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The Lord President of the Council (Baroness Amos): My Lords, I begin by thanking my noble friend Lady Gould of Potternewton for once again securing an important debate to celebrate women's achievements, mark International Women's Day and point to the challenges that still remain. I am particularly pleased that so many from these Benches participated today.
I am also very pleased and proud to be answering a debate that has had such distinguished speakers. I hope that the House will forgive me if I say a personal thank you to my noble friend Lady Lockwood who paved the way for many of us, particularly in terms of the important work that she did at the Equal Opportunities Commission. The Equal Opportunities Commission is well served in this House. The noble Baronesses, Lady Howe, Lady Platt and Lady Prosser, have all been commissioners, deputy chairs or chairs of the Equal Opportunities Commission.
The Government's commitment to securing women's equality—
Baroness Whitaker: My Lords, I apologise for interrupting my noble friend, but she has omitted the fact that she herself was a very distinguished chief executive of the Equal Opportunities Commission.
Baroness Amos: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that. It would have been somewhat invidious were I to have praised myself in that way.
I am also pleased about the Government's commitment to securing women's equality and promoting social justice; and not only at home, because key elements in our development and diplomatic work have also focused on the importance of equality for women. When we look at the situation facing women in this country, I am proud of the progress we have made since my Government came into power. Speakers in today's debate have talked about the strengthening of the Sex Discrimination and Equal Pay Acts. We have the national childcare strategy, the introduction of tax credits, the introduction of the minimum wage, the work on securing a better work/life balance, the work on tackling domestic violence and targeted help for pensioners.
However, I am also conscious of the global challenges facing women. More than 1 billion people in our world live in extreme poverty and a disproportionate number of them are women. Two-thirds of the world's illiterate are women, 60 million
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girls are not enrolled in school and almost half the 39 million people worldwide with HIV/AIDS are women. The noble Baroness, Lady Northover, spoke about that very powerfully.
The Government are dedicated to creating a society in Britain in which women and men are able to fulfil their potential and make the most of their lives for themselves and their families in a prosperous, cohesive and healthy democracy. But that task is made considerably more difficult in the poorest countries in the world given the high levels of poverty, lack of capacity and weak governance. Those challenges can be realistically addressed only if women are at the heart of the development agenda. Girls who are educated, even if only to primary level, have smaller, healthier families and, crucially, work to ensure that their own children go to school. Of course, more girls in school leads to greater economic growth and less poverty. That is why the Government are supporting equal opportunities for girls to complete primary education in developing countries.
We have also seen the disproportionate impact of conflict on women and girls throughout the world. Last week, on International Women's Day, the Government announced a national action plan linking humanitarian, conflict, defence and diplomacy work—all important to conflict resolution and peace building. This House should remember that there were two firsts this year—Africa and Latin America got their first women presidents in Liberia and Chile. Both women know a lot about countries in conflict situations.
Before I turn specifically to address the points raised in the debate and, in particular, to our own domestic agenda, I should like to answer the question asked by my noble friend Lady Gould about UNIFEM. The UN Secretary-General has appointed a high-level panel to consider how to improve the coherence, effectiveness and efficiency of UN operations at country level. We all know how important it is to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the UN. There are too many agencies with overlapping mandates that compete against each other, which leads to duplication, fragmentation and reduced impact where it matters. We all know that a fragmented UN is a weak UN. Radical changes will be needed to achieve better performance from the UN, and the Government are determined that the UN's ability and authority in advocating and promoting the empowerment of women should be strengthened through these reforms. I am particularly conscious that, in taking forward issues of women's equality, we cannot just look at integrating issues; that is not enough, although it is an important goal. We need to take specific action. That is as important at an institutional level in global organisations as it is in national ones.
My noble friend Lord Giddens pointed to the deep cultural issues that we need to tackle as a society and spoke very powerfully about the pressure that we put on girls and women to conform to a particular image, and to be something that sometimes they do not want to be. We need to get to grips with the implications of
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what are often personal and hidden responses by women to the important issues of identity and culture. I thought it was very brave of my noble friend Lady Massey to point in this House to women's particular qualities, identifying what we bring or can bring to the table. The reason that I thought my noble friend's speech was brave is because culturally we sometimes feel embarrassed about talking about the specific contribution or qualities that women bring in all walks of life.
We need to recognise women's bravery, vision and tenacity, because that is part of the way that we can challenge some of the stereotypes that still exist about the contribution that women make to our world. I also recognise that there are different forms and ways in which women talk about their experiences. What my noble friends Lord Giddens and Lady Massey have done is to demonstrate how important it is to help women and girls through what are difficult times.
Women's economic participation is crucial to women's empowerment. We have made huge progress here in the United Kingdom. There are more women than ever going out to work. Female employment rose from 42 per cent to 70 per cent from 1971 to 2004. There is good news for older women workers too. The rate of participation for women over 55 has increased a full percentage point to almost 32 per cent, but we still have persistent problems with the pay gap and the need to tackle occupational segregation.
I pay tribute to the work of my noble friend Lady Prosser and the Women and Work Commission for their report, and for the ideas in it on how to close the pay and opportunities gap.
Removing barriers to women working in occupations that are traditionally done by men and increasing women's participation in the labour market would be worth between £15 billion and £23 billion. Improving women's economic participation also includes support to women in developing their own businesses. In 2003 the Government published a strategic framework for women's enterprise, with the key target of raising the proportion of businesses that are majority-owned by women from 15 per cent in 2002 to nearer 20 per cent by 2006. I hope that those who have participated in the debate today will ensure that the Government work to achieve that target, because we need to create an environment and a culture that encourage more women to start and grow their own businesses.
We must acknowledge the importance of what we have done in getting the balance right between work and leisure, but also between work and family life. We are continuing to improve women's rights by increasing maternity and adoption pay. We are extending the right that we gave parents to ask to work flexibly in view of their caring responsibilities. My noble friend Lady Gould mentioned the measures introduced by the Work and Families Bill, which aim to help give children the best start in life, to enable all families to have genuine choices about how they balance their work and family-caring responsibilities, and to help business recruit and retain the best people.
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Let me now turn to an issue that has been a persistent cause of concern, namely violence against women, which was talked about by my noble friend Lady Gale. None of us fails to be shocked by the statistics. Domestic violence accounts for 17 per cent of all violent crime. Globally, domestic violence is the leading cause of morbidity among women aged 15 to 44, which is greater than war, malaria, cancer and motor vehicle accidents. Every time I read that sentence, I find it deeply shocking.
Here in the United Kingdom we have come a long way. It was only in 1971 that Refuge opened the first safe house for women and children experiencing domestic violence. Within the Government we are working hard to change attitudes towards and the culture of violence against women. I assure my noble friend Lady Gale that we see the work that we are doing as part of developing a national, strategic, cross-government approach to this issue. This month we will publish the updated Domestic Violence National Delivery Plan, to help improve the rate of reporting of domestic violence. As a direct result of that plan we are working to set up specialist domestic violence courts. A rape campaign—as mentioned by my noble friend—was launched earlier this week, to address young men's behaviour, and we are working with the Corporate Alliance against Domestic Violence, which is a group of companies acting together to support their employees.
Like my noble friend Lady Gale, I pay tribute to the work of Black and Asian Women Stand Out, an organisation that I know well.
We are also planning to publish a consultation paper in the next month, proposing a number of measures to strengthen the legal framework on sexual offences and to do more to reduce the inhibitions to effective prosecutions.
A number of those who spoke in the debate talked about the importance of looking at the pension issue, such as my noble friend Lady Gould. I would particularly recognise the contribution of my noble friend Lady Hollis, who has worked tirelessly on this issue. I do not think that she saw me, but she and a group of very determined women were in one of the Dining Rooms recently lobbying my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions over dinner. I was absolutely delighted that it was him and not me on the receiving end of their lobbying.
The noble Baroness, Lady Morris, used some of her personal story and her mother's story to point to the difficult decisions that we need to take in relation to this issue. It is also an issue mentioned by my noble friends Lady Lockwood and Lady Dean. Many of the poorest and most vulnerable pensioners are women. We want all pensioners to have a decent and secure income in retirement and to share fairly in the rising prosperity of the country. My noble friend Lady Hollis eloquently described the difficulties that women face, particularly the earnings hit that they take because of part-time work and the pension hit because of the risk surrounding their lives, including their caring responsibilities.
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We have made some progress in achieving fairer pension outcomes for women. For example, over 1 million women pensioners have been lifted above low income levels by the introduction of the pension credit. Measures are in place to help carers secure a better income in retirement. However, there is a great deal more work to do. We have to seek to build a consensus on the way forward and on achieving a fair outcome for women. I have heard the strong views expressed across the House on the issue today.
My noble friend Lady Lockwood mentioned the importance of education. Girls are outperforming boys by 8 per cent at GCSE grades A to C and by 2 per cent at A-level grades A to E. Indeed, more women than men are gaining degrees, but we still need to do much more to encourage girls and young women to not only develop their IT skills but go into areas like science and engineering.
The noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, spoke of the need to look at the whole area of women's health, their access to healthcare and the support available to them, which is a very serious issue indeed.
I now turn to the issue of women in political and public life. It is very clear from the speeches of my noble friends Lady Gould and Lady Dean and of the noble Baronesses, Lady Northover and Lady Morris, that all our parties face these difficulties. All who have spoken about political and public life have been active at the forefront in trying to transform not only our political parties, but public life in general.
Women now make up 18.4 per cent of our own House; the number of women MPs continues to increase, and much of that change has come about because of the legislation that the Government introduced to allow political parties to use positive measures towards women's increased participation. It is important to say that legislation is necessary, not because women cannot succeed on the basis of merit, but because discrimination means that too often women are not given the opportunity to try. I am pleased that my party has led the way, but my noble friends have highlighted the challenges that continue to face us. Perhaps this is one of those issues on which there can be greater co-operation across parties. For the first time in the debate I want to make a political point: I am happy for the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats to increase the number of women MPs as long as that is not at the expense of the total number of Labour MPs.
The Government have set very clear targets on women in public life. The proportion of women in public appointments has risen from 32 per cent in 1997 to 35 per cent now. Only 6.2 per cent, however, of those appointments are held by ethnic minority women, so there is a great deal more to do.
My noble friend Lady Billingham spoke about the important issue of women in sport. She is quite right about the difficulties that women face. We need to recognise the complicated relationship that exists as regards some of the issues raised by my noble friend Lord Giddens for girls' and women's relationship with sport as participants and as observers. Like my noble
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friends Lady Billingham and Lady Massey and the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, I am a great sports enthusiast, but the figures make pretty depressing reading. Women are ignored in three-quarters of the decision-making positions in sport. They make up only 26 per cent of the membership on sports boards and committees. The most depressing thing I have read in relation to sport is that the Football Association's women's committee, which oversees the development of the women's side of the game, has just two women members out of a total board of 10. If that does not point out the difficulties that we face in this arena, I do not know what does.
We need more women, regardless of age, ethnic background, social circumstances or ability to enjoy and benefit from participating in sport. We need to improve opportunities for women and girls to participate, lead, coach and officiate in sport. We are working with our key partners on a range of measures to encourage increased participation. We have to build on the successes of the women who are role models. Kelly Holmes was mentioned and we also have Paula Radcliffe and, of course, England's women's cricket team took part in last year's Ashes. The games of 2012 will be a huge opportunity and we need to do a great deal of work in the run-up to 2012.
I have run slightly over my time. I want to conclude with a story that sums up how far we have to go. This morning, at Victoria station, a hotel group was promoting weekends away and giving away goodie bags, but only to women. What did those bags contain? They contained packets of Surf and Persil, the implication being that even in 2006 women do the domestic chores. Cultural change is at the heart of what we need to do.
This has been an excellent debate. I celebrate the progress that has been made, but I think it important to pause and reflect on the work that remains to be done, the disparities and inequalities that need to be addressed and the arguments that remain to be won. The values that inspire International Women's Day—respect for the dignity of all women and international solidarity—are as relevant to all of us today as they were to all those pioneering women years ago. Let us not only continue to celebrate International Women's Day and talk about women's issues in this annual debate, but ensure that women's issues and equality issues are at the heart of the agenda when we talk about policy issues across government.
1.55 pm
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