Women in the Workplace

Lord Dholakia Excerpts

Thursday 9th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, the living wage helps everybody, including women, get a decent wage for going out to work. Free childcare certainly helps women who want to go out to work. Also, taking women out of tax for the first £11,000 certainly helps women get back to work.

[Lord Dholakia (LD)]

My Lords, how are gender equality issues addressed in government departments? Is there an adequate system of monitoring and, if so, how are results published? If the results are not favourable, is it not time to invite the Equality and Human Rights Commission to audit to see why women’s representation does not reflect their presence in the community?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Lord asks a good question. The ONS monitors gender pay differences by department. I am very pleased that, in my own department, four out of seven of the senior executives are women, including the Permanent Secretary.