Women (Government Policies)

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Wednesday 8th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

The Labour party, and the right hon. Lady as a former Treasury Minister, knows full well the risks of failing to deal with the deficit today. That is shown not just by what we are doing, but by what the Labour party itself said it would do if it was in government. I am talking about the position that we are in today, which was left us by the Labour Government, and the actions that we are having to take to deal with it. She must recognise that if the Labour party were in government today, it would be cutting £7 for every £8 that the current Government are cutting.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

The Opposition understand that the deficit must be dealt with and we want to get growth moving, but does the right hon. Lady think that that will happen if women are forced out of their jobs because they cannot pay their child care costs?

[Mrs May]

I am afraid that the hon. Lady’s claim that the Opposition understand dealing with the deficit rings false when we hear what they say the Government should do about the deficit. On the one hand, the Labour party tries to argue that what the Government are doing to address the deficit is wrong, and on the other hand Labour Members remain silent about the fact that a Labour Government would cut £7 of every £8 that this Government are cutting this year. We hear nothing from the Opposition about where those cuts would fall.

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[Mrs May]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. Answer came there none to my challenge to the hon. Gentleman.

The Government’s action is taking Britain out of the danger zone, but we are also taking action to deal with Labour’s record deficit in a way that protects the most vulnerable, whether they are men, women or children. We have therefore had to take some difficult decisions on public spending, but in a way that has allowed us to protect the public service on which women most rely—we are increasing spending on the NHS in real terms every year. The Opposition cannot say that they would do that, because they would cut spending on the NHS.

Yes, we have had to implement a public sector pay freeze, but that has allowed us to protect against more public sector job losses. Even as we implement the pay freeze, we are protecting the lowest-paid public sector workers, almost two thirds of whom are women. Again, the Opposition cannot say that they would do that.

Yes, the Government have had to make tax changes, but as we have done so we are lifting 880,000 of the lowest-paid workers out of income tax altogether, the majority of whom are women. That was opposed by the Labour party, which is surprising given that it claims to be committed to redistribution.

[Helen Goodman]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mrs May]

I shall make some progress.

Yes, the Government have taken the difficult decision to remove tax credits from higher earning families, but that has meant that we can increase child tax credits for the poorest families, protecting against increases in child poverty. In fact, that decision has meant that we can increase child tax credits by £180 and then £110 a year over and above the level promised by Labour. Those policies are not just about helping women, but about protecting the most vulnerable.

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[Mrs May]

We agree that early intervention is very important and, as the hon. Lady will know, the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) produced a very significant report for the Government on the whole issue of early intervention. The Government are ensuring that, within the early intervention budget, there is sufficient funding to provide for a network of Sure Start centres. We are also ensuring—as we are in other areas, as I have mentioned in terms of focusing what the Government spend on the most vulnerable and those most in need—that Sure Start is returned to the early focus it was intended to have by the last Labour Government, which was helping those who are most in need, those on the lowest incomes and those who most need access to the sort of provision that Sure Start and children’s centres can provide.

I want the Government to take a new, more mature approach to engaging with women. I want to see women’s voices in government strengthened. That is why we launched a consultation on how the Government listen to and engage with women, which has already received nearly 900 responses. In today’s world, we need to make full use of communications technology, social media and other techniques to allow us to talk to women directly.

The Government are focused on giving opportunities to women. We need to move beyond just protection from discrimination and help women to get on in modern businesses and modern workplaces. Many women have benefited from the introduction of the right to request flexible working for parents and carers, but by restricting flexible working to certain groups, the idea was perpetuated that this is some sort of special treatment. We will therefore extend the right to request flexible working to all employees. This will not only shift attitudes, but will help to shift behaviour away from the traditional 9-to-5 model of work that can act as a barrier to many women and that also does not make sense for many modern businesses.

Another stereotype we need to shift is the idea that women should do the caring and men should earn the money when a couple decide to start a family. Our policy to introduce a new system of flexible parental leave will make a real difference to working women who want to have children. For the first time, it will allow both parents to choose what is right for them and what is right for their family. If fathers want to take more of a role, they can. If mothers want to return to work earlier, they can. If parents want some time at home together after the birth of their child, they can have it. What matters is that they will have a choice.

[Helen Goodman]

I agree with the Home Secretary that we want to maximise people’s choices, but she must be aware that most non-resident parents are men and most parents with care are women, and that the latter have lower incomes. How can she justify putting a charge on those parents with care when the non-resident parent is not paying up on child maintenance?

[Mrs May]

As the hon. Lady knows, we have had a consultation on how we deal with the child maintenance issue. I hope that she would agree that despite the efforts of both Conservative and Labour persuasions over several years, we have not got the child maintenance system right in this country. There are too many people who do not see the absent parent paying child maintenance and we need to do everything we can to get a system that will work. As she will know, the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Maria Miller), is looking at this issue and the alternatives available under the child maintenance proposals.

As well as giving all women better opportunities in the workplace, we need to do more to help those who aspire to the very top. Last year, only 12.5 % of all FTSE 100 board members were women. That is simply not good enough, and that is why the Government commissioned Lord Davies to look at how we can increase the number of women on company boards. We have made good progress in implementing Lord Davies’ recommendations. In May, the Financial Reporting Council launched a consultation on changes to the UK corporate governance code in order to help to achieve more diverse and more effective boards. The head-hunting industry has agreed a voluntary code on diversity, and we are building a strong sense of ownership and action in FTSE 100 companies. We have agreed with them a plan for how company aspirational targets should be published by September.

The latest figures suggest there has already been an improvement in FTSE 100 companies, just by our shining a light on this area. Some 31% of new board members appointed since Lord Davies’ report have been women, up from just 13% last year, and the number of male-only boards has dropped from 21 in October to 14.

We are also helping women to break through the glass ceiling by providing an all-age careers service. The new service will be fully operational by next April, and will provide high quality, professional careers guidance that will be open to all young people and adults. That will help women to make the right choices for themselves and for their careers. For the lowest paid, we will raise the minimum wage to £6.08—two thirds of those on the minimum wage are women.

In other areas we are also making the right decisions to help the most vulnerable. On pensions, again we have had to make some difficult decisions. Yes, we have proposed accelerating the rate at which the state pension age for women becomes the same as the state pension age for men. With life expectancy rising—and one in nine women pensioners is now expected to live to more than 100—and with the overwhelming need to reduce the deficit, this was a decision we could not duck. But it means that at the same time we have been able to commit to a triple guarantee, which will increase the basic state pension by earnings, prices or by 2.5%, whichever is highest.

The right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford claimed that the earnings link had been restored by the Turner report. Of course the Turner review referred to the earnings link, but the last Government did not restore it. This Government have restored the earnings link and gone further with the triple guarantee.

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[Mrs Mensch]

I believe that the proposal to reduce legal aid funding was in the hon. Lady’s party’s manifesto. She will know, or she should know, that the legal aid system is incredibly inefficient and incredibly costly. Once again, we hear from Labour Members objections to a particular cut; once again, it is a particular cut that Labour also proposed in its manifesto; and once again, Labour Members have no specific proposals whatsoever to offer the women of this country on how they would implement their policy.

As my right hon. Friend pointed out, universal credit is an attempt to tackle not the symptoms but the root causes of women’s poverty. According to statistics from the Department for Work and Pensions, it will take an estimated 350,000 children and 1 million people out of poverty. That is genuine progress. We know that women and children suffer in workless households, and we are finally grasping the nettle and tackling the problems that Labour refused to tackle.

As I look through my statistics, I see programme after programme directed at women. We have talked about the massive investments in existing rape crisis centres and the new ones that are being built. We have talked about the increase in the minimum wage—and so many of the 890,000 people affected by the increase to £6.08 will be women. Under Labour, it was perfectly legal for Jobcentre Plus offices to display advertisements for sex workers. It is absolutely appalling that Labour allowed that to continue, but this Government have stopped it.

What about the extra investment in the national health service? Labour is very quiet about the fact that it would cut funding for a service on which women increasingly rely. How bizarre to sit here—

[Helen Goodman]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Mrs Mensch]

I should be delighted.

[Helen Goodman]

Before the hon. Lady gets too high on her horse, may I point out to her that all the ground work and all the legal advice for changing the rules about which jobs could be advertised in jobcentres were produced under the last Government?

[Mrs Mensch]

May I please tell the hon. Lady that ground work is simply not good enough? For 13 years under a Labour Government, you allowed sex worker jobs to be advertised in Jobcentre Plus. The hon. Lady is embarrassed about that, and so she should be. It is an indictment of her Government that it was ever allowed.

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[Claire Perry]

I agree with the hon. Lady, who I know has campaigned on this issue for years, that some progress was made, but it was not enough. The welfare system is incredibly complicated and provides huge disincentives to work. Yes, women were helped back into the work force, and the hon. Lady and I both completely support that. However, we hear time and again about women who do not know if it is even worth their while to work—who cannot work out, given the complexities of part-time and voluntary working, whether they should even look for child care for their daughter or son in order to go to work. It is simply an expensive mess that has not helped the women and men across this country in the way that it should.

[Helen Goodman]

Will the hon. Lady temper her rhetoric just a tiny bit and recall that every person who goes to a jobcentre gets a “better off in work” calculation to inform them by how much they will be better off, and what their other entitlements are?

[Claire Perry]

I would be interested to know whether the hon. Lady has actually gone through a “better off” job calculation, as I have. It is one of the most complicated, ridiculous pieces of analysis I have ever seen. In many cases, the jobcentre advisers simply say, “We actually don’t know.” It can take 45 minutes to make a “better off” calculation, and if someone’s circumstances change by one or two hours a week, they have to go back to the starting point. If the hon. Lady is suggesting that the “better off in work” calculation is something to be proud of after 13 years in government, may I suggest that she fundamentally misunderstands what we need to do to get men and women back into work? In fact, the work that the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions is doing will massively reform the system.