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Westminster Hall
Thursday 10 March 2005
[Mr. David Chidgey in the Chair]
Working, Caring and Life Balance
Motion made, and Question proposed, That the sitting be now adjourned.—[Vernon Coaker.]
2.30 pm
Mr. David Chidgey (in the Chair): Before the debate starts, I advise colleagues that we are expecting votes in the Chamber this afternoon, probably at about 4.30 pm. I am not yet aware how many votes there will be, but I propose to suspend the sitting when the Division bell first rings until 10 minutes after the last vote is called in the debate on the Irish issue.
The Deputy Minister for Women and Equality (Jacqui Smith) : It is a pleasure to open today's debate, not least because it links in with international women's day and is therefore an appropriate topic for discussion. The inspirations for international women's day were the efforts of female American garment workers who staged protests against inhuman working conditions on 8 March 1857, and the women who in 1908 marched through New York demanding shorter working hours, better pay, the right to vote and an end to child labour. Although we have come a long way on many of those issues, women in the United Kingdom still have concerns about equal pay and working hours, particularly the balance between paid working hours and the even more precious, although unpaid, hours that we spend outside work caring for our families.
The challenge now is to ensure that women have real choices in their lives: the choice to be able to balance the demands of their family and their career; the choice to aim for challenging and fulfilling jobs if they wish rather than having to settle for lower-paid, lower-skilled jobs when they are capable of so much more; the choice of affordable quality child care, available when they need it most at times that fit in with their working patterns; and choice on who takes time out to care for children, because joint maternity leave and flexible working patterns allow us to share care between partners.
By giving women choice, we are also giving employers the choice of a wider spectrum of talent, skills and experience to employ, retain and develop to the full potential. At a time of intense global competition, with technological change and consumer demands in the private sector and the need to develop flexible, high-quality public services, we must make the most of everyone's talents. We need to do more to break down barriers in the labour market. By 2010, there will be an additional 2 million jobs in the UK economy, 80 per cent. of which will be filled by women. The UK will need to draw on all available sources of untapped economic potential to continue to grow and prosper.
Women's experiences in the workplace have changed over time. In the days of the first marches for women's rights in the mid-19th century, 30 to 40 per cent. of
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women were in employment, but half of them worked in domestic service, and most of the rest worked in horrendous conditions providing a flexible, cheap and adaptive work force for factories and sweatshops. Invention then played its part and, in the late 19th century, the typewriter gave women a new skill and a job outside the home. Then, during the first and second world wars, women working in factories as part of the war effort found themselves a place as active members of society.
The 1960s and 1970s heralded a new age in the fight for equality. However, the struggle was long and uphill. For example, up to the early 1970s, even in civil service departments, such as the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, women had to resign on marriage. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, more women went out to work but, throughout the United Kingdom, mothers had to make stark choices: return to work early and miss out on arguably the most important first year of a child's life or stay at home with the children, but then face the difficult task of trying to re-enter the labour market at a later stage.
Maternity leave and pay were limited. Part-time employment opportunities were rare or available only in low-skilled, low-paid occupations. There were no benefits for fathers or adoptive parents and the term "flexible working patterns"—never mind the practice—was practically unheard of. That meant that, for many women, caring responsibilities rested firmly at their door impacting on their career progression, their pension rights and their pay.
What has changed? I am proud that, since 1997, the Government have introduced the biggest ever package of measures to balance work and family life. We are nearly doubling maternity pay and extending maternity leave. We are giving fathers paternity leave for the first time; we understand the important role that they play in the raising of their children. We are giving both parents of young or disabled children the right to request flexible working arrangements.
Julie Morgan (Cardiff, North) (Lab): I support strongly what my right hon. Friend the Minister is saying about the benefits that have been introduced. Recently, the Equal Opportunities Commission in Wales carried out research among small and medium-sized businesses. It showed that those businesses have great difficulty in managing pregnancy and maternity leave in the workplace. The majority of businesses in Wales are small. Does my right hon. Friend have any comments to make about how small businesses can be helped to manage those rightly earned benefits that parents now have in the workplace?
Jacqui Smith : My hon. Friend makes an important point. As we develop new provisions, we need to—as we did with the flexible working provisions—work alongside employers to make sure that, while we make change, we do so in a way that respects the burdens that may be placed on them.
My hon. Friend referred to the EOC's inquiry into pregnancy discrimination. However, we can do more to make sure not only that mothers understand their rights during pregnancy, but that employers understand their responsibilities. As we suggested in the working families
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consultation document to which I shall refer later, we could open up better routes for employers to communicate with mothers even during their maternity leave and perhaps gain more certainty about when people will return from maternity leave. That would be an important way in which to help employers to cope with what undoubtedly will be some disruption in their businesses. Employees must clearly understand, too, that, unless we can maintain decent working conditions and give women the opportunity to return to work after having children, that will disbenefit both mothers and businesses. There is a variety of ways in which we can make sure that the worries rightly raised by my hon. Friend are dealt with.
I have emphasised that the way in which we have introduced flexible working legislation is not only about helping families to find solutions that fit their individual needs, but giving parents and employers the tools with which to work together to find solutions that will benefit all concerned. By all accounts, such a development was long overdue. In the first year of the legislation, nearly 1 million parents have changed their working hours in agreement with their employers to suit their family needs. That legislation has driven even further cultural change and change in practice, with seven out of 10 employers being willing to consider requests from employees for flexible working arrangements.
Ms Karen Buck (Regent's Park and Kensington, North) (Lab): Can my right hon. Friend explain the gender breakdown of the 1 million parents who are seeking flexible working arrangements? She may be aware of the research undertaken by the Fawcett Society, which shows that, unless we move further and faster towards encouraging fathers to take full advantage of such provisions, we may inadvertently end up trapping women even further in the double bind of combining employment and caring responsibilities. She has mentioned fathers, but could she say a little more about what we might be able to do ensure that it is not just women who have to carry the burden of the dual role?
Jacqui Smith : I shall come back to fathers later. Of the nearly 1 million parents who have gained from the first year of flexible legislation, the vast majority are mothers. It is often not fully understood that this right is open to both mothers and fathers. We need to do more to ensure that fathers are given support to enable them to take responsibility for caring. I agree with my hon. Friend that that is an important way in which we need to make progress.
I was going to touch on the benefits not just for families and children but for business from the ability to work more flexibly. If parents can remain in the work force, companies and businesses clearly benefit. They benefit from retaining key skills and experience. The company reduces its turnover. Absenteeism and recruitment costs are down too. The work force are more committed and contented, which in turn increases productivity. In the long run, more profitable companies mean a healthier economy and greater prosperity for us all.
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There are more women in work today than ever before. More than 1 million women have found work since 1997. With 14 million now working in Britain, we have one of the highest female employment rates in the world, but we have also had to take action to ensure that work pays. Women are the biggest beneficiaries of the national minimum wage. They number around 1 million, and they will see it increase this October from £4.85 to more than £5.
Some 5.9 million families and low-income households are benefiting from the tax credits introduced in April 2003. Any family with children with an income of less than £58,000 will be eligible for some support. The lone parent employment rate stands at a record high: nearly 1 million and up nine percentage points since 1997, with 277,000 more in work than in 1997. We are committed to helping even more lone parents move into jobs through accessible tailored employment advice and the opportunity to gain skills.
Women are increasingly successful in business and in starting up their own businesses. There are now more women starting a business or becoming self-employed than ever before. There is more that we can do here too. That is why we have brought together successful women entrepreneurs to advise the Government on how we can reach our target of ensuring that one in five businesses is owned and run by women.
I was pleased on Tuesday to be able to host a reception at Lancaster house for women who had set up in business, those who support them and those who contribute to the national women's enterprise panel. It was—I hope that this is not an unparliamentary term—an extremely "buzzy" event. There was a lot of excitement and interest, and the commitment and enthusiasm that one finds from women who have started up and those who want to take that step into enterprise.
Despite the progress, there is still more that we need to do. Why is what has happened already not enough? It is not enough because we want to give every child the best start in life and to give parents and carers even more choice about how to balance their work and family life. It is not enough because we want to respond proactively to the changing work patterns and ensure that parents, particularly mothers, can meet their children's needs without sacrificing their future pay, pensions and career prospects. It is not enough because we have to acknowledge our changing demographics and accept that as people live longer, caring responsibilities change. In some families, mothers or fathers have to care for children at one end of the scale and for elderly or infirm relatives at the other. Broadening the criteria for flexible working could allow women and men with wider caring responsibilities the additional flexibility that they need.
That is why, last week, we launched our "Work and Families: Choice and Flexibility" consultation document. Our commitments outlined in that document will help us to deliver our vision for families, ensure that all children have the best start in life, respond to changing patterns of employment, and give parents more choice about how to balance work and family responsibilities. We want to hear first-hand from employers, employees, parents and carers on how we can get the detail right for the benefit of everyone.
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Ms Meg Munn (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab/Co-op): Does my right hon. Friend not agree that the issue is important for everyone, because any of us could at some time find that a close relative is in need of care or assistance, through an unforeseen illness, accident or the like? These policies will provide help for everybody, not just those traditionally seen as carers—that is, women of a certain age with younger children—but, potentially, the whole population.
Jacqui Smith : My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The policies recognise that, increasingly, the ability to work flexibly and to have time off in emergencies is of significance, and not just to those with young children, but more broadly across society. That is how we ought to address the ideal of how we need to organise our working and our lives outside work.
At the heart of the progress that we need to make, according to the consultation document, is the fact that we do not want to force women to return to work because of financial constraints before they choose to do so. That is not good for them, their families or their children. We want maternity pay increased to nine months in the first instance, and to cover the whole 12-month period by the end of the next Parliament, but we also want to give families the choice to decide how care is best shared.
My hon. Friend the Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North (Ms Buck) was right to emphasise the position of fathers, not only because of the care that they want to contribute, but because of the important message that that sends about caring being something that both genders do; it is not solely the responsibility of mothers. Fathers have told us that they want to play a greater role in bringing up their children, including during that crucial first year of a child's life. That is why we propose to make some of the extended maternity pay transferable to the father.
As I mentioned earlier, as a priority, we would like to extend the right to flexible working to those caring for elderly or sick relatives and older children. We estimate that there are around 5.3 million carers of working age, 3.5 million of whom both work full or part time and provide some form of unpaid care. Many carers struggle to balance their work and caring responsibilities, and often have to give up work altogether. Once that happens, many remain out of work for several years, and that makes it much harder for them to return to work later. Progress in that area would build on the action already taken through the national carers strategy, which was developed in 1999 with carers and the organisations that represent them.
The Government are committed to ensuring that good quality affordable and accessible child care is available to give those parents who wish to work, train or learn the opportunity to do so with the confidence that their children are being cared for in a safe and stimulating environment. It is clear that parents place their children first and want to be reassured that the provision that they are receiving is of the highest possible quality.
By 2010, if our plans go through, all families with children aged up to 14 who need it will have a child care place available for their children from 8 am to 6 pm all year round. That is not because many parents will want
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their children to be in child care from 8 am to 6 pm, but it is important that we develop more flexibility. On top of the 1.2 million extra child care places that have been created, we need to give flexibility to those whose children are in school, for example, for whom a bit of care before or after school can make a significant difference to whether and how they are able to work.
Sandra Gidley (Romsey) (LD): This child care place from 8 am to 6 pm would have been useful when I was a working parent, but I am still unclear who will provide it. Are the teachers expected to provide some sort of supervision? This often happens on school premises. I have spoken to head teachers who are concerned about that and say that there needs to be some overall supervision. Is the plan to increase the number of child-carers in some other way? Will the Minister elaborate on how this will be achieved?
Jacqui Smith : I am sure that the hon. Lady has examples in her constituency, as I do in mine, of sensible partnerships between a school and child care providers—possibly publicly funded, and sometimes privately funded—using school facilities. This provision is not about extending the teaching day, but is about using the facilities that are often in schools in partnership with other child care providers to ensure that those opportunities exist in, or close to, schools or are offered by schools working together to provide them.
There will need to be further investment—if that is what the hon. Lady is pressing me on. We have been willing to put considerable investment into child care and are committed to further investment, as the Chancellor made clear in the pre-Budget report, to ensure that we can develop not only the places, but the flexibility that is available to parents.
I hope that all the measures will allow women the opportunity to choose to work, if they wish to, but there is a lot more work to be done to ensure that women get a fair deal once they get to work, which is why we set up the Women and Work Commission, under the chairmanship of Baroness Prosser of Battersea. The causes of the pay gap—which is at the heart of the work of the commission—are not simple and it is essential that we understand how to crack them.
The commission's work on the pay gap and the reasons why women fall into it are important. Women particularly fall into low-paid occupations. The commission produced its interim report this week and acknowledged the Government's commitment to gender equality and the high-profile debate on child care and work-life balance issues, but it lays down some challenges for us, too. One issue identified in the report is that the pay gap is often affected by the sectors in which women work, which are predominantly the five Cs—cleaning, catering, caring, cashiering and clerical work. The commission plans to consider the reasons behind that occupational segregation—not that those jobs are not important—so that we move away from women being concentrated in a small number of lower-paid occupations.
The commission will consider in more detail the reasons behind occupational segregation—why men and women do different jobs—female access to so-called
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male jobs and what happens to women in those jobs. I look forward to the commission's final report and the conclusions of the Select Committee on Trade and Industry, to which I gave evidence earlier this week, which is carrying out an investigation into the link between occupational segregation and the pay gap. We welcome sound ideas on how the persistent issue of the gender pay gap can be tackled once and for all.
This debate gives us an important opportunity to consider what more we need to do to give every child the best start.
Sandra Osborne (Ayr) (Lab): I welcome the Minister's comments on dealing with the pay gap, but does she share my surprise about the number of women in Great Britain who are still sacked for being pregnant and is she aware of the campaign by the Equal Opportunities Commission, which has published research showing that 30,000 working women are sacked, made redundant or leave their jobs every year due to pregnancy discrimination? What are her views on that and what can the Government do about it?
Jacqui Smith : I am aware of that research and I am pleased that the Equal Opportunities Commission has focused some of its attention on pregnancy discrimination. Two undesirable elements are at work here. First, in some cases there is outright discrimination against pregnant women—that is clearly discrimination under sex discrimination legislation. Secondly, there is sometimes a lack of understanding both by women of their rights during pregnancy and by employers of their responsibilities; that links in with the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, North (Julie Morgan). We welcome the EOC's interim report, and we have responded to some of the recommendations. I look forward to the publication of the final report, and especially to its recommendations on what more we can do to address these issues, and the unacceptable discrimination against pregnant women that has been identified by my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr (Sandra Osborne). We will look carefully at recommendations on those issues.
I would now like now to draw my remarks to a conclusion.
Mr. David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op) rose—
Jacqui Smith : I thought I might invite another intervention by saying that.
Mr. Drew : I missed the first couple of minutes of my right hon. Friend's speech, and I apologise for that. Would she care to say something about the voluntary sector, which we commend? Those who work in it—men, as well as women—who are not volunteers but who are paid for their work are often among those who are most discriminated against, in that people assume that they can work longer hours for less money and that they can make up for whatever time needs to be made up through their own volunteering. Does my right hon. Friend agree that, as the voluntary sector grows, we must pay attention to that issue?
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Jacqui Smith : My hon. Friend is right that the voluntary sector makes a massive contribution—sometimes, of course, it makes it in areas such as child care and caring for others—and that both those who do paid work and those who do voluntary work within the sector make a massive contribution. We must address how we, as the Government, and how the public sector in general can provide not only better support but more coherence in our relationship with the voluntary sector, and thereby perhaps enable it to have more certainty of funding and greater ability to pay decent wages. That has been part of the work that has been developed through the compact initiative, as well as through a variety of other areas of work that the Government have done in looking at the important contribution made by the voluntary sector.
I was drawing my speech to a conclusion. I was saying that I hope that we will be able to consider in this debate how we can give every child the best start in life. How can we better support mothers and fathers, and give them real choices about how they balance their work and family life? How can we thereby support businesses by broadening the talent pool that is available, and by offering a wider choice of skills and experience? How, at the foundation of all of these endeavours, can we strive to create a future where everyone has the opportunity to maximise their potential?
2.58 pm
Ms Meg Munn (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab/Co-op): I am delighted to have an opportunity to participate in this important debate, which is in the same week as international women's day.
I welcome the Government's goal of providing 12 months' paid maternity leave by the end of the next Parliament, and in particular the proposals for a law to enable mothers to transfer part of their maternity leave and pay to fathers. That will help to give children the best start in life by providing parents with a choice about who wants or needs to be the main person looking after their new baby. It will also allow mothers to return to work earlier if that is required or what they wish to do. It also responds to the call by many fathers for them to be assisted to stay at home and care for their children in a way that is not generally possible.
This is a modern law that meets altered family patterns and gives greater equality to parents in the extremely important first months of their new child's life. More and more fathers want to play a greater role in those early years than their fathers were able to play. That can be enormously beneficial to the child. My right hon. Friend the Minister referred to the Department of Trade and Industry consultation document. It stated that when
"fathers play a greater role in bringing up children, this can lead to strong, positive educational effects later on in the child's life".
Last summer, I visited Denmark on holiday and was delighted to meet up with an old work colleague. He had married a Danish woman some years ago. They settled in Copenhagen and had three children. As everyone knows, the level of support for families in Denmark is higher than in this country and has been for many years—as are its tax levels, which he was less encouraging about. However, he particularly prized the ability that he and his wife had to spread the available
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maternity leave between them. They could choose the arrangement that made sense to them in their circumstances. He was just about to go on four months' leave following the birth of their latest child.
The introduction in December 1999 of the entitlement to 13 weeks' parental leave per child—albeit unpaid—was an important move towards giving fathers the opportunity to spend time with their children while they are young. That was further strengthened in 2003, when the Government introduced two weeks' paid paternity leave. However, family patterns are changing and in no area of life could it be more important to give parents a real choice about how they manage all the family's needs: the need physically to care for a child; the need to earn a living; and, importantly, the need for both parents to form an emotional bond with their child and to take an active part in their child's life, particularly in those important early years.
The Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers recently launched a campaign on supporting parents and carers. It is concerned that many new mums are being driven back to work too early because they cannot afford to take their full statutory maternity leave. It undertook a national survey and found that 78 per cent. of new mothers would have liked more time off with their new babies, but they went back to work an average six weeks before their statutory maternity pay ran out.
Ms Buck : Does my hon. Friend agree that polling evidence conducted by other organisations confirms that parents rank the need for flexible working entitlements when their children are in their teenage years very highly? I am sure that that applies in relation to other groups, too. It is right that we lay the foundations in early years. However, does she agree that one of our most important next stages is to support families whose children are in that difficult transition period of entering secondary school?
Ms Munn : My hon. Friend rightly spots that I have concentrated so far on the early years, and I shall continue to do so. However, the years that she mentions are important and an equivalent of a Sure Start for teenagers has been suggested. It would recognise the difficult challenges that families face at that time and examine how we can support parents in dealing with them. I said that any of us might need to work flexibly because of various caring reasons, be they family, illness, or age and disability as our parents or partners get older. The flexibility argument is important throughout.
According to the USDAW survey, a number of mothers felt that they needed to go back to work for financial reasons. Two thirds of those who went back early did so because they could not afford to stay off. The union found that the average cost of taking 12 months off was £7,000—a sum that is beyond the means of many workers. That does not just apply to mothers: fathers face the same economic dilemma. Every father who was surveyed wanted more paid paternity leave. They simply could not afford to take extra unpaid to leave to spend time with the newborn child. The ability for parents to share parental leave between themselves will offer many fathers more opportunities to spend time with their children.
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Of course, businesses, particularly small ones, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, North (Julie Morgan) noted, need to consider the effects on them of any changes to those rights. Many sectors of our economy rely on female workers—USDAW points directly to the retail sector—but with businesses getting at least 92 per cent. of the cost of statutory maternity pay from the Government, and with small businesses receiving more, cost should not be a major concern.
Research by the Equal Opportunities Commission shows that on average only 3 per cent. of any work force will be on maternity leave during a year. Last year, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr (Sandra Osborne) said, the commission reported that 30,000 women a year lose their jobs because of pregnancy. Women who are properly supported before and during maternity leave feel motivated to go back to work and to stay with the same employer, so there are benefits to businesses in well managed maternity leave. Retaining highly trained employees of both sexes is important in business, especially in today's economic climate, in which getting well trained staff is not always easy.
Again, we can look to the Scandinavian countries. We know that the provision of child care matters, but a child-friendly society also needs parent-friendly workplaces. There is evidence to show that family-friendly companies are more productive and economically successful. For example, Finland has achieved the enviable goal of becoming one of the most productive economies in the European Union, with high levels of female participation in the work force and the EU's highest birth rate. We spend a lot of time discussing the problem of pensions and how we will support an ageing population. We have a declining birth rate, and there is evidence to suggest that that is not a matter of choice for many families, but a matter of practicalities. By making it easier for families to manage work and home life, more will be able to choose to have the number of children that they want.
The key to many successful businesses is flexibility. Businesses that recognise that their staff have lives outside work are more likely to retain them. However, the issue is not just about economic success either for individual companies or for the country as a whole. Children are the future of communities. Britain is known for having a long-hours culture and for being a society that is not friendly to children. The proposals are an important step in changing that culture and our society. Recognising the individuality of families, work patterns, ages of children and existing support from extended family members, it is obvious that choice has to be central to supporting families in work. They are a key building block of our society, and a thriving economy enables not only families to have a good standard of living, but our society to afford the excellent public services on which we rely.
I welcome the publication of the DTI's consultation paper, aptly called "Choice and Flexibility", and I look forward to the aims becoming a reality for all families in Britain.
3.8 pm
Julie Morgan (Cardiff, North) (Lab): This important debate takes place in the week of international women's day and very soon after mother's day. In Wales, we also
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have St. David's day on 1 March, so in my mind the three are mixed up together and symbolised by a daffodil. I do not know why, but that is how I see it. This is a week in which we traditionally consider issues relating to women and all aspects of their lives, and this debate concentrates on the important subject of working, caring and how we cope with doing everything while juggling different tasks, as women have to do every day of their lives.
Before I cover that in depth, I want briefly to say how much the Government's policies since 1997 have improved the situation for women, not only in terms of work and the work-life balance, but in the many areas that affect women's lives. I want to mention in particular the huge steps that we have made on domestic violence, which has a big impact on all women's lives. On 8 March—international women's day—I was pleased to take part in an international video conference with other women MPs. We spoke to African women MPs about their experience of domestic violence, and it was a thrilling occasion. We found that we had so much in common. The issues were the same, and the same is true of balancing our lives, work and caring duties. Those are international issues, and it is good to consider what happens in other countries, particularly the Scandinavian countries, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Ms Munn) said. Those themes are being addressed all over the world.
When I was a councillor, I used to work closely with women and children and tried to expand child care in my ward. I tried to do all that I could to help with the balance of care for mothers and children in particular. I always thought of a carer as a mother of small children, as I think my right hon. Friend the Minister mentioned. The Government have done an enormous amount to help mothers of small children. Many of the benefits have been mentioned, such as increased maternity pay and leave, and the right to choose flexible working. That is not enough, as I think we would all acknowledge, but we have taken tremendous steps. My own two daughters, who both have small children, returned to work after benefiting from the extra maternity pay and leave, but they also felt that it was too soon to go back.
Ms Buck : I do not know whether my hon. Friend has had a chance to see the reports in today's newspapers of a survey carried out by New Woman magazine, which implies that the younger generation of women are more fearful of a future in which they have to combine work and child rearing than were those of us who went through that in the not-too-distant past. Does she agree that one of the tasks that we face is to do more to make life easier for the next generation and that we must also convey the message that there has been a great deal of change in the delivery of child care, maternity provision and so on? There is an alarming lack of awareness of some of the rights and entitlements that exist.
Julie Morgan : I have not seen those reports, but my hon. Friend is right because mothers, particularly young mothers, think that the improved provision has always been in place. They do not recognise the huge leap forward that we have made since 1997. It is our job to
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make them realise how far we have gone and how far we plan to go. We know from what the Minister said that the Government plan to extend maternity leave and to do an awful lot more for people in that position. Increasing awareness is important.
Until fairly recently, I always regarded a carer as a mother of small children. I had not taken on board the problem of caring for elderly parents, but sometimes things suddenly become real and personal. That can happen overnight, as I think my hon. Friend the Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North (Ms Buck) said. Five years ago, my situation changed literally over the course of one night, and I shall talk about my experiences to illustrate the difficulties and opportunities that such an occurrence can mean for us in our working lives.
My mother had a massive stroke, which left her profoundly disabled. She was unable to walk or do anything for herself, so I became a carer overnight. The change in my mother was profound, because she went from being an elderly but still very active individual to someone who was totally dependent on others. She was unable to do anything without relying on our support. We in turn have had to rely on the wonderful support provided by the national health service. A tremendous number of queries have been raised about the NHS, but the support that we have received has been fantastic.
We also had to rely on the caring and voluntary bodies, which my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) mentioned. We have been very dependent on carers. I support what he said about carers in the voluntary sector. They need more recognition, as do the caring professions. By "caring", I mean the huge body of people, usually women, who come into people's homes and give individual personal care in a loving and responsible way that cannot be matched. That is my experience, so I strongly support what he said. Their pay is low. They need to be recognised and to get more money.
I was in my first term as an MP when my mother had her stroke and I could not contemplate giving up at that stage. I also knew that my mother would not have wanted me to because, throughout her life, she had always been a great fighter for the underprivileged. She had set up a school for Gypsy Traveller children and had taught children with learning difficulties. I knew that she would want to support me and would want my work as an MP to continue. Therefore, for five years I, like many other millions of carers in the UK, have been faced with the tremendous difficulty of juggling a demanding job with the need to ensure that my mother is cared for and that the rest of the family cope with the situation that I leave behind at home.
When I am in Westminster, I depend on a team of people—carers, family and friends—and I am in constant touch with them. I know that women in jobs are often in that situation. They are carrying out their job, but thinking about what is happening at home, and make quick phone calls home to see that everything is okay. That call used to be to ask, "Have the children gone to school?", but now, in my case, it is to ask, "Has the carer arrived on time?" or something similar.
We get used to dealing with working while our lives are on different levels. That is the reality and a huge stress for many millions of people in the UK. I often feel
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that I am in two places at once: I am in Westminster, but also at home managing what is going on there. I know that that is a common experience. The carers can phone me any time they want to, day or night, and I have had to go home in the middle of the night twice to cope with situations that they could not cope with. I suppose that I am lucky to be in this job, where there is some understanding of what we have to cope with as individuals and some flexibility that enables me not to have to be bound to a nine-to-five job in the way that many people are.
Carers, particularly those who care for elderly people, often have broken nights. When I am at home, I have to get up many times in the night to deal with my mother. People do that when they have small children—we automatically do it when we have small children, but we know that that will come to an end. However, the strain that carers of elderly people experience in having to get up so many times in a night must be recognised. There should be more help available for carers in the nights as well as in the days.
Mrs. Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con): I appreciate the points that the hon. Lady makes, and she makes them well and from important personal experience. I have had a similar experience. Her point is important and often not recognised. There is an enormous emotional difference between being the carer of a small child who is happy, healthy, loving and lovable and who will grow up, and being the carer of an elderly parent whom the carer also loves, but whom they see degenerating before their eyes. The latter is much more difficult than the former and it is time that we as a society recognised that and gave the help and emotional support that is due.
Julie Morgan : I could not agree more. The first period of care—caring for young children—is a time of great hope, pleasure and enjoyment, but what most of us experience in the second period of care is much more of a strain. It may have its moments of hope and enjoyment, but it is very different from the earlier period. That should be recognised.
There are other things that carers commonly experience that we need to recognise and be understanding about, in particular the need to build in extra time before they can do anything. Again, it is a bit like taking out small children—we have to pack an extra bag, put the nappies in and make sure we have this and that. Many of us will have been through that. If the person being cared for is disabled and has to be moved into a wheelchair and the carer also has to ensure that they have everything ready before they go out, that requires extra time that other people do not need. It is sometimes quite difficult for society in general to understand that carers have to build in all those extra elements.
If, for example, I leave my mother at home and go to a meeting, my whole day is planned down to the last five minutes. I know that if I am delayed for five minutes anywhere, one of my carers will be kept five minutes beyond the time that she is supposed to leave. We fail to recognise such things until we experience them ourselves, and we then realise that we have to put that mass of arrangements in place to support us in doing the job that we want to do.
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My first-hand experience of being a carer has made me both more informed about what so many people experience and more determined to work on issues of equality to ensure that carers of older people get the rights that we now give to carers of small children. We need to value the contribution that carers make to society. It is estimated that they save the state £57 billion a year. Most caring goes unrecognised because people do not have additional help but just get on with it because it is their normal duty in life to do so. We must recognise the huge amount of unpaid caring and the uncomplaining nature of that care—most people just do it. The more help that we offer, and the more that we recognise the care that is taking place, the better it will be for carers.
As a result of my experiences, I especially support the new Carers (Equal Opportunities) Act 2004, introduced by my Welsh colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Dr. Francis), who also has personal experience of caring. It gives carers the chance to have their opportunities for work considered. Many have to work and care at the same time, so the Act is a big step forward. I also welcome the fact that a new all-party parliamentary group on carers has been set up by my hon. Friend, and I have joined it.
I welcome the new EOC-ICM poll on parents and carers, which shows overwhelming support for improving provision for carers and for state pension rights for people not in paid work because they are carers. It also shows support for extending the right to request flexible working to all parents and carers, and I am encouraged by the Minister's comments on that subject.
Even if I was not a carer in my private life, I would still support such provisions for carers in my public life. However, being a carer means that I have a personal connection and an understanding born of experience. Support for carers will grow even more strongly when the public are more educated about what caring is and what help is available. Debates such as this one, which gives us an opportunity to explore some of the issues, are good for educating the public and ourselves on what caring is all about.
I very much welcome the debate, and I am glad that it has given me the opportunity to talk about some of my personal experiences. I have had the good fortune of having an interesting, demanding and stimulating job as well as being a carer, and I have had lots of help and support. Many other carers have not had that help and support, and their opportunities have sometimes been cut short because of the caring role. I hope that we move towards creating a society in which everyone has the opportunity to fulfil their full potential. That should be our aim, and I hope that carers will be part of that move forward.
3.23 pm
Sandra Osborne (Ayr) (Lab): I am delighted to take part in this celebration of international women's day, which we have had now for the past few years. I have celebrated the day for many years through my former involvement with Women's Aid, where I worked for 16 years. We used to have a party every year; the House of Commons has not got to that stage yet, but perhaps that will happen one of these days.
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My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, North (Julie Morgan) referred to the progress made in the field of domestic violence. I applaud the Government, and also the Scottish Executive for the progress that they have made in Scotland. There is absolutely no doubt that that progress would never have been made without the work over the years of organisations such as Women's Aid, and I try to pay tribute to that work whenever possible.
I am pleased to take part in today's debate because it allows us to recognise the tremendous progress made in supporting parents and children and in accepting that women have the right to play their part in the public as well as the private sphere, where they still bear the overwhelming responsibility for caring. I acknowledge the very important part that women now play in the work force.
I want to concentrate particularly on child care, which is central to the mechanism for making a more realistic work-life balance. My hon. Friend the Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North (Ms Buck) referred to a report in today's paper that suggested young women were even more fearful than our generation were. All I can say is that if I had had the facilities available to my daughter today, I would have thought that I had died and gone to heaven. The situation is completely different from what it was when I brought up my first child 30 years ago, and even from what it was when I brought up my second child 21 years ago. I pay tribute to the Government for that. That is due not just to Government policy, but to social attitudes, which have changed a great deal—thank goodness—since those days.
In 1990, the Equal Opportunities Commission report, "The Key to Real Choice: an Action Plan for Childcare", stated:
"Women cannot enjoy genuine equality of opportunity unless they have access to day care facilities for their children. The complete inadequacy of current provision for both the under fives and dependent school age children is now probably one of the most important factors restricting many women's opportunities."
Good child care, as we know, benefits children and brings with it many advantages for them.
For most of my adult life, I have been involved in campaigning for affordable child care in relation to equal rights for women. I make no apologies for that, and I am very proud of what has been achieved. As I said, the situation is very different from what we had in the past. From the 1980s and 1990s to the present day, child care has been quite a political issue, partly due to the need for increasing numbers of women in the work force and, of course, partly owing to changing family patterns. As has been said, the UK lagged for many years behind other European countries in the provision of child care and in parental rights legislation.
In 1992, the European Commission made recommendations on child care in four main areas: services for children; leave arrangements for parents; making the environment, structure and organisation of work responsive to the needs of workers with children; and promoting the sharing of responsibilities for children between men and women. Very little progress was made on all that until relatively recently, although we have a long way to go in all those areas.
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Those recommendations reflected a desire for equal treatment for men and women, but also wider economic concern about the need for women in the work force. Hon. Members may or may not be surprised to learn that, in the west of Scotland, females will hold up to 53 per cent. of all employee jobs by 2010. We will be not only the majority of the population, but the majority of the working population. If that is increasingly to happen, and it would appear that the trend is unlikely to go into reverse, we must ensure that women's place in the work force is fair and equal, and not on a basis of exploitation of women, as has been the case in the past, when they were totally undervalued, in both the public and private spheres. Progress can be sustained only by efforts to reconcile work and family life, and I very much welcome the measures that the Government are taking in that regard.
For far too long, women who have chosen to fulfil a different or additional role, or who, more realistically, have had to work as an economic necessity, have had to find ways to juggle all their responsibilities, including having to make some kind of child care arrangement in the absence of Government support. We need to consider the concerns associated with the inadequate child care provision that we have had for many years, as they affect individual parents and children.
I carried out some research into child care provision while I worked with Women's Aid. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, North, I feel that we can learn a lot from the experiences of individual women and carers. I would therefore like to quote from my research into the case of a woman who came to the refuge that I worked at in Kilmarnock.
"Isabelle is 35 and has two children aged 9 and aged 5. She left her husband three and a half years ago due to physical, sexual and mental abuse, which had started on the second day of marriage and had escalated through the years. The attacks were also being witnessed by the children and they themselves were being abused. She had no family support in any real sense. When Isabelle left she went to Women's Aid who gave her refuge, space and support. She received income support, which seemed wonderful, as she had no idea whether or not she would receive anything and she frequently was given no money at all by her husband.
During the time in the refuge she had a job as a barmaid to earn money to save up for furniture for her new home. She did swaps with the other women in the refuge for child care. When she moved to her new home she advertised for a babysitter close to her flat. After a time she arranged a swap again with a neighbour who worked in a school. She watched the neighbour's four children and made their meal two evenings a week and the neighbour watched her two children in return. This arrangement was very stressful for her and the children. She also did another swap with a neighbour who she gave driving lessons to in return for babysitting. This fell through when she found the neighbour was inviting eight adults into her house while she was out, including people who had been charged with grievous bodily harm.
She then resolved to find a reliable babysitter and managed to do this, but the cost involved was prohibitive, and she could not afford it with the jobs she was doing: bar work, cleaning for an elderly woman and survey work for a magazine. She was forced to give up the jobs and this led to depression. She took in ironing to supplement her income support. She studied at home with the Open university and gave her place up at Glasgow university due to lack of child care. Isabelle wanted to work because she did not feel in control on income support, given changes at that time in Government legislation. She was also depressed at the idea of living on benefit long-term: 'If you try to earn extra money you are in fear of someone phoning the DSS.' She also feels that work 'keeps me sane'. Although she is sometimes not much better off
- financially she feels better about herself and her family, especially since she has taken her children from an earning income. Her husband was an architect and earned a lot of money.
When she first started work she was paying up to half her wages to child care. This was reduced when her youngest child started school, but is still a hefty bill. Isabelle states that she could not afford to work if she did not earn her current salary and did not have her current working conditions. Isabelle believes that her current child care arrangements will fill a caring role for her children when she is not with them. They have a mother figure who was carefully chosen because of her qualities and chosen for what she could offer in place of Isabelle—secure, home-based caring.
When she took full-time work she considered the whole position including the plus and minus effect on the children. The children have responded well to the child care arrangements. They are used to their mother working, mix with other children in the same position as themselves and regard it as normal. She anticipates future problems when the children are older and child minding is not appropriate but feels she will have to work that out as it comes along.
Isabelle has strong views about the lack of affordable child-care facilities and described it as a huge obstacle for creating change in her own life or her family's. Lone parents require help in practical ways in Isabelle's view and also support, as society criticises whatever lone parents do. 'If they go out to work they are neglecting their children and this is the cause of all violence etc. in society and if they don't they are too lazy to get out there and earn a living.'"
I have concentrated on Isabelle's story because it is illustrative of many of the situations in which people have found themselves. The prohibitive cost of child care, the reliance on informal—often far from ideal—arrangements, the role of child care in alleviating poverty and creating opportunities for women to work and study, the importance of state funding to child care, the stress caused by a lack of suitable child care arrangements and the persistence of gender divisions that place an unfair burden on women all point to the central importance of child care provision on working, caring and life balance that we are debating today.
That research was undertaken in 1992. We have come a long way. Isabelle's story would be far different today from what it was then. It is incredible to think that it is only in recent years that anything even approaching a coherent national child care strategy has been developed. For many years, child care in the United Kingdom, unlike in many of our European partners, remained significant by its absence. In 1992, Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Greece and Spain had at least 70 per cent. publicly funded child care services for children from three years of age to compulsory school age. It has taken the return of a Labour Government to make nursery places available at last, first for four-year-olds and now for three-year-olds.
For many parents, especially lone parents, the main obstacle to returning to the labour market has been the poverty trap. Despite propaganda to the contrary, and as I have illustrated by Isabelle's story, the overwhelming majority of lone parents want to reverse the trend of living on benefits and want to take part in the new deal. Lack of affordable child care is a major obstacle to doing that. Lone parents and unemployed parents, in general, are not in the position to take advantage of any growth in private sector child care and child minding services unless they receive financial support. Their absence from the labour market reduces their skills, confidence and earning potential. The benefits system in the past has not assisted such groups to return to work, and the real problems that are associated with the poverty trap were not addressed.
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The tax credit system has changed the position and has been a tremendous boost in making work pay, along with the national minimum wage and increased child care and parental rights. A report by the Institute for Public Policy Research, as far back as 1991, showed that up to half all under-fives could be taken out of poverty if the provision of child care enabled their mothers to work and to improve their earnings. Many more could be taken out of poverty if those provisions were combined with reform of the tax and benefits system. Unfortunately, the Government at the time were not listening, but we can be proud of the progress that has been made under the present Government.
It is also relevant to note that changes in the benefit system to allow unemployed parents to seek a return to work without the burden of crippling child care costs save the Exchequer money through increased public revenue from income tax and national insurance contributions, as well as savings in benefits payments. It is a win-win situation all round, as long as women are fairly represented in the work force and rights are available to allow them the balance in their lives that we all deserve and to which we all have a right.
3.38 pm
Sandra Gidley (Romsey) (LD): I welcome the chance to debate these issues. It is a shame that no one told the Leader of the House that the debate was in honour of international women's day. Last week in business questions I asked why there was not such a debate on the Floor of the House, and the right hon. Gentleman seemed to have overlooked the matter, which is a little unfortunate.
It is important to acknowledge that working conditions for women have improved immeasurably and that child care provision has come a long way since the '70s. During that time, Shirley Conran tried to convince women that they could be superwoman, and there was much talk about having it all, but even then she realised that life was too short to stuff a mushroom so, clearly, we could not quite have it all. Realisation slowly dawned on women that that was not a useful role model, because it was a daunting prospect for many of them.
Shirley Conran set up the Work-Life Balance Trust, the aim of which was to raise the profile of the work-life balance concept. I clicked on the website to find out where that organisation thought it had got on that matter, and apparently those involved have taken a sabbatical because they feel that they have achieved their aim and want a break to preserve their own work-life balance, which is slightly bizarre.
This subject is higher on the agenda, but sometimes too much lip service is paid to it and not enough real work is done to address the practical problems. The work-life balance affects men and women, but all too often it is regarded as a women's issue, which is regrettable.
Miss Julie Kirkbride (Bromsgrove): Does not the attendance in the Room reflect what the hon. Lady said? We pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing, West (Peter Bottomley) for supporting us— [Interruption.]—and the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew).
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Sandra Gidley : Absolutely, and I am glad that the hon. Lady noticed the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew), too.
It is difficult for women to juggle home, work, children, elderly parents and the rest of it, but that subject has, to some extent, been done to death. There are different pressures on men. The pressure to perform in the workplace and the culture of many workplaces often means that men are forced to spend time at work when they would like to spend more time with their families. We should not forget that, or forget that the image is often that carers are female. However, many carers are male.
Ms Buck : Is it not also the case that even given the choice, or a balance of working responsibilities, many men—possibly due to millennia of conditioning—have a ingrained reluctance to empty the washing machine and get to grips with the vacuum cleaner?
Ms Buck : It is sadly true that women have a disproportionate role in domestic responsibilities. This is not a party political point. Perhaps the hon. Lady could reflect on how we can ensure that our sons, brothers, lovers and husbands feel that playing a full role in the domestic environment may be of value and benefit to them and is essential to a proper work-life balance for women.
Sandra Gidley : That is interesting, because my husband is an engineer, but he struggles to get to grips with the washing machine, which is not difficult. But he has to get to grips with it now, because I went on strike. The New Woman survey that hon. Members mentioned also showed that the amount of house care responsibilities taken on by men is the same today as it was 30 or 40 years ago. There is some way to go.
Work-life balance is a problem for society. Another factor is the materialistic nature of our society. People want a lot of things, but often lose sight of what might be really important. I acknowledge that the Government have taken some welcome steps to try to improve matters, and flexible working is one such step. It was said earlier that the take-up is much higher among women than men, by a considerable degree—about 10 per cent.—and I am interested in whether the Government have undertaken any research to find out why that may be so. I welcome the consultation on extending the right to carers, but the problem with all consultations arises if the response from the workplace is that the measures will be difficult and will create an added burden.
A couple of weeks ago, I visited some small businesses in my constituency and time after time, sadly, they mentioned the burden of trying to provide maternity leave and paying for cover. This measure will, perhaps, create another burden, but at the same time there is an acknowledgement that small businesses are often quicker and better at finding creative ways around this problem. Will the Minister comment on how the interests of the business community can be balanced with a popular move for carers?
A second work-life balance study threw up a number of tensions. It found that 95 per cent. of employees considered that people work their best when they are
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able to balance work and other aspects of their lives, which is hardly surprising, and 57 per cent. strongly agreed with that. Some 78 per cent. agreed that everyone should be able to balance their work and home lives in the way that they want. There are no surprises there, but 60 per cent. agreed that they should not expect to be able to change their working pattern if to do so would disrupt business. That could be interpreted as a responsible attitude, but to me such quick acceptance of excuses provides business with a ready made cop-out that is all too likely to be accepted. There is no imperative to rethink flexible ways of working.
Even more worryingly, the study found that more than a half of fathers felt that working fewer hours would be likely to have a negative impact on their job security. Working fewer hours was also regarded as having a negative impact on career prospects.
Ms Munn : I am interested in what the hon. Lady is saying. It illustrates the problem that we have with the long-hours culture in this country in which someone's contribution is so often judged on how long they are somewhere rather than what they produce. Other countries that have shorter hours than us actually have higher productivity.
Sandra Gidley : That is a good point. The situation is not all negative, and I will speak about the attitude of employers in a minute. However, it concerns me that as a country we seem to have longer working hours than many others. As has already been said, many of the companies that address the problems and think hard about flexible working patterns reap the benefits financially. There can be a win-win situation.
The study also found that more than a third still think that taking leave to look after children could have a negative impact on their career prospects, and we have to think very hard about that if we are to extend the period of maternity leave. The study looked at employers separately. There was almost as high a level of support on flexible working, but nearly two thirds of employees agreed that trying to accommodate employees with different work patterns was not always easy, although, reassuringly, more than three quarters did not see flexible working as a barrier to promotion. We need to highlight that fact some more.
The Equal Opportunities Commission has done some good work in highlighting areas of good practice. For example, the RAC has seen productivity increase by 8 per cent. by allowing its staff to work their annual hours flexibly, while HSBC bank has trebled the number of women returning to work after having babies, which has saved it £1 million in training costs.
I want to spend some of my time talking about carers. It is right that the "Choice and Flexibility" document addressed that issue, but disappointing in some ways that it formed such a small part of the document, and what was there seemed to be more about finding a definition of a carer than giving a clear commitment to flexible working for carers. Again, the Equal Opportunities Commission has long been campaigning on the issue, and it has highlighted a number of facts. For example, at any one time, one in seven of the UK work force is juggling paid work with caring for someone who is ill, frail or has a disability. More than
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300,000 people take on a new caring responsibility each year—that does not include people having babies—and 42 per cent. of all carers of older and disabled people are men.
One survey found that seven out of 10 carers under 50 and eight out of 10 of those aged 50 to 60 had given up work to care. The nature of caring responsibilities is that there is often an end to them but the added problem of age discrimination in the workplace means that many of the carers who give up their jobs do not find it easy to get a new one. The Minister alluded to that point earlier, and it would be useful if she could expand on how that problem will be tackled. I am afraid to say also that there is an anomaly in the fact that parents can claim working tax credit if they work 16 or more hours a week but carers of disabled or older adult relatives are eligible only if they work at least 30 hours a week. It would be useful to have an indication of whether there are any plans to deal with that disparity.
Work-life balance for carers is not all about what can be done in the workplace. We have to think about how carers are catered for outside the workplace. Half of all people who spend 20 hours a week caring do not have a paid job. There are 360,000 children with a disability, of whom 98 per cent. are cared for at home. It is probably useful to touch on the subject of young carers at this point. Estimates suggest that 150,000 children and young people spend time caring for a chronically sick or disabled parent. Carers have a legal entitlement to an assessment, but in 2002 a survey showed that only one quarter of carers had received one. Even worse, of those carers who cared for more than 50 hours a week, 70 per cent. had not received an assessment.
Julie Morgan : Is the hon. Lady aware of the different carers groups that have been set up throughout the UK, mainly, certainly in Wales, by voluntary bodies, such as Barndardo's? They seek to give young carers the support of sharing their situation with each other and the opportunity to have some childhood experiences.
Sandra Gidley : Yes, I am aware of that. The young carers initiative has a national rally at Fairthorne manor, fairly close to me. The county council and various other organisations are doing a lot of work to try to put young carers in touch with each other so that there is mutual support. However, there are still some problems inherent in the system. The provision is very patchy across the country.
In many cases, carers want to help but feel ill equipped to do so. Some 70 per cent. reported that no one had asked them whether they could cope when the person they cared for was discharged from hospital and only one third of those caring for more than eight hours a day had received any training or guidance on the use of medication, dressings or injections. Three quarters of people receiving care from a carer in the same household receive no regular visits from a professional such as a doctor, district nurse or social worker. Carers are, quite simply, left to get on with it. I am delighted that the hon. Lady had a more positive experience, but I suggest that it is probably not the norm.
Carers are no different from other people: they do not want to ask for help, because it is seen as a sign that they are not coping very well. There is a sense of pride in
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getting on with the job and not being seen to ask for help. The contribution of carers saves the taxpayer some £34 billion a year, but many people ultimately have to give up. One of the factors that contributes to that is the lack of respite care and the relentlessness of having to cope day in, day out. That desperately needs to be addressed by the Government if the aim to look after more people at home is to be fully realised. Many carers say that if they knew that they could have regular break, they could cope in the longer term because it would give them some time to themselves. However, respite care is not easy to access. Carers of disabled children may be able to rely on the help and support of a children's hospice. It is a shame that children's hospices are not as well funded as hospices for adults.
Carers of older people struggle to obtain a respite. They may be able to get a week when they go on holiday, but it would be far more helpful if they could have a regular few days every two or three months. There are some schemes around the country that mean that that has started to happen. The carer knows that the person being cared for always has the same nursing or residential home, and a relationship is built up between that home, the carer and the person being cared for. That is positive, but many areas say that they lack the resources to do that.
Young carers face slightly different problems. Often the reluctance to ask for help comes from the parents, who are often concerned that asking for help will highlight problems in the home and that the children may be taken away. We need to do more to reassure those parents that that is not what this is about; that it is about providing some help. In the meantime, the child may be struggling to cope and getting into trouble at school for being late or not completing homework.
The Government have begun to tackle the issues related to child care. The hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Ms Munn) mentioned the USDAW report that said that women were returning to the workplace on average six weeks before their statutory maternity pay ran out. They said that they did this because they could not afford to stay at home. For that reason, the Liberal Democrats have taken a different approach to maternity leave. It has long been our policy to advocate that benefits should be transferable between mother and father but we recognise that the present level of benefit is inadequate. I want to pay tribute to the Government for doubling it during their term in office; it is only fair to acknowledge that. We would prefer to offer a maternity income guarantee on the level of the minimum income guarantee so that those women who are returning to work early could afford to stay at home. When it comes to rewarding carers, we believe that our plans for a citizen's pension that is payable on the basis of residency, rather than national insurance contributions, is fairer because it gives the message that the caring contribution is of just as much value as any contribution from the workplace.
The other report out today that has already been mentioned is the report in New Woman. The headline was "Desperate to be housewives: young women yearn for 1950s role as stay at home mums." I cannot quite believe this somehow, but the magazine says:
"the average 29 year old now hankers for a return to the lifestyle of a 1950s housewife. The daughters of the 'Cosmo' generation of feminists want nothing more than a happy marriage and domestic bliss in the countryside".
Would that life were so easy. A total of 1,500 women were surveyed, and 61 per cent. believe that domestic goddess role models are unhelpful and irritating. I am not 29, and I agree that such role models are unhelpful and irritating. Margi Conklin, the editor of New Woman, states:
"There has been a fundamental shift in young women's attitudes towards life and work. They've watched their own mothers trying and often failing to have it all and have decided they don't want it all. They don't want to work crazy hours while their children are put into nurseries and their relationships disintegrate under the strain . . . Young women today are increasingly putting their personal happiness before a big salary or a high powered career. Above everything else they crave a work-life balance where they can enjoy a fulfilling relationship, raise happy children and have a job that interests them but doesn't overwhelm them. The age of the superwoman who wants to be the world's best mother, wife and boss, is dead."
Earlier today, it was said that that situation arose because we were not selling the benefits of child care enough. That is not all that it is because the women saying these things have experienced mothers going out to full-time work and have realised that they do not want to spend all of their time in the workplace. They would probably welcome flexible working, and it is important that we develop it, but they have realised that there are ways—
Sandra Osborne : I am sure that both of my daughters would prefer a better work-life balance than I, as their mother, have had, having been involved in so many things. Would the hon. Lady agree that this vision of the 1950s woman is a myth, and a very idealised myth at that? It was not the reality of most women's lives.
Sandra Gidley : The 1950s argument is taken a bit far because during the 1950s it was very unusual for women to work, and they struggled to do so. I think that young women value the idea of some contribution in the work place and want some income of their own and some independence. They do not want to return to the 1950s, but they do not want to replicate what their mothers did and spend a lot of time away from home and family.
Angela Watkinson (Upminster) (Con): I have some personal experience of the 1950s when I was in a co-educational grammar school, and I can recall male teachers saying to girl students that it did not really matter if they did not understand something because they were only going to get married and have children anyway. I recall that the only career advice that the girls were ever given was when they were all herded into the hall and the headmistress said that there were only two respectable occupations for girls: nursing and teaching. She said, "Nurses over there, teachers over there." That was the sum total of career advice. When I first went to work in the late 1950s in a bank—before the Equal Pay Act 1963—women were considered to be temporary employees. Even if they never married, had that delightful title "spinster" and stayed in that job all their working lives, they were still only temporary employees
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and were on a lower pay scale. If anyone closely examined the 1950s, I do not think that they would want to go back to that time.
Sandra Gidley : I absolutely agree, and it is clear, after talking to women who lived through that time, that they almost envy what women have these days. However, we can do better to provide a work-life balance.
I am not sure whether it would be in order to talk about this, but one other aspect of the report caught my eye: some work by the Kinsey Institute. Many hon. Members will know what it studies. It came up with a quite alarming fact that the average married woman with young children "makes love"—I think those were the words—to her husband less frequently these days than 30 years ago. We must aim at a system in which women and men can choose the pattern of working and child care that does not tire them out, so that we can improve on the 1950s.
4.1 pm
Mrs. Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con): I am sure that we can improve on the 1950s. I welcome this debate today on working, caring and life balance. Until the Minister mentioned it in her opening remarks, I did not realise that the debate was connected with international women's day. I had wondered—although I had not got round to asking her—why, in the week of international women's day, we had not had a debate on women in Government time, which we have had in recent years. We have all enjoyed them tremendously. I knew about this debate today, but I had not made the connection because, in all honesty, it seems to me that working, caring and life balance is not just a women's issue, but one that affects everybody, from all walks of life, all sections of society, both sexes, all age groups and all parts of the country.
It is, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Miss Kirkbride) pointed out, remarkable that the Chamber today has been so dominated by female Members of the House, although I certainly pay my compliments to the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew)—he is no longer in his place, but I do not wish to cast aspersions on him as we were very pleased to welcome him here—and to my hon. Friends the Members for Worthing, West (Peter Bottomley) and for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis), who is also no longer in his place.
I welcome the debate and hope that we can talk about issues, which, although they affect the whole of society, probably affect more women's lives than men's. That is a fact that I do not imagine will change in the foreseeable future, and we must stop pretending that it will change and deal with it. We must get round it somehow or other. I was pleased to hear the Minister speak so often in her opening remarks about choice. Choice is the Conservatives' watchword, and I am really pleased to hear the Labour Government adopting choice as the key to making progress on the issue that we are discussing.
I agree with the Minister's basic approach on most of the issues under discussion, and her historical overview was excellent. We have come a long way, as we see if we think of the way in which women had to fight only 100 years ago. I am talking about the grandmothers of many of us in this Chamber, people whom we knew in
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our early years, not about people from way back in the past. Those women had to fight to be listened to at all. They had to fight to get the vote and to have the woman's point of view even considered. I am not suggesting for a moment that we can stop that struggle now, but we have come a long way.
I have been thinking, as I often do, that I have had far more opportunities in my life than my mother had during hers—although she had a perfectly happy, satisfactory life—and that her mother had fewer opportunities than she did. I was shocked to see the survey in today's papers mentioned by the hon. Member for Romsey (Sandra Gidley) and others. The headline in The Times is "Superwoman crashes to earth". One lady is quoted as saying, "I run the house"—that is not our House; presumably she means her domestic residence. She says:
Ms Munn : I am a little concerned that we may be generalising about women because of one survey. Might it not be the case that real superwomen do not have time to read New Woman?
Mrs. Laing : Not for the first time, the hon. Lady is right. I had not had time to read it either.
Peter Bottomley (Worthing, West) (Con): That does not make you a superwoman.
Mrs. Laing : That is certainly true, but I do not try to be. The quote is:
That is from a sample of one. It is very nice for the lady who is quoted in The Times—very nice indeed. She appears to have a happy marriage and two happy, healthy primary school-age children, and clearly her husband earns enough to make it possible for her not to work. That is a nice sample of one if someone comes into that category, but most women and most families do not.
It is interesting to think, as the article says:
"THE feminist dream of 'having it all' has turned sour for the current generation of young women, who are determined never to work as hard as their mothers."
The average age of the women interviewed for the survey was 29. I have to say, without being in any way patronising, that when I was 29, I thought that I could do amazing things, but, now that I am not 29 any more, I am quite glad that I have not managed to do them. Of course, that is not true in all cases. Let us imagine a time when those 29-year-olds have a family to care for, either their children or, possibly, their parents who are declining in health. They may find themselves in circumstances of adversity. Let us suppose that they start bringing up their children with a husband or partner, and the husband or partner dies, becomes ill or leaves. It will not be so simple then to say, "I don't want to work as hard as my mother did."
I am glad that I can say that I do not have to work like my grandmother had to. I am glad, and so would she be, that the things that, indeed, both my grandmothers did in their time have enabled me to do what I do and not to
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live the kind of life that they led. However happy they may have been individually, their generation did not have the opportunities that we have.
Ms Buck : Does the hon. Lady agree that if we were to give a pound each for every time that we have seen one of those "Superwoman bites the dust" headlines, we could probably buy out the red nose appeal? Does she also agree that the issue is not really the have-it-all slogan, which is lampooned in those headlines, but the fact that women are anxious about having to do it all? I suspect that she agrees with much of this. Much of the debate has been about how we find ways to make that struggle easier for women who are expected both to work—often, as she says, out of sheer necessity, but sometimes through choice—and to carry a disproportionate share of the caring and domestic responsibilities. All of us—employers, the Government and individuals alike—have an interest in finding a way of reducing that pressure for today's carers and future generations of them.
Mrs. Laing : I agree entirely with the hon. Lady. What she said was totally correct. From now on, I shall try to be more adversarial so that we can prove that a debate in Westminster Hall entirely populated by women has the cut and thrust of serious political debate. Our debate should have such cut and thrust, and I shall find a reason to disagree with Members here from opposing parties in just a moment.
There is a lot of consensus between us because we all recognise the difficulties and we want to solve them. This political issue is not about which side says, "This does not matter" and the other that says, "It does". We all recognise that this issue is important, and there are two reasons for that. First, we want the right thing to be done: women should have equal opportunities to men—we agree with that altruistically nowadays. However, we also need to achieve the right work-life balance, because society and the economy require it.
If we say that women should either work or look after children, we will lose an enormous percentage of the work force whom we, as an economy, cannot afford to lose. On the other hand, if we say that if women work, they should not have children—something that we now think a ridiculous proposition, although that was not the case not so long ago—we will not produce the future generations that our society and economy require. It is essential to achieve the balance that we have all been talking about. We do that by accepting that flexibility in the workplace is not a luxury, but a necessity. It is an economic necessity that the work that women do should receive decent financial reward.
I emphasise, as did the hon. Member for Cardiff, North (Julie Morgan), that we are not talking only about mothers with young children. I have noticed a bit of a backlash in some academic studies and articles in the past couple of years. Women who do not have young children are saying, "Just a minute. If there are three women in my office, the two with young children get all the flexibility, privileges and help—maternity leave, flexible working and so on. I do not." Just because a person has chosen not to have children, or cannot have them, that does not mean that they should not be treated with respect in the workplace.
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We have to be careful about that and recognise that anyone with a family responsibility of any kind—for young children, teenage children or a sick or elderly relative—whether temporary or long-term, requires understanding in the workplace. All employers should be encouraged to do what the best employers have always done. The CBI agrees that employers get the best out of their employees if they have good working conditions, and that includes an understanding of the time needed for family responsibilities.
Such issues are not peripheral, but absolutely basic to the future of our economy and society. We now spend taxpayers' money and the nation's resources on educating young women and men equally, and on giving girls and boys the same education at school and the same opportunities in higher education. I completely welcome that. All Governments in the past 30 years have been striving for that goal and have achieved it. However, it is ridiculous that we now do all those things, yet when a woman with the same educational and training qualifications as a man becomes pregnant and has a baby, suddenly her talents and abilities are not worth the same as a man's because the employer does not put her in the same category any more; he sees her as a bit of a problem because she has children. That is nonsense. We are beginning to get over it, and what has, to an extent, been a consensus in this debate might possibly help in the future.
As to child care, fathers should of course be encouraged and enabled to care for their children, and employers must recognise that, too. The position of new fathers alongside that of new mothers is important. However, I heard an argument recently, which has been mentioned in the debate, that we will not improve the position of women as regards child care for young children until men become fully involved in that child care. I am sorry, but I am not very optimistic about that. We cannot legislate to make a man look after his children, or to make a man know what to do with a small baby. Somehow, miraculously, a woman who has just become a mother knows what to do with a baby, or learns very quickly, because there is no choice; she has just got to. A man does not. I do not believe that a man, even with the very best of intentions, looks after a tiny baby in the same way as the baby's mother or, indeed, its grandmother.
I do not suggest for a moment that men should not be encouraged to be very much involved in the early years of their children's lives; of course they should. However, we will not improve the position of women by depending on men changing their attitudes and behaviour in a domestic setting. Indeed, I think the hon. Member for Ayr (Sandra Osborne) said that men undertake the same percentage of household duties now as they did 30 years ago. That progress has not been made, but it might be. We will keep trying to make progress, but we cannot depend upon it. We therefore need to ensure that there are proper support systems for mothers who also work. That means having good child care facilities.
Ms Munn : The hon. Lady is painting rather a gloomy picture. The evidence of the USDAW survey is that men's desire to spend more time with their children is increasing and that, generally, younger men recognise
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the benefits of greater involvement with their families. The issue of how much housework is done may be slightly more problematical, although I would like to defend my husband, who knows where the washing machine is—and the microwave. Things are starting to change, and we should not be too negative about men's involvement in their families.
Mrs. Laing : The hon. Lady is right; I do not disagree with her. Things are improving tremendously. I do not think my father knew what a washing machine was but he expected clean shirts, and always had them. I am not saying that things are not improving and that we do not want them to improve; I am saying that we cannot depend on changing men's attitudes and behaviour in order to improve the position of women. We must take other steps to improve the position of women.
Ms Buck : That is an important point. I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Ms Munn) that there is a world of difference between a microwave and a vacuum cleaner. It is important in terms of household management.
The central point is that the Fawcett Society research, which we all accept is one piece of research among many, shows that women in full-time employment still spend 30 per cent. more of their time on child care responsibilities than men in full-time employment. Unless we progress significantly further and move faster, which would require a broad consensus inside and outside Parliament, we might entrench the disadvantage that women have in trying to cope with work as well as domestic and family responsibilities. We need to be alert to that risk; otherwise the very people everyone here is committed to helping could end up in a worse position.
Mrs. Laing : The hon. Lady is absolutely right, so I am going to make a serious political debating point. People are working longer hours than if not ever before, then certainly than before. The average family—therefore the average man—has to work far longer hours to pay the £5,000 a year of extra tax that the average family has been paying under this Labour Government for the past eight years. That is true; if more tax has to be paid, more hours have to be worked. If there is a choice between who stays at home and who works, the man will do extra work. If the tax burden were less, men would not have to work as long outside the home and would be able to spend more time caring for their children. That is a logical point.
Ms Buck : I am delighted to rise to the adversarial challenge. Does the hon. Lady agree that we must stop treating tax always and inevitably as a burden? Part of the reason that we require people to contribute tax is to fund many ambitious programmes, including the creation of 1 million child care places since 1997. It is essential that we do not view one side of the situation as 100 per cent. negative and the other as 100 per cent. positive; otherwise we will never get agreement on the investment argument for these necessary services.
Mrs. Laing : Again, the hon. Lady is absolutely factually correct, so let me tell her that for every two child care places that the Government have created, one
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has shut. There are more child care places in some child care settings, but there are fewer in others. The Government's record of improving the availability and affordability of child care is simply not good enough. We need flexibility and choice—[Interruption.] We are getting some adversarial debate now, but I will give way first to my hon. Friend the Member for Upminster (Angela Watkinson).
Angela Watkinson : In the drive to provide more child care places, does my hon. Friend agree that we must not focus entirely on quantity, eligibility and cost for the convenience of women going out to work, either by choice or out of financial necessity? We must also focus on the quality of child care, not only the benefits to the parents, but the benefits to the child. Child care should not be warm storage with lunch, with the child left and collected at the end of the day. What happens to the children and how they benefit during child care is equally, or even more, important.
Mrs. Laing : I agree entirely, which is why I am worried about the Government's policy of making schools available from 8 am to 6 pm being a major part of their child care strategy. In some cases, that is a good idea, but it is not a universal panacea for the provision of child care. It is worrying that a child might leave the family home at 7.30 in the morning and come back at 6.30 in the evening having not had any positive educational or social benefit in between.
Sandra Osborne : I hesitate to return the hon. Lady's adversarial comments, because she is making an excellent speech, with much of which I agree. Does she recall, however, the example I gave of my friend Isabelle, who worked in three low-paid jobs before the introduction of the national minimum wage to make ends meet while bringing up two children? That beats the hon. Lady's example of the hard-working man who has to work harder because of higher taxes under a Labour Government. If the hon. Lady thinks child care is so important, why did her Government not do anything about it?
Mrs. Laing : The hon. Lady's example is a good one, and she is right that the position of the lady she mentions is far worse than that of most men who have to work harder to pay Labour's higher taxes. The Government to whom the hon. Lady refers were not my Government, but the next Government will be, in eight weeks' time, and we will see some changes then.
Ms Munn : When Labour came to power, only extremely patchy child care provision existed. Child minders were almost non-existent in some of the poorest communities, so the ability of people to choose was very limited. A comprehensive range of child care has now been developed, and there is free access for all three and four-year-olds. That is enormously important, and we must not underestimate the impact of such measures. I echo the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr (Sandra Osborne); if child care is so important, why was provision so terrible under the previous Tory Government?
Mrs. Laing : It was not terrible under the last Tory Government, but it will be better under the next Tory Government in eight weeks' time. I look forward to having a further argument about that.
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The Minister and some of her colleagues speak very well about child care. However, although they have taken many steps over the past seven years, which I welcome, the number of nurseries has been cut from 500 to 400 during their time in government. That is a fact.
Sandra Gidley : The hon. Lady was very scathing about wraparound care from 8 in the morning until 6 pm, but, when my children were of school age, that was the most difficult kind of care to access. What does she suggest as an alternative, because not all child minders want to take children before and after school, and not everybody wants to choose a nanny or a workplace nursery?
Mrs. Laing : The hon. Lady makes a perfectly reasonable point. I am not saying that wraparound care from 8 am until 6 pm in the school setting is wrong in all circumstances. There are some circumstances in which it might work quite well, but the Government have made much of it, and it is not the answer to all the challenges and problems that we face.
Peter Bottomley : I shall speak briefly, as a founder member of the Denis Thatcher society, which is for men who are married to women more important than they are. If we are seriously talking about 8 o'clock in the morning until 6 o'clock in the evening for a child, which is 50 hours for a five-day week, and if we are asking that adults do not have so long at work, we will have a slight problem if this extends too far.
We also ought to think about inter-generational care. We should consider not only young people caring for the elderly, but whether grandparents can care more for their grandchildren in order to help their children. That is, perhaps, not an English tradition, but it is a tradition of many of the people who join and enrich our country.
If we want to improve the home-work balance, we ought to try to cut the time and cost of commuting, because lots of people spend many hours travelling between home and work, and that is a tremendous waste.
Mrs. Laing : As ever, my hon. Friend makes some excellent points. His final point on transport—a topic on which he is an expert—goes to show that although we have narrowed the subject of today's debate to specific issues, the general issue is affected by almost every area of policy. Every person in the country is a member of a family and has social and family responsibilities, duties, and pleasures, as well as duties and so forth at work, and as a citizen. This issue has to be looked at holistically.
4.30 pm
Sitting suspended for Divisions in the House.
5.10 pm
On resuming—
Mrs. Laing : My hon. Friend the Member for Worthing, West (Peter Bottomley) had just made an excellent point about grandparents playing a role in caring for their grandchildren when we broke for the
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Divisions. I believe that we should find some way of changing the way in which child minders are regulated to allow grandparents to benefit from officially being child minders when they look after their grandchildren. I do not suggest for a moment that a grandmother should have to pass lots of tests in order to look after her grandchildren, but there are ways in which we could reform the present system so that grandparents could in some circumstances officially be child minders and therefore benefit financially from looking after their grandchildren. I believe that that idea has the support of the National Childminding Association.
My hon. Friend highlighted an important point there, as a great many grandparents—grandfathers as well as grandmothers—play an important part in caring for and bringing up their children's children. To bring more flexibility and choice, and to increase the supply side of child care—in other words having more child care workers qualified and in place, which is desperately needed—it is essential to make the tax credit system simpler to understand and administer. Many thousands of families in this country right now could benefit more from the tax credit system if only they knew how to do so. It does not make sense to have a system that normal people cannot properly access.
Julie Morgan : Grandparents are very important. In south Wales it is traditional for the grandparents to look after the grandchildren. My mother looked after my children. In what ways does the hon. Lady think that child-minding regulations could be amended? I have sympathy with what she is saying but does she have any proposals about how that could happen?
Mrs. Laing : I do not have formal proposals to make at this stage. I believe that whereas a child minder can be paid to be a child minder, if a grandparent is an informal child minder, he or she cannot benefit from any kind of public funding. In many cases, grandparents who do just a couple of hours here and there to help out do not want to be paid for it. I do not suggest that it should become any kind of necessity or normality, but where a grandparent effectively spends a working week looking after their grandchildren, and if they also looked after a couple of other children, why should they not be able to benefit from getting a grant to be a child minder? At present a grandparent cannot do so, by virtue of being a grandparent.
A grandparent who looks after three children who are someone else's grandchildren can register to be a child minder. If one of the children the grandparent minds is their grandchild, they cannot register to be a child minder and therefore do not have access to public funding. In order not to prolong the debate, if I am technically not quite right, I shall withdraw that point.
If we truly have the flexibility that we are talking about, we ought to be able to help grandparents spend even more time looking after their grandchildren, because everyone recognises that that is a good way to bring up children, and that the next best thing to being with one's own parents is being with one's grandparents. Indeed, as a small child, I much preferred being with my grandmother; I am sure most people feel like that.
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Forgive me if I have not got the exact points correct, but I think that we are all agreed that that matter needs to be examined.
Another important issue is that of pregnancy discrimination. The hon. Member for Ayr mentioned research carried out by the Equal Opportunities Commission into pregnancy discrimination. It is absolutely appalling that in Britain in the 21st century 30,000 women have lost their jobs because they are expecting children. I have a lot of sympathy with their position because, four years ago, when we were approaching a general election, I could no longer hide from the world in general the fact that I was about to have a baby. I have to admit, within the confidentiality of these four walls, that I was concerned that the voters of Epping Forest might practise discrimination against me at that point, because a certain generation would argue that if a woman is about to have a child, she cannot possibly be a Member of Parliament. I am glad to say that the voters of Epping Forest are wonderful people who exercise excellent judgment, and that they did not take that view at all. Indeed, many more of them voted for me when I was about to have a child than had voted for me four years previously when I was not about to have a child.
Ms Munn : Will the hon. Lady test it out again?
Mrs. Laing : No. I will definitely not take that chance again, and most certainly not if the election is in eight weeks' time. I can make that promise to my constituents and my family.
It is a serious matter that employers can find a way around the current laws. I do not suggest that we need much of a change in the law in that area. We need a change in attitudes in the workplace, because some types of employer twist the law and manage to get rid of a woman because she is about to have a child. Such attitudes ignore the fact that we need women in the work force; as I said earlier, that is not a luxury.
The hon. Member for Cardiff, North mentioned the international aspect of international women's day. On the day—last Tuesday—I also spent some time on those sorts of issues. I visited the Terence Higgins Trust, which I think is in the constituency of the hon. Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North (Ms Buck). I apologise if I did not tell the hon. Lady in advance that I was going to be there. I was accompanying the Leader of the Opposition. It was a pleasure to visit the hon. Lady's constituency and to see the work of the trust, of which I am sure that she is well aware, as will most hon. Members.
The issues being dealt with at the trust make one realise the enormous gap between the struggle that we women in the western world face compared with women in Africa, Asia and the far east, who still struggle with the absolute basics. For example, many cannot choose when or whether they are going to have children or more children. The issues that we looked at on Tuesday concerned the fact that thousands of women cannot protect themselves, and therefore their future children, from HIV/AIDS. I mention that point because it is one on which I believe that there will again be consensus. While thinking about the struggles that we have, it is important to think how the work-life balance does not
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matter to women in those countries, because they are struggling with basic oppression. Having a work-life balance to think about would be a luxury to them; they are literally dealing with matters of life and death.
I was pleased to hear the Minister say that the commission is examining occupational segregation and the pay gap. As many hon. Members will have seen, the Fawcett Society produced a most interesting and well researched report earlier this week, which showed that, shockingly, the pay gap between men and women is about 20 per cent. for people in full-time employment. Women in part-time employment are paid 40 per cent. less than their male counterparts. It is scandalous and appalling that employers in Britain today think that that is acceptable. It shows that we, as a society, do not properly value the work of women who are doing two or three jobs, one of which is bringing up children. The reason why most women have part-time employment is because they are juggling other responsibilities with their employment. Indeed, as in the example used by the hon. Member for Ayr, they may have more than one part-time job, simply to try to make ends meet. When people have a part-time job they are undervalued, and a 40 per cent. pay gap is simply not acceptable.
I am not particularly saying that the Minister must do something about that now. To combat it we need a complete change in attitudes, whereby women are valued for being mothers, carers and responsible family members as well as valuable employees in the work force.
When we talk about employees, however, we must also bear in mind the position of employers. The worst thing that legislation can do is put so many burdens upon employers in order to protect women in the work force that employers find it necessary to try to find a way of not employing women at all. The pendulum could swing too far. A large organisation that has an efficient human resources department can do much to help and protect women in the work force that small employers cannot do. In all that we say and do, we must remember that most people in Britain are employed by small and medium-sized enterprises, not by large employers. Therefore, it is vital that any regulations made to try to achieve equality and support for women do not go so far that employers do not employ women at all. That would not be what we set out to achieve. We must be careful to achieve the right balance.
We need women in the work force, and we need a future generation to be born and nurtured. Therefore, we must take seriously the need to achieve a proper balance between work life, home life and family responsibilities. We have had a constructive debate on all those issues and I am sure that the Minister has taken note of some of the good ideas that have come from hon. Members.
5.24 pm
Jacqui Smith : I wholeheartedly agree with what the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs. Laing) said about the quality of our debate. I set a few questions and challenges at the beginning, and hon. Members have risen to them in terms of the quality of the argument and some of the practical proposals that were made. I very much commend that.
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My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Ms Munn) drew on her understanding of children's development and needs—as she often does, as I know from experience. She strongly made the case, as did others, that we need to develop opportunities for both fathers and mothers to play their role in caring. The fact that we are taking forward proposals for sharing extended maternity leave between mothers and fathers is an important step, not only in practical terms, in that it allows fathers to have time off in the first year of their child's life, but also in terms of addressing the cultural issues that hon. Members raised. It is important that we say that our society believes that fathers have a role in caring for their children and that we provide the legislative basis and support for that.
My hon. Friend also rightly identified the excellent work carried out by USDAW in its "Supporting Parents and Carers" campaign. She mentioned its analysis, which is that the problem of finance is often what brings women back to work more quickly than they want or when their children would not benefit from them going back to work so soon. That is why the increase in maternity pay and the extension of maternity leave will be so important, not only for mothers, but also for children. USDAW, as a good example of a modern trade union, is now including in its negotiations the consideration of work-life balance issues and flexibility in conditions of employment. I commend it on its campaign and on its activities and negotiations with employers.
My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, North (Julie Morgan) made an important contribution, using her personal experience, and I want to address the issues raised about carers. I hope that she had a suitable celebration for St. David's day, international women's day and mothers day. Either she or my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr (Sandra Osborne) proposed a party for international women's day. That received great approbation broadly, and not just from hon. Members, although I know that we are not supposed to mention others. Perhaps the House authorities should give some thought to that suggestion.
My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, North talked about the progress that we as a Government have made on tackling domestic violence. She also picked up on the point made by the hon. Member for Epping Forest, who mentioned the international nature of international women's day, which sets our debate in the context of the international challenges that women face. Last week, I was fortunate enough to attend the Commission on the Status of Women at the United Nations, 10 years on from the Beijing "Platform for Action". I was struck by those parts of the Beijing platform that are important for women across the world, including access to the labour market, economic empowerment and tackling violence against women. We certainly have some issues of commonality, but the hon. Member for Epping Forest is right to outline the particular challenges that women in developing countries face, which we all have a responsibility to help them to address.
My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, North focused her contribution on her experience of caring, and talked movingly about caring for her mother. She gave us a clear understanding of the massive contribution that carers make, not only in terms of
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replacing services that otherwise would need to be publicly funded. She also identified the emotional commitment, time, planning and organisation that goes into the sort of caring that she and millions of other people in this country carry out. We should place a suitable value on that. As a Government, we should take action to support carers, and we have.
I was struck by my hon. Friend's point about the need to be able to phone home to check up on what is happening. Many carers have said that when combining their caring with work, relatively small changes and provisions made by employers can sometimes make all the difference. Access to a phone to check home and a little flexibility about leaving in an emergency can keep carers in work.
The hon. Member for Romsey (Sandra Gidley) emphasised the significance of the fact that when a carer falls out of the job market, it is often more difficult for them to get back in again. The Carers (Equal Opportunities) Act 2004, which was supported by the Government and to which my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, North referred, does a number of important things. First, it ensures that carers know that they are entitled to an assessment. Secondly, it makes explicit that other aspects of carers' lives, such as their need or wish to work, have to be borne in mind in the assessment and the support with which they are provided.
This year, £60 million has been devoted in 2005–06 to the carer's grant, providing services to carers, but also, importantly, providing the breaks referred to by the hon. Member for Romsey. We have introduced direct payments to give carers more flexibility about how and where they access those breaks and support. To ensure that local authorities also focus on carer support, the Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Dr. Ladyman), introduced a new performance indicator on carer support for local authorities, identifying the significance of ensuring that that support is in place.
Carers also often suffer detriment in their pension provisions, particularly if they have to leave work. Having introduced a second state pension to boost the pension rights of many of those under-looked in the previous system, such as carers, we have so far benefited 1.9 million female carers, who can build up additional state pensions for the first time.
We need to do more to value and recognise the tough lives of carers. Some important progress has been made. My hon. Friend the Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North (Ms Buck) made a good point about the need to recognise that, although the first year of a child's life is very important, some of the challenges of the early teens and teenage years can be equally difficult, as all of us whose children are now slightly older know. We need to ensure that flexibility is available, which is why considering how we might extend flexible working to such people is important.
There has been some discussion of out-of-school child care places, but, especially when children are between 11 and 14, wraparound care and the ability to have a bit of extra time after school so that the children do not have to come home to an empty house—not, as was suggested, to put a child into child care at 8 in the
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morning and pick them up at 6 in the evening—will be important for parents. That is exactly what our proposals should deliver.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ayr spoke with great understanding and knowledge from her experience with Women's Aid. She spoke not only about domestic violence, but identified the importance of child care to all women, in particular to women with specific needs, such as those who are victims of domestic violence or who are lone parents. If ever the benefits that come from investment in child care places were needed, they are needed by such women.
My hon. Friend also identified the need to ensure that we make work pay. The introduction of tax credits and the way in which they are paid to the main carer, and the improvements in the levels of child care tax allowance, have been important to enable women not only to get into work, but to ensure that they have the income that they need to support their families.
The hon. Member for Romsey touched on some slightly worrying things in a wide-ranging speech, and prompted a discussion about the role of men, possibly at the invitation of my hon. Friend the Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North. Although I agree that there are some cultural challenges with respect to men and their attitude to housework and caring, that does not mean that we should give up on the push to develop a more equal approach, to both caring and housework. I cite the excellent and commendable example of my husband, who was willing to give up his main career to play a major role in bringing up our children. There are some beacons out there and we need to ensure that they shine on men throughout the country.
The hon. Member for Romsey also made an important point about the impact of flexible working and maternity provision on small and medium-sized companies, as did the hon. Member for Epping Forest. There is a particular challenge, as I suggested earlier, in allowing small companies to plan for the implications of somebody taking maternity leave. That is more straightforward for a large company with many workers.
Several hon. Members argued that small businesses are increasingly recognising the benefits for their business of helping women to return to work after maternity leave. Given that it takes an average of £4,000 simply to recruit somebody, and given the training provided for women workers, losing them automatically when they have children is not good for them or the businesses. Nevertheless, we have recognised some of those challenges and will consult on two issues in the "Work and Families: Choice and Flexibility" consultation document.
First, we will see how we can improve communication between employers and women who are on maternity leave. Secondly, we will find out whether there is scope in extending the notice period that women give before they return to work. In both cases, it is about helping small and medium-sized companies communicate and plan. We are concerned to hear from employers about how we can implement that measure in a way that will benefit their women workers and themselves.
The hon. Member for Epping Forest suggested that working hours had increased, but they have reduced on average since 1997, when we signed the social chapter
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and implemented the working time legislation, which was, to introduce a tinge of political controversy, wrongly opposed by her party. We should be honest about identifying the trend for shorter working hours and saying that this Government, with their commitment to better working conditions for people, are enabling that to happen.
I agree with hon. Members who said that there is a cultural, as well as a legal, issue about long hours. We have to change the attitude that says that longer is always better, because in this case quality is more important than length. With those words, I will not venture to comment on what the hon. Member for Romsey said about Kinsey.
The hon. Lady asked whether it is too easy for firms to reject a request for flexible working. We have designed the law to help discussions between employers and employees on solutions that suit them both. The introduction of the flexible working legislation has massively reduced the proportion of flexible working requests refused. The trend appears to be continuing: the most recent data indicate that just 8 per cent. are declined.
I am sure that we could all agree with the hon. Member for Epping Forest on a number of things, although I do not agree that the concept of choice is the sole possession of the Conservative party. For a choice to be meaningful, it must be supported. Where women want to go to work, for instance, choice must be supported by the ability to work flexibly or to access child care. Had the Government not taken the decisions that we have and made progress, those things would not be available. We not only support choice, but take action to ensure that that choice is available for a broader range of women.
The hon. Lady and others referred to the New Woman survey. The conclusion that we should draw from that part of the debate is that families will want to live in many different ways and that women will have different aspirations. Some will want to stay at home, or be able to afford to do so, some will want to work part time and some will want to work full time. What women should avoid is allowing anybody, anywhere, to play us off against each other because of the decisions that we choose to make. That does not happen with men. We should be clear that we want the ability to make the decisions that suit our families and to be supported in those.
The hon. Lady was right to make the economic and social case for work-life balance. Encouraging all employers to do what the best do is an important way forward. She, like other hon. Members, touched on the Equal Opportunities Commission's investigation into pregnancy discrimination. As I said, the EOC has published its interim report. As part of our consultation on work and families, we have included the EOC's top two interim recommendations. Those were, first, consulting on whether there should be a written statement of rights and responsibilities for employees and employers during pregnancy, and, secondly, giving employers the right to request information from an employee about her planned return date. We are keen to hear views from parents, carers and employers about those recommendations.
Finally, on equal pay, since 1997 the pay gap has been closing. It is now approximately 14 per cent. in median terms.
Sandra Gidley : I am glad that the Minister says that the pay gap is 14 per cent. in median terms, because the way in which the pay gap is calculated was recently changed and we have only just started to use the median as our measure. Will she confirm that, if we had continued to use the mean—an average rather than a mid-point—the pay gap would still be 19 per cent.? It has not fallen.
Jacqui Smith : No. I confirm that the figure is 18 per cent., or something like that, but I will not agree with the hon. Lady that it has not fallen. Regardless of whether the mean or the median is used, the pay gap has fallen since 1997. The justification for using the median as opposed to the mean is that, taking as it does the mid-point, the median represents the situation for the vast majority of women and is not distorted by particularly high pay for men at the top.
Sandra Gidley : Earlier, hon. Members raised the fact that women are often in low-paid jobs, such as child care. Those jobs are below the median wage. A disproportionate number of women earn lower, rather than higher, salaries. Many would therefore argue that the mean is a fairer and more accurate way of assessing the pay gap, because it takes into account the large number of women on low pay.
Jacqui Smith : Some people might argue that, but the Office for National Statistics argued that we should use the median pay gap. As I suggested earlier, it is important that we understand the trend over time and use either method. There has been a reduction in the pay gap.
Incidentally, I am not saying that that is adequate. The hon. Lady's point about the impact of occupational segregation on the pay gap is very important. That is precisely why the women and work commission will focus on occupational segregation and why it will examine how we value women's work, and caring work in particular. It will make recommendations, which I look forward to seeing.
We have had a very good debate. The values that inspired international women's day—respect for the dignity of all women and international solidarity—are as relevant to us today as they were to those pioneering women who used as their slogan, and fought for, bread and roses when marching 100 years ago.
For a long time, women have been struggling to achieve a balance between work, other necessities and the other things in our lives. We also recognise, however, that we need to find new solutions to the issues that women face today. That is not an easy task in a global and complex 24/7 culture, but our vision of a modern Britain is one that uses the skills and talents of all citizens irrespective of their gender, race, age and sexuality and of whether they are disabled or able-bodied. Our vision supports everyone, but women in particular, in being able to take the decisions that they believe to be right for themselves and their families. That is how we can ensure the well-being and prosperity of our nation for years to come.
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