as child minders? That would reduce the costs of child care and be much more convenient to a number of women, especially those who do not have the money available to them to put their child in a nursery, to employ a nanny or to use some other rather expensive means of looking after their children.
Esther McVey
Absolutely. That is a point well made. I will be raising those issues at the end of my speech so that the Minister can take them forward and see what we can do. We believe in market forces and fairness. Obviously, if there are more people prepared to do child minding as a job and support other people, that should bring the costs down. We have to ask why the costs have risen so dramatically and therefore limited women in what they can do. They have to put their ambitions on hold while they look after their family.
As well as considering the support provided and the size and shape of business, we must examine lifelong learning. We must examine education for girls. Helen Fraser, chief executive of the Girls’ Day School Trust, said:
“We are living in a time of change and flux and it’s almost impossible to predict what the eventual outcome will be. What we can and must do is prepare our young people, and for the certainty of change, ensure they have the skills and attitudes they will need to survive and thrive, and help them (young women especially) develop the resilience to overcome setbacks, whatever happens.
The idea that your education finishes when you leave school or university no longer holds true—today’s young people can expect to learn and re-learn throughout their lives. Additional qualifications, second and even third degrees are likely to become more commonplace as people re-invent themselves and re-energise their careers. And if education is no longer linked only to the early stages in life—to childhood and youth—then developing attitudes that characterise successful learners is just as important as developing knowledge. Learning how to learn, developing physical and mental discipline, being open and engaged with the world, cultivating a true love of learning—these matter as much as knowing facts and figures and formulae.”
The reason why I asked Helen Fraser to contribute a quote to this important debate was not just—I say “just” lightly—that she is chief executive of the Girls’ Day School Trust, a group of girls’ schools. Before that, she was managing director of a global company, Penguin Books. Therefore I felt that she had seen both sides of the coin. She has been a mum and wife and a successful business woman, and now is a business woman again in the world of education.
Following on from that, Professor Lesley Yellowlees, president-elect of the Royal Society of Chemistry—the first woman to be elected president in its 171-year history—says:
“The UK needs a highly skilled workforce, particularly if we are going to make headway in these bleak economic times. More and more young women are studying science at university to the point where we have a near 50-50 balance in chemistry.
The problem today is not women entering science, but keeping them there and retaining all those skills and talent that can and does make a massive contribution to the global economy.
For the chemical sciences, that contribution is worth £258 billion, or 21 per cent, to the country’s GDP, according to an independent report the RSC commissioned in 2010.
Women are playing a greater role in science than ever before—but we can do much more. This is just one of the areas I will be focusing on as I begin my two-year term next month as the first female President of the Royal Society of Chemistry.”
She says that she will make helping women not just to get into science but to stay there a key issue. She will be doing that through role models.
Maxine Benson, a co-founder of everywoman, says:
“GenderDiversity isn’t just a nice thing to have; it is the solution to a business loss. Businesses with fewer women on the board make 42% lower return on sales, 66% lower return on”
investment
“capital and 53% lower return on equity. The differing attitudes to risk and governance means that having a female board member cuts your company’s chances of going bust by up to 20%.
The retention and promotion of talented women at senior levels is one of the simplest, most…effective and easiest methods of dramatically improving your business’s bottom line.”
All those things must be taken into account. People must appreciate and understand the differences between men and women, embrace those differences and bring them on board, because only then will they truly understand the benefit of having more women in key positions.
I want to move away from the business world to look at global leaders, because they are key. Women are coming of age as global leaders. Things are shifting. We have gone into a financially chaotic period, and women are coming through in places experiencing war-torn upheaval. We cannot talk about female leaders and understand them, or have today’s debate, without referring to Nobel prize winner, Aung San Suu Kyi, who spoke in Parliament last week. She was awarded the Nobel peace prize in 1991 for her non-violent struggle for democracy and human rights. She is one of the most extraordinary examples of civil courage in Asia in recent decades and has become an important symbol in the struggle against oppression. The Nobel committee gave her the peace prize for her unflagging efforts and to show its support for the many people throughout the world striving to attain democracy, human rights and ethnic conciliation in peaceful times.
We also need to refer to the latest Noble peace prize, which went jointly to three women: Liberian president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf; Liberian peace advocate, Leymah Gbowee; and Tawakkol Karman, a leading figure in the Yemeni pro-democracy movement. They were all recognised
“for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work”.
I would argue that women’s mothering and nurturing predisposition helps in non-violent struggles, with co-operation, consensual understanding and empathy; perhaps, like a mother for a child, there is the same love for supporters and country, and they could take their country and the struggle of the nation to a new phase of development.
Professor Parveen Kumar, the president of the Royal Society of Medicine, professor of medicine and education at Barts in London and the leading light in global health, wrote the definitive medical textbook used all round the world, including Asia and Africa. She is trying to take on new technology to distribute it as cheaply as possible to emerging nations. She set in motion active support and engagement with Royal Society members—all 23,000—so that they could help and support some of the most needy people in the world. She analysed the health statistics on child and infant mortality, and, with Carolyn Miller, chief executive of the international health charity, Merlin, assisted Madam Ellen Johnson Sirleaf to raise health standards, provide books, support and a new wing of a hospital, and to teach, not only doctors, but, this year, the first cohort of midwifery qualifications. As Professor Kumar and Carolyn Miller say, helping women globally is key—if you help and educate a women, you help the family, the child and the next generation.
If we put together a picture of women globally, we see that it is not only about finance, the support that they give others or education. They are not necessarily driven by high status or the turnover of a business, but appear to be a cohesive glue. A woman will be the mother of every child who ever populates the earth. Through that, they seem to act more laterally and less hierarchically. They seem to reach out to fill the vacuum that might be left in society.
I want to talk about global communicators.
Anna Soubry
Before my hon. Friend moves on to the next subject, would she agree with me about charities? I am slightly connected with Women for Women, which raises a considerable amount of money to invest in women in what are often war-torn countries. It recognises that one way to restore broken lives and families, including in areas of strife, is to empower and enable women to work and rebuild families. That charitable work is to be commended.
Esther McVey
Absolutely, it is indeed. We can see such efforts in many organisations, of which that is one, where women come together to build lives, help co-operation and make the world a better place, as they perceive it, for their children and the next generation. Part of that message has to be about communication; getting the story to the outside world and telling the tales of women that might not otherwise be heard can help.
The formidable Christina Lamb is possibly one of our best war journalists. She said that she always thought that she would help people, perhaps providing assistance and support as a doctor, but she turned out to be a journalist, travelling the world providing a voice for particularly women, families and children, who would not otherwise have one. In doing so, she has told their stories around the globe and got them the medical help, the medicine and the support and protection that they required. In her own way, she has been a healer.
I make special reference to Boni Sones, who set up Parliamentary Radio to link women and women MPs not only in the UK but around the globe. She says:
“Women journalists in the UK and women across party in the British Parliament have been using new technology and new journalistic practices to talk about the issues they have been championing to improve the lives of the women and families they represent in their constituencies. They are now trying, via a BlackBerry applications to ‘link in’ women in Parliaments across the Globe to their web based radio station so that they then broadcast stories”
and success stories, not only about them, but about other women across the globe. She continues:
“The World is indeed becoming ‘flat’ as new media allows new connections like this one to take place. Previously broadcasters required FM frequencies and line-bookings, now the internet and mobile phones like the BlackBerry device can allow programme makers to broadcast all over the World.”
Boni is a visionary. She set up that project in Parliament, but she is seeking to make global links to tell stories across the world.
It is important to celebrate women’s achievements. That in itself can provide role models, allowing others to see what has been achieved and what women, too, could achieve. I want to talk specifically about Merseyside women of the year. The award is ten years old this year, and the ceremony will take place on Friday. It began as a very small event looking at women in business, but grew and grew with the formidable courage of the ladies involved and did not remain just about business.
I am struck by the various avenues and fields that the award has covered: charity, learning, support and media. Past winners include Claire Lara, the chef; Lisa Collins, the business woman; Pauline Daniels, the stand-up comedian; Kim Cattrall, the actress—yes, she came from Merseyside too—Edwina Currie; and Carla Lane. A plethora of women have won the award, which is supported by three incredible women: Jean Gadsby, Ellen Kerr and Elaine Owen, who have come together and supported the award. This year—the 10th year—they are taking it to the next level. They want to support and fund women. They are putting a bursary together to do that for the next generation of women.
There are things to be asked of the Government. I have spoken at length about the various things that women do and achieve but, as has been touched on, we need role models for women—visible signs of female accomplishment. Something simple that Boni Sones wanted was pictures of women, even in Parliament, or in the National gallery, celebrating success. The images of women constantly before us do not show them in successful, powerful roles, but in weaker, consumer or sexualised roles. A few more paintings would seem a meagre request.
Anna Soubry
Is not that one of the peculiarities and tensions of the issue? Speaking—forgive me, Mr Turner—as an old feminist, I suggest that one of the ironies of the feminist movement is that in this day and age arguably there is even more pressure on young women to aspire to a certain body image. Equally, we have a terrible celebrity culture. We could have good, strong role models for women, but young women aspire to what the media too often put forward. That does not advance women in society. In many ways it has taken us back decades.
Esther McVey
I would completely agree, as would many young girls. The 2010 survey by Girlguiding UK examined what was forming girls’ attitudes to work and what was driving and motivating them to take up jobs. It was what they saw in the media; and usually the jobs were powerless ones. In 2010, it was still a major ambition of girls to be a hairdresser, rather than an engineer, because that was what they saw. The ambition was to be a beautician rather than a scientist, to be a WAG rather than a lawyer, to be someone’s other half rather than to achieve in their own right.
Anna Soubry
Does my hon. Friend agree that, despite the fact that she received a lot of criticism, there was much merit in the speech by Cherie Blair last week? She identified a problem with the aspirations of too many young women, who aim just to marry a rich man, and see that as the be-all and end-all of their lives. In the same way, unfortunately, the only aspiration of a number of very young women in our society is still to be a mother. That is why we have such a high teenage pregnancy rate. They see nothing else in their lives besides having a baby.
Esther McVey
When I go round schools, one of the key things that I say is “What would you like to achieve for yourself? It is great if you get the perfect partner and have children. Those are other things, and part of your life; but what are you doing with your life? How will you shape and craft it? Should your husband leave you, what will you do? When your kids eventually grow up, as they do—and there is a massive vacuum in a mother’s life when a child leaves—what will you do; and how can you fulfil your aim?” Sometimes, when I am speaking to 12 to 18-year-olds, that all seems so far away. Tomorrow seems far away. When I am speaking on a Monday, Friday night seems a long time away. Nevertheless, I try to make that point.
I hope that she will not mind my mentioning this story, but I always tell the girls I speak to about Debbie Moore. It is funny in hindsight; but so many things seem funny in hindsight. She was a successful model and at 19 married the man who would have been the love of her life, a photographer. She thought that was it; her life was perfect. She had peaked. Two years on, it was their second wedding anniversary. He went off to work and she waved him goodbye, knowing she had a magnificent celebration prepared for him when he came home that night. She waited, and he did not come home. The next morning he still did not. He had run away and dumped her for a younger model. She was only 21 and he had run off with a 19-year-old girl.
She suffered turmoil, devastation and upset, of course, and through the stress a thyroid imbalance set in, so she ballooned, then lost weight. That was not conducive to a modelling career, because she would arrive at an interview one size, and arrive at the photo shoot another size. When she asked the doctors if there were potions or pills to help her, they said that there were not, but that possibly gentle exercise would suit her. She said, “I hate the gym, and I hate jogging. Oh, but I don’t mind dancing.” She took up dancing and learned more and more. From that beginning she set up the Pineapple dance studio and dance clothes range, and became the first woman to set up a public limited company. She always says that the best opportunities can come from the greatest adversity. It is a question of what people do with them. Who would think, she asks, that after all the devastation and upset, she would, many years after the event, thank the man who left her, because he made her a multi-millionairess? I try to emphasise to girls that the question is not what someone else can do for them, but what they can do for themselves.
A list of the percentage of women in business and in various careers shows that they account for only 22% of MPs, peers and Cabinet members. Women have 35% of senior civil service places; 9% of Supreme Court justices are women. They account for 45% of general practitioners, 31% of NHS consultants, and 19% of university professors. There is much that can be done to change that, but the question to ask is “What do you want to do; what do you need to fulfil in yourself? There are a plethora of jobs out there; what do you feel would fulfil your potential and aspirations?” To go back to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), seeing women purely as glamorous, sexualised beings has many ramifications. If women are thought of only in visual terms, rather than in terms of what is in them, that takes away their power. That stunts their aspirations, because they do not see women in powerful positions; they see them only as an addition to someone else.
Chief Guide Gill Slocombe said:
“We believe that today’s young women have enormous potential to promote change at a local, national and international level. This belief is further backed up with the results of our Women in the Lead survey which showed that an amazing two thirds of award-winning women have previously been a Brownie, Guide or member of the Senior Section.
Therefore we call upon all those involved in public life to join us in ensuring that they play their role in providing opportunities to enable young women to exercise their power, make their voices heard and strengthen their role in the global economy.”
To return to what I ask of the Government, the issues are role models, visible signs of accomplishment, and child support, for women and children. Greater family and pre-family support and education is a key thing, so that, as early as possible, women fully understand the life-changing choice of whether to have a child. Other issues are support for women setting up businesses—women are nearly five times more likely to cite family reasons for setting up a career—and support for female-run businesses, although I do not exclude male-run businesses, which should have support too. Access to finance for business is also relevant to both males and females, but particularly to women, because usually they start off with much lower capitalisation. They have humbler aspirations and desires, and are more than happy to start off with less money. Equally, they take fewer gambles, so they will have done more research when they set up a business, and they ask for less money. We feel that more mentoring support is key.
I will close today with a quote from my colleague and good friend, Bettany Hughes, who is an award-winning historian and broadcaster, and a research fellow at King’s College London. She said:
“The oldest surviving 3D sculpture in the world, 40,000 years old and carved from the tusk of a woolly mammoth, is of a woman. For the next 40,000 years, close on 92% of all extant human figures are of the female form—telling us that when homo sapiens tried to work out what it was to be human, the female of the species was conspicuous not by her absence but by her presence. In this epoch human-kind invented religion, cities, farming, tools, philosophy, democracy…the list is endless. Archaeology and history show us that throughout this massive bulk of human experience—from 400,000 BC to around 400 AD—women have enjoyed substantial standing and influence and sway in society. Plato opined, ‘Nothing can be more absurd than the practice that prevails in our country of men and women not following the same pursuits with all their strength and with one mind, because when this happens, the state, instead of being a whole, is reduced to a half.’ How true. Why choose to live in the half world of Plato’s imagining when we can flourish in a full one?
The word Man comes from…‘Manu’ meaning mind or thought. Mankind is a global community not of humans with an excess of the Y chromosome, but of creatures who think. We, both man and woman, think best together. This is not a plea from 50% of the population—but a recommendation for all 100%. Both male and female can draw comfort from this truth—I think and therefore I am, a man.”
Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West (Esther McVey) on securing this debate. As I have mentioned before, I support much of what she says. I also congratulate her on her careful thought, the construction of her speech and her considerable research.
I will not speak for long; unfortunately, I am sitting on the Defamation Bill, which starts at 10.30. I should not say “unfortunately”, because it is always a great pleasure to sit on a Public Bill Committee, but I will have to keep my comments short.
Obviously, I speak as a woman. I am an old feminist and the mother of two daughters, aged 20 and 21. All my life, I have been opposed to any form of stereotyping, whether it is based on gender, sexual preferences, colour of skin, race, religion or whatever.
Although I agree with so much of what my hon. Friend said, I just put into the mix a little bit of caution. I accept that as a woman, my biology means that there will be some natural urge or instinct to have a child. As a mother, therefore, I realise that many of us have mothering instincts. However, there is a danger of saying that all the great attributes of someone such as Aung San Suu Kyi, for example, come from the fact that she is a woman. I take the view that she has a steely determination, which is found in both women and men. Her nature to care and to make considerable self-sacrifice is not because she is a mother but because she is a great human being, and both men and women have those attributes. There is a danger if we say that women have a particular side of them that lends itself to the more nurturing and caring professions.
Those of us who have practised law will remember the days—I am certainly old enough to—when as young female barristers we were undoubtedly encouraged to practise in the family law division. There was an assumption that we would want to do so. When I first went to the Bar, more than 30 years ago, it was difficult for women to advance not only within the profession but at the criminal Bar because it was seen as a combative arena, which indeed it is, and not the sort of arena that women would want to engage in.
Esther McVey
My role model was a woman called Rose Heilbron, who went to my school. She was the first woman to get a first in law from Liverpool, to get a first at Gray’s Inn and to do a murder trial. When the male criminal, who was up for murder, saw her, he said, “My God, I knew things were bad, but now I have seen who is representing me, I see things are worse.”
Rose’s desire to go into the law came from a desire to help other people. It was a case of, “There but for the grace of God go I”. She had been a refugee. Her desire to support others and to ensure that everybody had access to the law was what motivated her. Although I agree that women are not the only part of the population to have these caring, nurturing and mothering beliefs, many studies have linked those qualities with the fact that we give birth. They say that our biological differences are the key motivating factor for why women take up a job and pursue a profession. More than 80% of social enterprises involve women, and that is down to our biological differences.
Anna Soubry
I am extremely grateful for that intervention from my hon. Friend who has researched the matter and clearly knows a great deal more than me. Although I agree with much of what she says, I want to add a note of caution so that those who perhaps do not fully support the advancement of women or the feminist cause do not rely too much on our natural instincts as mothers, nurturers and carers to say, “That is all well and good and that is where you should stay.”
Let me return to the point I was making before my hon. Friend’s intervention. When I returned to the Bar, some 20 years ago, I was struck by how much its attitude had changed—not only to background, school, the colour of skin, race and religion, but to women. There had been a great advancement of women at the criminal Bar. We are now reaching the point when almost half of the people at the criminal Bar are women, which is to be celebrated. Women are just as capable as any man at either prosecuting or defending in criminal cases, however difficult that case may be.
I will not delay you for much longer, Mr Turner, but I want to reiterate this point about child care. There is a very real need, especially among those who are not particularly well paid, to return to the world of work. The reasons for that are often economic, but not always. This may not be understood by some men, but many women want to go back to work not just because they want to earn the money, but because they want the social side and the interaction that comes from it. At the moment, however, we have a profound problem in our country. A number of women, on finishing their maternity leave, look at the cost of returning to work and find that the amount of money that they will earn is the same as what they will have to expend on child care. We need to tackle that.
Finally, mentoring was mentioned by my hon. Friend. How right she was. Certainly at the Bar, there were mentoring schemes to help women. Mentoring is an admirable scheme and works especially well for women.
Oral Answers to Questions
Esther McVey Excerpts(14 years ago)
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Mrs May
How peaceful demonstrations and protests are policed is an operational matter for the force at the time. We are absolutely clear that people should have the right to protest peacefully, but it is also clear that on separate sorts of issues, such as those we have seen elsewhere in relation to people invading territory or violence around demonstrations, the police should police that appropriately as well. However, I am pleased to say that the case on kettling in the European Court was won last week, so that remains available to the police.
Esther McVey (Wirral West) (Con)
T3. Will my right hon. Friend join me in congratulating Merseyside police on ending the freeze on police constable recruitment introduced under the last Labour Government and on now recruiting more constables as it shifts more money into the fight against crime?
Oral Answers to Questions
Esther McVey Excerpts(14 years, 3 months ago)
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Esther McVey (Wirral West) (Con)
May I draw attention to the Merseyside police force and how it has handled staffing changes and efficiency savings over the past year? Not only has the force hit all its targets, but crime is down 3%, antisocial behaviour is down 6%, and public confidence is up 5%, so despite the scaremongering from the Opposition, it is possible to have efficiency savings and a decrease in crime.
Mrs May
I join my hon. Friend in paying tribute to the work that is being done by the Merseyside force in relation to the savings that it is making in its budgets. As Chief Constable Jon Murphy has said,
“It’s not salami slicing but re-engineering the whole organisation.”
As my hon. Friend has shown, that can be done effectively, saving money but providing a good service to the public. [Interruption.]