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Mrs. Gillan: The hon. Lady is so familiar with the Cabinet sub-committee on women that she has just said that it is chaired by the Deputy Prime Minister. Let me inform her that it is chaired by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, who apologised to me earlier for not being able to attend the debate.
The hon. Lady has mentioned the social chapter. Perhaps she should talk to the deputy Leader of the Opposition, who said, I believe, that any fool knows that the social chapter would cause a jobs fallout. That jobs fallout could well involve the women whom we are discussing today.
Ms Jowell:
I shall have to check the Prime Minister's answer to me very carefully. I was pretty certain that he had said that the Cabinet sub-committee was chaired by the Deputy Prime Minister, but if I stand to be corrected, I shall certainly make that clear.
What women want is a Government who recognise that women's lives are changing--who recognise that, while women's lives are mostly organised around a web of private relationships and private arrangements, a Government who understand those changes can be a vital source of strength for women as they discharge family responsibilities and make their varied contributions to their communities.
The biggest change in women's lives is that seven out of 10 women now work, and nearly 50 per cent. of women with children under five work. Most women work because they need the money, and they choose to work part time because that gives them the flexibility both to work and to look after their children. The prospects for women at work vary enormously according to geography and age. The employment prospects of a young female graduate living in the south-east are infinitely better than those of a 50-year-old, unskilled woman living almost anywhere. Although women now have better access to the professions, that does not yet properly extend to promotion: the glass ceiling has still to be cracked. In virtually every profession, women are at the bottom and men at the top.
Women mainly work in the growing sectors of social care, health care, retailing and catering. Those jobs tend to be done by women working part time. About 5.1 million women work part time, but more than 1 million earn less than the national insurance threshold of £59 a week. That represents a threefold increase since 1979. In those sectors, the new jobs, and the new low-paid jobs, are concentrated. Of the 1 million people who earn less than £2.50 an hour, many are doing such jobs. Those are jobs that women take because men could not afford to do so. They are jobs that rely on a second income, because no one could live on what they pay alone. They are jobs that would not be taken by single people, who could not afford to live on such earnings. They are jobs done by women with no employment rights and no protection.
Two letters provide graphic evidence of the extent of low pay. A 16-year-old girl working as a hairdresser and paid £45 for a 40-hour week--£1.12 an hour--writes:
A 40-year-old care assistant who has worked for the same employer for eight years is paid £1.88 an hour, and works a 30-hour week. She has had no pay increase for the past five years. Her responsibilities include personal caring for the residents of the elderly people's home in which she works, cooking and other kitchen duties, general cleaning in the home and dispensing drugs. Does any hon. Member really believe that work in such conditions represents a move towards equality and opportunity for women of which we can be proud?
In that sector, there has been a rapid rise in the number of zero-hours contracts. The jobs are invisible in employment statistics. They provide no security and no guaranteed weekly pay; according to the Equal Opportunities Commission, workers in such circumstances may even find it difficult to establish that they actually are employees, and are thereby denied any employment rights. Such contracts are anathema to good employers, and a Labour Government will outlaw them.
Mrs. Gorman:
I hope that the hon. Lady will tell us exactly what the Labour party intends to do about such problems as the danger of walking in the woods, and that that will include the imposition of real penalties. Will she also put some figures to those proposals, so that the taxpayer knows what it will cost to implement them?
Ms Jowell:
I must ask the hon. Lady to be patient and to listen to the rest of my speech. A number of her questions will be answered.
We shall doubtless hear a good deal from Conservative Members about the regulation of the labour market. They will say that any protection for employees is a "burden on business". Let me make clear what Labour wants to see.
Mrs. Ann Winterton:
Will the hon. Lady give way?
Ms Jowell:
Perhaps I could follow up the hon. Lady's earlier point, and set out what Labour wants to see. It may pre-empt her intervention.
Mrs. Winterton:
I know for a fact that it will not.
Is the hon. Lady aware that, if the social chapter were implemented, it would have a huge impact on the jobs of women in my constituency? Is she further aware that, according to the CBI, 1,300 people in my constituency would lose their jobs as a direct result? Many of those people would be women, as my constituency has a very low unemployment level among women--and men.
Ms Jowell:
Conservative Members constantly come out with similar lines about the social chapter, but they are not borne out in practice.
We also know that, under Opportunity 2000,a Government initiative which we welcome, employers are expected to demonstrate their good employment conditions and practices. That is a condition of their membership of the scheme.
Let me make it clear what Labour wants to see. We stand by the right of women and men to decent employment conditions. We shall introduce a minimum wage, along with every other country in the European Union, because we believe that those who work for a living should be paid a living wage. In other countries, a minimum wage has been used to narrow the gender pay gap. Even Winston Churchill supported the idea as long ago as 1909, rightly arguing that
We shall support the standards that have already been introduced by the best employers. Marks and Spencer, for instance, has banned zero-hours contracts, as has the TSB. We are determined to see the kind of regulation that supports, and does not stifle, the standards of our most successful businesses. We shall end the Government subsidy of poverty wages by introducing a minimum wage.
We shall staunch the flow of subsidy from the taxpayer to the sweatshop owner. The Government's obsession with competition under any circumstances means that, as a result of compulsory competitive tendering, every pound saved by the employer costs the taxpayer £2 in benefit paid out and tax not taken in. Those were the findings of an Equal Opportunities Commission survey.
The North Yorkshire dinner ladies had their pay cut and they were no longer paid a retainer. Their sick pay scheme was scrapped and their pension scheme was ended. That is the reality of compulsory competitive tendering for thousands of dedicated and hard-working women. That is not efficiency, but exploitation. It is not progress; it is a hark-back to the days that we should have been proud to have left behind. The Equal Opportunities Commission in Northern Ireland, in a recent report, called on the Government to halt the use of compulsory competitive tendering because of its impact on women's pay--[Interruption.]
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Morris):
Order.I have resisted intervening, but there has been no end of chattering, particularly on the Opposition Benches when the Minister was speaking, and now on the Government Benches while the Opposition--[Interruption.] Order.If the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Mr. Coombs) wants to say anything, he can say it outside. If not, he will remain quiet--I hope for the rest of the sitting.
Ms Jowell:
Yesterday, the Government tabled amendments to the Sex Discrimination Act 1986 and to the Equal Pay Act 1970. The first proposal is to allow compensation for unintended indirect discrimination. It is a bit late, however, because the tribunals are already ahead of the Government on that issue.
The second proposal relates to the Equal Pay Act 1970. It is intended to give tribunals that hear equal pay cases discretion as to whether to seek the evidence of independent job evaluation assessors. We believe that there are risks with that proposal, which may tilt the balance of advantage to the employers, who will still be able to commission their own independent witnesses to assess jobs and their comparators.
What will happen, for example, if the industrial tribunal members decide to dispense with an independent assessor and to do it themselves, and that is challenged by expert witnesses for the claimant or the respondent? Either the industrial tribunal will have to allow for the possibility of its judgment being overridden by someone with greater expertise, or there will be no place for the use of such experts. The EOC opposed that proposal in the Government's consultation document.
"I have to borrow money from my mother for my bus fare and lunch . . . My mother works part time in a supermarket and doesn't earn much herself, but she does not want me to be poor".
"decent conditions make for industrial efficiency and increase rather than decrease competitive power".
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