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Ms Ryan: Or by having the right wife.

Mrs. Gorman: Perhaps by having the right wife--that, too. We need women as Members of the House because half the population are women. Most of the legislation passed by the House these days concerns matters of primary interest to women, especially health, education and social welfare. We spend the majority of our budget on those issues--not on war and defence, as we did in the old days. Government was largely about defence and foreign affairs and, even today, the Chamber fills up with the chaps when we are talking about such things. However, that is not where the bulk of the Government's concern lies and we should have more women in the House for that reason.

On two occasions I have introduced Bills calling for an equal number of men and women Members to be achieved through dual lists, with constituencies voting for a man and for a woman. So far as I know, that idea originated with George Bernard Shaw and has been pushed for many years by the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn). In that respect, we would make progress if the women on the Labour Benches were genuinely interested in more women being elected to the House, not on a temporary basis, which is the basis on which many of the Labour women Members are here, but permanently. Although I share the interest in more women being elected to the House, I do not want them to be sent here artificially.

Jackie Ballard: Although a change was made in this House in 1997, is the hon. Lady aware that the legislatures with the highest proportion of women Members are in Scandinavian countries, which have a form of proportional voting? Would she support that form of voting to get more women into Parliament?

Mrs. Gorman: I do not want a half-baked system of proportional representation or women's lists, but change, once and for all. I want dual lists so that each constituency can choose a man and a woman--not doubling up on numbers, but twinning of candidates. I have presented such Bills to the House and hon. Members can read the technical details in Hansard.

I challenge the women on the Labour Benches to make a true impact on the ability of women to progress, without forgetting the fact that what happened under the previous Government provided the best role model that women have yet had in politics. We had the first woman Prime Minister, whose achievements were mammoth. She rescued this country from the doldrums of a socialist Government--there was a strike every other day of the week, which is only one example of something that she

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cured--and brought this country to such a level of prosperity that the women on the Labour Benches have good jobs, women own cars and control industries. Their progress is rapid because of the legislation that the Conservative party introduced. Let us see what the women on the Labour Benches can achieve during their term in office.

7.56 pm

Caroline Flint (Don Valley): I welcome the opportunity to take part in the debate. In last year's debate I was the last Back-Bench speaker. I had three minutes, which I devoted to the important issue of domestic violence. That issue has been raised today and I hope to touch on it later.

It is important to say to people in the Gallery and those watching us on cable television that the debate has been initiated because this is international women's day. We are concentrating our minds and our ideas on the issues affecting women throughout the world. That is not to say that contributions on issues affecting women have not been made by hon. Members on both sides of the House in the year since we last celebrated international women's day--and I am sure that such contributions will continue to be made during the next 12 months.

Earlier in the debate, I was called "stupid" by the hon. Member for Lichfield (Mr. Fabricant), who has left the Chamber, although he gave notice that he would have to do so. I was making a point about child care and those who work in that field, which we all have to address. For too long, work involving care has been undervalued and given low status. Correspondingly, that has affected the premium at which the work done by such people is valued and, therefore, the rate at which they are paid.

This country is going through a transition in respect of addressing the needs of parents who require child care. I hope that, during that transition, we reassess the role of the people, predominantly women, who work with children, care for the elderly and work in other areas of care. It is about time that we put a premium on such care and recognised it. We should respect those workers and we should also hope to achieve the best quality of care for children or elderly people who are being looked after.

My satisfaction at being part of the new Labour Administration is that we have tackled a number of issues that predominantly affect women on low incomes. To sum up a proportion of the debate, if there was a general election tomorrow and, for some reason, the Conservative party won, we could be certain that it would get rid of the national minimum wage and part-time workers' rights, say no to statutory holidays and undermine the child care strategy that has been developed. That strategy has been welcomed by every child care organisation in which I have been involved. I was chair of a national child care organisation for four years before I became a Member of Parliament. All those policies would be undone by a Conservative Government.

There is still a barrier, especially in manual work. In certain professions, some of the institutionalised segregation has gone over the years, but in manual work there is still rigid segregation between men and women. I believe that that is why women still earn only 80 per cent. of the hourly pay of men, and 72 per cent. of their average weekly pay.

That economic picture leads me to the more fundamental relationship between family and work, for two reasons. We must ask ourselves why women end up

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with all the part-time work, with broken working lives and low or non-existent pensions. That is due first to the distribution of family--and parental--responsibility, and secondly to an uneasy partnership between men and women.

I know that I can go out, pick up a magazine from the shelf of any newsagent and, probably, find examples of new men who are parenting, working from home and challenging traditional roles. Those, however, are merely crumbs of comfort. Perhaps there are more choices for middle-class, highly educated women. We should celebrate the fact that some women have broken into different fields, and that such women have more choices--they have financial independence, their own cars and can employ cleaners, hopefully paying at least the national minimum wage. That, however, is just a small segment of the wider picture. Women overwhelmingly perform the household organisation tasks; women overwhelmingly deal with schools and doctors; women take part-time work in order to balance employment with looking after their families.

We all want women to be able to make choices, but pre-set parameters ensure that economic choices favour men, while domestic responsibilities fall on women. That must be challenged. I have referred to an uneasy partnership. Reference has been made to domestic violence, and it is to the credit of all the women's organisations that formed the refuge movement that so much progress has been made in that regard. I am pleased, however, that we now have a Government who are finally producing a national strategy. Although domestic violence is known about, there is little evidence of its eradication from relationships between men and women.

I must now declare an interest: I am a parliamentary adviser to the Police Federation. When considering local budgets, the Government must ensure that resources are available to support police stations containing domestic violence suites. Much work has been done over many years to provide a sensitive service in that regard, and we want the police to be able to continue to do the job well.

The uneasy partnership--as I term it--between men and women is partly a product of the sexual revolution. As a feminist, I can say that a fundamental tenet of the sexual revolution was women taking control of their own bodies. The personal became political: it was a case of "our bodies, ourselves". We can learn all the top sex tips from women's magazines, and wherever we look British society is more sexualised, but there are 10 times as many teenage pregnancies in the United Kingdom as there are in Holland, and many young mothers will become young grandmothers. As a feminist, I think we should address that.

The problem is not just young parenthood, but a high rate of failure to establish solid relationships, or even to get men to pay for their pound of flesh. As we enter the 21st century, there is still considerable evidence that men take and leave what they want from women--and the Child Support Agency has failed to scratch the surface. I say that although I have a good deal of case work from men who have been treated badly by the CSA when its administration has gone wrong. The number of such cases does not equal those of women who have been abandoned to look after their children alone, left in poverty by men who should take responsibility for fathering children.

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Unfortunately, a large number of young women who are engaged in sexual activity--and that is the reality--have not mastered their own fertility or any control in their relationships. For me, the concept of "our bodies, ourselves" was a metaphor for the ability to control all aspects of one's life. By controlling when they became pregnant, women could control their working lives and education, influence their earning power and maximise their happiness by planning their families if and when they wanted them. However, as my right hon. Friend the Minister said earlier, there is a significant vulnerable group of young women. Disaffection at school among boys can manifest itself in low self-esteem, truancy and criminal activity, but among girls such low self-esteem often leads to early sexual relationships and pregnancy.

Members of that vulnerable group are becoming parents before their education is completed, without solid relationships, with poor parental support and facing a possible 10 years or more out of the labour market, dependent on benefits. Such women often become dependent on boy friends to provide occasional luxuries. They are likely to have more children in difficult circumstances, and, crucially, are likely to have daughters who follow the same pattern of young parenthood, low achievement and abusive relationships. There are a number of young women in such circumstances who try their best, are good mothers and go on to succeed; but the evidence shows that a large proportion are left alone and isolated. Certainly, the fact that there are grandparents of 30 and parents of 14--as there are in my constituency--represents not a triumph for feminism, but a challenge.

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