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Ms Rosie Winterton (Doncaster, Central): Will the hon. Lady give way?
Mrs. May: No, I have said that I want to make some progress. I am sure that there will be plenty of opportunities to allow interventions later, which I shall take.
Prior to the election, Labour promised a Minister for Women with full Cabinet status. Many assumed that that meant a Cabinet Minister with responsibility just for women; it certainly seemed to be a promise for a Minister for whom women would be their sole concern. As the Labour party said in "New Labour for Women",
After much to-ing and fro-ing, the Prime Minister appointed a separate junior Minister for Women, the hon. Member for Deptford, who is also in her place. It appeared that the Prime Minister had recognised the importance of the job. But wait--he had left it so late that there was not enough money to pay any other Minister a full ministerial salary, so the Minister for Women was unpaid. What message did that send about how the Government viewed the importance of women and issues of importance to them? More significantly, what message did it send to women who are still fighting for equal pay?
After a year in which much continued to be promised to women, but during which the Secretary of State's main claim to fame on women's issues was cutting the lone-parent benefit premium, the two Ministers for Women were sacked. What is in their place? Cabinet responsibility for women has moved to the House of Lords. We all know what the Government think of the House of Lords. What does that say about the importance of women in their policy agenda?
The Minister for Public Health now responds to debates on women's issues in this House. Once again, responsibility for women's issues is not a Minister's sole responsibility, as many felt Labour had promised prior to the election, but merely one of the areas in a Minister's portfolio. Indeed, the list of responsibilities of the Minister for Public Health numbers 32. Where do women's issues come on that list? Do they come first, second or, perhaps, third? No, women's issues rank 32nd--bottom of the list.
In November, the Ministers for Women attempted to re-launch the women's unit. In their glossy brochure, "Delivering for women: Progress so far", they listed 18 measures to aid women. Of those 18, there was one strategy, one sub-committee, one initiative, one unit which was not exclusively for women, a new deal which is not working, a minimum wage which will cost jobs, and 12 promises of things to come. That is not about delivering for women; that is still about promising for women. That is not about action rather than words; that is about words and words and no action.
Let us look in a little more detail at the Government's policy actions for women, as they describe them. Once again, they pay lip service to women. Plenty of press releases claim to deliver for women, but actions speak louder than words. The Government have so far failed to deliver across so many areas of policy--be it the scheme to get lone parents back to work, which has been an expensive failure, plans to cut widows' benefit, or centralised employment policies, which, far from being family friendly, can only destroy jobs. In addition, the Deputy Prime Minister has attacked women who drive their children to school, and there has been a refusal to act on genetically modified crops and food.
Mrs. May:
It is an issue of great importance to women.
Yvette Cooper:
If the hon. Lady is so concerned about delivering for women, why will she not withdraw her opposition to the working families tax credit, which will make 700,000 women better off, and abandon her alternative proposal to introduce a tax hike for those 700,000 women?
Mrs. May:
I shall talk about the working families tax credit later. Far from delivering for women, that tax credit may put many families in a worse position in terms of wallet versus purse.
The Under-Secretary of State for International Development made a comment from a sedentary position when I mentioned genetically modified crops and food. He may say "Oh, no" in that tone, but food safety issues strongly influence women when they decide what to feed their families, and beef--
Mr. Foulkes:
Beef on the bone.
Mrs. May:
Beef not on the bone--which was the result of the Government's decision, and their failure to allow women to decide for themselves what to feed their own families.
Lorna Fitzsimons:
Does the hon. Lady accept Labour Members' incredulity at being lectured on the importance of food safety by representatives of a party that presided over the biggest disasters in food health and food safety that any Government in living memory have presided over?
Mrs. May:
That intervention does not deserve a response.
One message is clear: the Government have not listened to women, and their priorities show more about their own priorities than about women's priorities.
I shall now discuss several specific issues. I shall not touch on all those that the Minister touched on, but I know that my hon. Friends who will be aiming to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, later in the debate will raise other issues.
Let us consider welfare issues. Labour came to power promising to cut the welfare budget by cutting the cost of economic and social failure. Labour adopted as a key policy the welfare-to-work campaign, and within that the aim of returning lone parents to the work force. The Government therefore introduced the new deal for lone parents as part of that welfare-to-work campaign.
The pilot scheme was a dismal failure. Less than a quarter of those lone parents who were invited to participate had an interview. Of those, nearly a quarter did not participate in the scheme and, overall, only 5 per cent. of those invited to participate got a job. We were told that things would get better when the scheme was extended nationwide. The Government are very good at promising that things will get better, but they are not good at delivering better things and better results.
In questions to the Secretary of State for Social Security earlier, it was made absolutely clear that the new deal for lone parents has an overall success rate, not of 5 per cent., as in the pilot scheme--which we were told would get better--but of only 3.8 per cent.
Of course, we welcome anyone finding a job andgetting back into the workplace when they want to, but of 163,000 lone parents invited to participate in the new deal so far, only 6,000 have jobs. The scheme has cost £200 million, so each job has cost about £15,000--and it is not even clear that the people who have got jobs under the scheme would not have got them anyway. In each year between 1995 and 1997, about 40,000 lone parents found work--under a Conservative Government. Two years into the Labour Government's new deal for lone parents, only 6,000 have found jobs under the new deal. The new deal is proving to be an expensive failure--failure for Government and failure for women.
Judy Mallaber (Amber Valley):
Will the hon. Lady visit my local jobcentre, in Alfreton, where the new deal for lone parents has now been rolled out, and where I talked, a couple of weeks ago, to the lone parent adviser? In response to the initial letters that she sent out, 30 people came to a meeting, and she has now obtained jobs for 17 of those lone parents.
Mrs. May:
I am interested in the experience that the hon. Lady has set out. I note that she did not say how many letters were sent to people.
Mrs. May:
Sixty letters, and half of those who were sent a letter came to a meeting and now 17 have jobs. Overall, of 163,000 people who have been invited--
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Ms Margaret Hodge):
Pathetic.
Mrs. May:
What is pathetic is the result that the Government are getting from their new deal for lone parents. It is proving to be an expensive failure. It is failing to deliver for women and failing for the Government.
"The minister for women will ensure that women's interests are taken into account in all policy making, having power to scrutinise all major legislation to examine its impact on women."
We even had the somewhat unedifying sight of the hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Janet Anderson) telling women that they would get more sex under Labour. What happened in reality? After the election, responsibility for women was given to the then Secretary of State for Social Security, the right hon. Member for Camberwell and Peckham, who is in her place--Cabinet responsibility for women, but hardly sole responsibility for women.
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