Asked by: Baroness Goudie (Labour - Life peer)
Question
To ask His Majesty's Government what progress they have made in enforcing mandatory gender pay gap reporting.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
In 2017, we introduced world-leading regulations requiring large employers to publish the differences in average salaries and bonuses for men and women every year. We continue to see high levels of compliance with the regulations; and the broader requirement has ensured that employers are aware of their gaps and are taking steps to close them.
Enforcement of the reporting regulations is the responsibility of the Equality and Human Rights Commission. They have outlined the process that they follow for gender pay gap reporting here:
More details about their full enforcement powers are detailed here:
Asked by: Andrea Jenkyns (Conservative - Morley and Outwood)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of changes to the State Pension age on women born in the 1950s in Morley and Outwood constituency.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
We do not hold regional figures on the impact of changes to State Pension age.
Asked by: Helen Grant (Conservative - Maidstone and The Weald)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to help increase the participation of (a) girls and (b) women in sport.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The Government is committed to increasing women and girls’ participation in sport and physical activity.
Our sport strategy, Get Active, includes the target of getting 1.25 million more women and 1 million more children active by 2030. This will be supported by Government investment of over £600 million to boost equal access in school sport.
Government is delivering an historic level of direct investment of over £327 million between 2021-25, through the Multi-Sport Grassroots Facilities Programme, to provide up to 8,000 new and improved multi-sport grassroots facilities and pitches across the whole of the UK.
All projects on the Multi-Sport Grassroots Facilities Programme are assessed against their ability to deliver increased participation by under-represented groups, including women and girls, and all projects over £25,000 in England must have an equal access women and girls plan in place.
This includes the £30 million Lionesses Futures Fund, which will deliver up to 30 artificial pitches across the country, creating opportunities to play for almost 8,000 women and girls.
The Government welcomes the Women and Equalities Select Committee’s recent report on ‘Health Barriers for Girls and Women in Sport’ and accepts most of the reports recommendations. We will continue to work with the sector to remove the barriers that prevent women and girls from being active and continue to give women and girls a voice on what they want.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he will implement a public health approach to preventing (a) violence and (b) sexual violence for (i) boys and (ii) men.
Answered by Laura Farris - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Ministry of Justice) (jointly with Home Office)
Since 2019, the Government has invested over £160m in 20 Violence Reduction Unit’s (VRUs) in England and Wales. VRUs are expected to deliver a ‘whole system’, public health approach to tackling violence, bringing together key partners to identify the local drivers and root-causes of serious violence and implementing a multi-agency response to them. VRUs are supported to adhere to the six key pillars of the public health approach to reduce violence, as set out by Public Health England (now OHID).
The Youth Endowment Fund was established in 2019, which will invest £200m over 10 years to identify, and build an evidence base around, what works in diverting children and young people away from involvement in serious violence and making this information accessible to practitioners.
The Serious Violence Duty introduced through the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 (PCSC 2022), requires a range of specified authorities, such as, the police, local government, youth offending teams, health, and probation services, to work together to prevent and reduce serious violence within their local communities, enabled by new powers to share data and information. Specified authorities are encouraged to take a public health approach in executing their responsibilities under the Act. The PCSC Act does not define serious violence for the purposes of the Duty but makes clear that local areas may also consider domestic abuse and sexual offences as part of their strategies, particularly where preventative activity is directed at risk factors which are shared between these crimes and public space youth violence.
The Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy (published July 2021) and Tackling Domestic Abuse Plan (published March 2022) contain over 100 cross government commitments and take a whole system approach to tackling these crimes. Commitments in these strategies cover all victims, including men and boys.
In 2021, we published the Rape Review Action Plan and set out a series of commitments to deliver cross-system improvements in the criminal justice response to rape. The National Operating Model, developed through Operation Soteria, provides policing with new training and tools to build strong cases and understand patterns of sexual offending, and seeks to support officers to building stronger cases, understand sexual offending behaviour and ultimately identify and disrupt offenders at the earliest opportunity.
Asked by: Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government to what extent funds from the Conflict, Security and Stability Fund and the Integrated Security Fund are being invested into defence work related to human security.
Answered by Baroness Neville-Rolfe - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)
The Integrated Security Fund (ISF) aims to integrate gender and human security concerns throughout all our programming. This includes cooperation with defence actors and support for women, girls, and other marginalised groups to engage with defence and security providers. The Fund supports activities which can be read about in more detail in the Conflict, Stability and Security Fund (CSSF) Annual Reports, including our contribution to advancing the UK’s commitments to Women, Peace and Security under the UK National Action Plan (NAP).
Asked by: Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether there is a defence budget dedicated to women, peace and security, and human security, work.
Answered by Earl of Minto - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
In Defence, work on Human Security and Women, Peace and Security (WPS) is primarily delivered as a mainstreamed and integrated component of existing work, consequently it does not have a dedicated budget line. This approach helps to ensure that Human Security and WPS are not treated as standalone concerns and siloed from core Defence activity and priorities.
When appropriate, budget is made available for specific Human Security and WPS requirements. This can be seen in the delivery of the Human Security in Military Operational Planning course that is delivered at the Defence Academy or the delivery of the Gender Barriers Study to support UK’s ability to meet UN gender parity targets during peacekeeping deployments.
Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people are in debt to the Department through overpayments of Carers Allowance; and how much do they owe in total.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
As of 14th May 2024, the volume of people who have an outstanding Carers Allowance debt is 134,800 with a total value of £251m. This figure represents the total stock and as such the total monetary amount may have been accrued over multiple years. Those who have an outstanding Carers Allowance debt may no longer be in receipt of the benefit.
Women make up the majority of Carer’s Allowance claims, and this is reflected in the proportion of those with an outstanding Carer’s Allowance debt. As of 14th May 2024, there were 42,800 (32%) males, 91,900 (68%) females and 100 (less than 1%) not identified, with an outstanding Carers Allowance debt.
As of November 2023, there were over 991,000 people in receipt of Carers Allowance. That figure is made up of over 271,000 (27%) males and 720,000 (73%) females.
The data contained in our response has been sourced from internal DWP management information, which is intended only to help the Department to manage its business. It is not intended for publication and has not been subject to the same quality assurance checks applied to our published official statistics. It should therefore be treated with caution.
All figures provided have been rounded.
Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many (a) men and (b) women are in debt to his Department through overpayments of Carers Allowance.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
As of 14th May 2024, the volume of people who have an outstanding Carers Allowance debt is 134,800 with a total value of £251m. This figure represents the total stock and as such the total monetary amount may have been accrued over multiple years. Those who have an outstanding Carers Allowance debt may no longer be in receipt of the benefit.
Women make up the majority of Carer’s Allowance claims, and this is reflected in the proportion of those with an outstanding Carer’s Allowance debt. As of 14th May 2024, there were 42,800 (32%) males, 91,900 (68%) females and 100 (less than 1%) not identified, with an outstanding Carers Allowance debt.
As of November 2023, there were over 991,000 people in receipt of Carers Allowance. That figure is made up of over 271,000 (27%) males and 720,000 (73%) females.
The data contained in our response has been sourced from internal DWP management information, which is intended only to help the Department to manage its business. It is not intended for publication and has not been subject to the same quality assurance checks applied to our published official statistics. It should therefore be treated with caution.
All figures provided have been rounded.
Asked by: Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Labour (Co-op) - Brighton, Kemptown)
Question
To ask the Minister for Women and Equalities, if she will make an assessment of the potential impact of a four-day working week on gender equality.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The government routinely considers the implications of evidence from a range of sources when assessing policies on working practices. The government has no plans to implement a four-day week but has recently introduced the Employment Relations (Flexible Working) Act 2023.
The Act makes changes to the right to request flexible working to better support employers and employees to agree flexible working arrangements that work for everyone.
Asked by: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to (a) evaluate and (b) review the violence against women and girls strategy.
Answered by Laura Farris - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Ministry of Justice) (jointly with Home Office)
The ambitious cross-Government Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) Strategy set out a series of measures to help ensure that women and girls are safe everywhere - at home, online, at work and in public. This was followed by a complementary Tackling Domestic Abuse Plan, published in March 2022. So far, we have completed 69% of the commitments across both strategy documents.
Delivery is overseen by a cross-Government VAWG Ministerial Steering Group (VAWG MSG). The last VAWG MSG took place on 1st May and was chaired by the Home Secretary. Part of the meeting focused on accelerating delivery of the remaining strategy commitments.
Many of our interventions are funded through grants awarded to third parties. These grants are actively monitored with recipients providing regular monitoring and end of financial year reports.
We are assessing the overall impact of measures set out in the strategies against the ambition to increase support to victims and survivors and bring more perpetrators to justice.
Our long-term ambition is to reduce the prevalence of violence against women. This is monitored via the published crime statistics, which include police recorded crime and Crime Survey for England and Wales data, as well as via other published criminal justice agency data. The latest data can be found here: Crime in England and Wales - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk).
Estimates from the 2022/23 CSEW showed that 5.1% of adults aged 16 to 59 years experienced domestic abuse in the previous year (Domestic abuse prevalence and victim characteristics - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk)). This was a statistically significant decrease compared with the year ending March 2020 (6.1%), a year largely unaffected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Over the same period, the prevalence of sexual assault and stalking has remained stable with no statistically significant changes.