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7.27 pm
Barbara Follett (Stevenage): I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak in the debate on the last international women's day of the 20th century. This has been the century of women, just as the 15th was the century of exploration and the 18th the century of industrial revolution. In this century, the revolution has been in women's lives. A hundred years ago there were no women engineers, no women professors, no women managing directors or women MPs, let alone women Speakers, Chief Whips or Leaders of the House. A hundred years ago, women did not even have the vote. Then, as now, there were many talented and entrepreneurial women, but their abilities were wasted and their ambitions stifled by a seemingly monolithic social order.
Women today still have a number of glass ceilings to break, including that of leader of the Liberal Democrat party; 100 years ago they were still on the floor. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Ms Jowell) said, women's lives have changed beyond recognition. I know that she, like me, is proud that the Labour party, which came into being with the century, has played its part in ensuring that those changes are reflected in the laws of our land.
It was the 1945 Labour Government--who, like the 1997 Labour Government, contained a record number of women--who brought in the maternity allowance in the
Beveridge reforms of 1948. It was the 1974 Labour Government who made formal provision for maternity leave in their Employment Protection Act 1975. In 1997, it is the Labour Government who are increasing that maternity leave from 14 to 18 weeks and introducing--for the first time in our country--the right to parental leave and time off for family emergencies.
Those new provisions recognise the importance of women in the workplace and the importance of men in the family--better for women and much better for us all. Men--not just retiring Conservative Members--need to spend more time with their families. Research into underperforming boys has shown that the root of the problem is the boys' unwillingness to learn to read because they consider reading too girlie--too unmanly. That is because they are generally read to by their mothers or by their primary school teachers, who on the whole are women. Almost never are they read to by their fathers or by other men. They rarely see men or their fathers reading anything at all except newspapers. Families definitely need fathers and I am proud to be serving on a Committee that is considering a Bill that translates recognition of that fact into law.
We have heard today about how the Government are delivering for women in this country and for women in developing countries throughout the world. The minimum wage, the working families tax credit, the sure start programme and the national child care strategy have all been mentioned. With my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Mrs. Cryer), I am pleased to say how much the national child care strategy means to me personally as a mother of three and a grandmother of two. I was one of those women who in the early 1980s sent a son to school even though he did not look very well because I needed desperately to keep my job. I was called to the school later in the day, and a day later he was diagnosed as having meningitis. He hung between life and death for two days. Fortunately, he is now a man of 23. If he had died, I do not think that I could ever have forgiven myself. We put women in that position every day of their lives in this country.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, West (Valerie Davey) so tellingly recounted, the numbers of women elected to the House in the past 80 years have been pitifully small. It was not until 1983 that the number of women in the House exceeded 5 per cent. of the total membership. When Parliament was dissolved in April 1997, that percentage had risen by four, to 9 per cent. On 1 May 1997, it doubled to 18 per cent. Meanwhile the number of women on the Conservative Benches fell from 18 to 13. It was only after the hon. Member for Beckenham (Mrs. Lait) came to the House after a by-election that the number rose to 14. Only three Liberal Democrat women Members and two women Scottish Nationalist Members were returned. It is clear that it was the 101 Labour women who made the difference.
In opposition, the Labour party made a huge effort to ensure that women were selected in seats which they had a chance of winning. I find it unbelievable that Opposition Members cannot accept that on both sides of the House we have had hundreds of years of men-only shortlists, which owed much more to Buggin's turn than to merit; few of us have acknowledged that today. I applaud the efforts that the Labour party made to overcome Buggin's turn. I am glad to see that in government we are
committed to righting this democratic deficit, not merely to promote equality but to promote women's participation in the political process.
Women throughout the country, especially outside the House but including some of us inside it, find the way in which we debate the issues that we care about--the economy, education and the health service--demeaning. They feel that it involves a lot of shouting but little doing. If we really want to involve more people, including women, in the political process, we shall have to reform it. I am delighted that the Government have made a start. I am glad to say that the new Assemblies in Scotland and Wales will be horseshoe-shaped and will work far more family-friendly hours than we currently enjoy.
Although the same cannot be said for the reformed House of Lords, I am confident that the current number of women in that place--7 per cent. of the total membership--will rise. It is the upper Chamber which keeps the British Parliament so low in the league table of women's representation. Yes, we are above France, but the French are so desperate that they are thinking of amending their constitution to ensure that the law encourages women to participate in public life. However, we are below countries such as Kuwait and Korea, which are not known for their women-friendly policies. The Labour party is committed to encourage the principle of a 50:50 ratio of women and men in public appointments. The number of women appointed to public posts has risen by 7 per cent. in the 20 months that we have been in office.
Mrs. Teresa Gorman (Billericay):
The hon. Member for Stevenage (Barbara Follett) said how much she welcomes the 101 women Labour Members who have entered the House following the general election, which she informed us had made the difference in this place. I find it difficult to understand what the difference has been as a result of additional female talent coming into this place. There have been occasions when women Labour Members have all sat on their hands, robotic-like, not even being prepared to support one of their colleagues. I remember witnessing the slaughter of the right hon. Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), who was attacked for her policies that were altering the legislation applying to women, which I thought had been reasonably well thought out. Hardly one of the women Labour Members would do a thing to support the right hon. Lady on the occasions when she sat in her place as lonely as a cloud.
There is no point in looking at the width; it is the quality that matters. If women are to justify their increased numbers in this place, they must try to decide what issues really matter in improving the position of women in our society and then to do something about them. For example, if Labour women Members were collectively to go and sort out the Lord Chancellor on matters such as
the number of women judges, I am sure that they could frighten him to death. If that were to happen, we might see some more women judges appointed.
Ms Blears:
Would the hon. Lady like to tell us what she achieved, as a supporter of the Conservative Government for 18 years, to increase the number of women in public life?
Mrs. Gorman:
I do not think that that is the point. However, with my colleagues I went and sorted out our own Lord Chancellor. We persuaded him to introduce several changes in legislation bearing on children and matters relating to cohabitation, for example. On those occasions we had an impact. There is no point in calling for more women in the House unless those women will act independently, individually and in support of the issues that they claim are still waiting to be sorted out.
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