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5.53 pm
Ms Jean Corston (Bristol, East): As other hon. Members have said, last September the United Kingdom signed up to the platform for action at the fourth world conference on women. The signatories to that conference reaffirmed their commitment to
- "Promote women's economic independence, including employment, and eradicate the persistent and increasing burden of poverty on women by addressing the structural causes of poverty through changes in economic structures".
But far too many women in this country, and throughout the world, are on low and unequal pay.
In this country, 2.3 million people earn less than£3.50 an hour and three quarters of them are women. Some 800,000 women earn less than £2.50 an hour and women are twice as likely as men to be low paid. Despite the fact that, on average, women are now said to receive 79 per cent. of men's pay, many women's pay is as low as 63 per cent. of men's. A woman hairdresser generally earns about £130 a week; her male counterpart is paid £159. A woman sales assistant takes home £155 a week; a man doing the same job receives £195. In 1994, 559,000 women were doing two jobs and running their homes in order to make ends meet.
As the hon. Member for Batley and Spen (Mrs. Peacock) rightly said, women are remarkably skilled--and not just in crisis management. If they have run a home, had a job and
brought up two or more children--as many of us have--they learn about crisis management, budgeting, long-term planning, dispute resolution, conflict avoidance and critical path analysis. Some big companies spend vast amounts of money on training and instilling those skills in their senior managers. But those skills, as women's skills, are not regarded as particularly valuable--that is a great loss to business and society.
It is not right to say that women work for pin money. When I was first married, most women did not work, but most men earned a wage that allowed them to support their wives and children and pay the mortgage. Increasingly, as wages are driven down, women have to work. Many women say to me, "You were lucky to have that choice.It is not available to me. I had to go back to work as soon as I possibly could simply to help my husband pay the mortgage."
Lone mothers fare particularly badly. The Department of Social Security's research report No. 25, of 1994, is entitled "Lone Parents and Work". That Government report found that nearly all lone parents are women; only 23 per cent. of them are in full-time work and of those with a child under five, only 9 per cent. are in work. The typical net earnings of those women amount to £130 a week and one fifth of them in full-time jobs take home less than £80. It is undoubtedly true that affordable child care is beyond their reach and they use all sorts of informal means to help them look after their children. We would not necessarily approve of all those methods, as they do not provide the sort of stimulation that children require in order to develop. Those women need a minimum wage and decent job training.
Mr. Coe:
In the past few minutes, the hon. Lady--like the hon. Member for Dulwich (Ms Jowell)--has laid considerable stress on the importance of a minimum wage. At what level would she introduce it?
Ms Corston:
What is important about a minimum wage is that it sets a floor under wages. Will the hon. Gentleman go to Falmouth and Camborne and tell good employers that they are subsidising bad employers through the taxation system by topping up low pay with family credit to the tune of £2 billion, which is an utter disgrace?
A minimum wage would not destroy jobs. There is no evidence of that anywhere. A minimum wage would put a floor under wages. The rate will be announced by the next Labour Government when we take office. The Tories do not tell the British public the truth about the economy. To find out whether that is right or wrong, one has only to remember the mess that Conservative Governments left for Labour Governments to mop up every time they left office.
Mrs. Lait:
Will the hon. Lady give way?
Ms Corston:
No. I should make progress. I shall give way later.
Poverty dogs women into old age. [Interruption.] The Minister may find that funny, but it is true. Women are much less likely to have occupational pensions. The career breaks that they take to bring up children make it difficult for them to build up entitlement to pensions, and
they often pay the reduced rate of national insurance. In many cases, their pay is so low that they cannot take out private pensions.
The 1975 scheme that was introduced by a Labour Government represented a partnership between the state and private sectors. When the scheme matured 25 years later, it would have substantially reduced the risk of poverty, especially for women and one of the blights of our age--the severe impoverishment of older women, especially those over 75--would have been overcome. Women were to be awarded pensions on the basis of paid work and their caring work in the family. Not only does the Pensions Act 1995 phase in an increase in women's pension age, but the withdrawal from SERPS will increase the numbers of women who are forced into poverty. From 1988, the 20-years rule was abandoned, so periods of low earnings because of caring responsibilities can no longer be ignored.
I refer the House to an early-day motion tabled this week by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mrs. Jackson). It relates to a woman in her constituency who is 59 years old and has married for the second time having previously been married for 22 years. Her second husband is nine years younger than her, so she will have no entitlement to a pension until she is 75. Had she not married him, she would be entitled to £19 a week on the basis of her first husband's contributions. During 22 years of marriage, she looked after the home and cared for four children while paying a reduced stamp. By the age of 75, she will have lost £14,000. That is a huge sum of money for older women on low pay.
One of the greatest problems is that women are not treated as individuals in their own right for pension purposes, but as adjuncts to their husbands or men with whom they have live-in relationships.
At Beijing the Government reaffirmed a commitment to the
but we are the only European Union country not to have a commitment to parental leave.
The all-party group on parenting, of which I am an officer, heard evidence for four weeks in the summer of 1994. At panel hearings, we consulted a broad spectrum of individuals and organisations representing parents, businesses, banks and the Churches. They all said how important it was to involve men in caring for children.
One of our recommendations was for parental leave. That was endorsed by the Conservative Members on the all-party group who saw evidence of the need for it. The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of Public Service, the hon. Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts), who was on the panel, was also committed to that statement. It was unfortunate for him that he was appointed a Whip on the day that the report was published. I appreciate that it must have caused him some embarrassment, but he supported the recommendation at the time.
One of the most imaginative documents that I saw was produced in 1985 by the Swedish Government, who stated that they had the responsibility not only to increase the participation of women in the labour market on an equal basis, but to ensure that children were not located in a world of women. They stressed the importance of labour market measures to enable men to discharge their responsibilities as fathers and carers, because that was good for men, children and families.
If the responsibility for children is to be shared more equally, there has to be decent and affordable child care. The Government's nursery vouchers are likely to threaten provision for three-year-olds in the local authority sector. I recently met governors and parents--primarily women--at a nursery school called The Limes in my constituency. It is currently run by Avon county council and from next month it will be run by the Bristol unitary authority. Those people were concerned that the nursery education provided for three-year-olds through the "high scope" scheme, which encourages self-discipline, co-operation and an imaginative approach to learning, may well be threatened by the provision of vouchers for four-year-olds. Those vouchers are likely to help only the better-off. I welcome Labour's commitment to nursery education for three and four-year-olds.
Mrs. Gillan:
Will the hon. Lady give way?
Ms Corston:
No. The Minister spoke for nearly 50 minutes and the Government will have the opportunity to reply to the debate. I have only a short speech, although I may give way later if the Minister will listen.
The Beijing declaration also stated that we were determined to
However, the fear of crime among women is reaching massive proportions. The 1992 British crime survey showed that 49 per cent. of women feel unsafe walking alone at night, seven out of 10 women lock their car doors when driving alone during the day and at night and two thirds of women are afraid of parking in multistorey car parks. A 1994 MORI poll shows that four out of five women said that their fear of crime had "increased a lot" in recent years.
"equal sharing of responsibilities for the family by men and women",
"prevent and eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls".
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