Examination of Witnesses (Questions 197-199)
RT HON
HARRIET HARMAN,
QC, MP, MS JANICE
SHERSBY AND
MS ANN-MARIE
FIELD
29 OCTOBER 2007
Q197 Chairman: Welcome. It is very nice
to see you. I hope you are feeling better. We were contemplating,
are we meant to call you Secretary of State, Minister, Leader,
we are not quite sure. Secretary of State, I think. Would you
like to introduce your colleagues who are with you.
Ms Harman: Thank you very much
indeed. I do apologise for my no-show last week. I have with me
today Janice Shersby, who is Head of the Government Equalities
Office, and Ann-Marie Field, who is responsible for gender within
that office.
Q198 Chairman: Thank you very much. As
you know, last year the Trade and Industry Committee started looking
at equal pay and the pay gap, particularly looking at occupational
segregation and the link into the lack of people with skills in
the economy. We did a report and said we would return to it when
we had the Women and Work Report, which we have now been looking
at, and what has been done in relation to the recommendations
in it. If we can start off by asking you what you would regard
as being the most significant of the Women and Work Commission's
recommendations for tackling gender inequality in the workplace
and why?
Ms Harman: Thank you, Judy. Perhaps
I can say that I very much welcome the attention which this Select
Committee has paid to this area of work, and I feel progress is
made by everybody keeping a sharp focus on it. I am not sure I
could pick out one particular thing of the Women and Work Commission,
but perhaps I might get back to them. I think it is really a combination
of a whole range of activities taken in a whole range of ways
and it is also a whole range of organisations keeping a focus
on this issue which will take us further forward. That is rather
ducking the question about one particular one. If I could say
the reason why I think this area of work is so important is, firstly,
because of the principle of fairness. I think we would all agree
it is wrong for people who are at work to be paid unfairly on
the grounds of their gender, so there is a straightforward principle
issue. There is also a whole range of other issues, like if we
want to tackle child poverty we have to tackle low pay amongst
women, if we want to have a sensible efficient labour market then
it does not make sense for occupational segregation to exclude
or deter a whole swathe of people, so it makes economic good sense.
There is a whole range of issues which need to be addressed and,
therefore, I cannot pick out one particular one.
Q199 Miss Kirkbride: Tempting you
a little further to make a decision about what is the most important,
a lot of the focus on equal pay is on encouraging women to do
more of the jobs traditionally done by men and if we did more
of the jobs traditionally done by men, which are paid better,
we would then begin to diminish the pay gap. Is that the most
important way forward or is an equal or, perhaps, more important
way forward to focus on the skills which women already have and
encourage them to upgrade them throughout their own career, ie
should we be steering women towards doing the non-traditional
women's jobs or should we be getting women better trained and
focusing on what they already do and like doing?
Ms Harman: I think there is a
fair evaluation of the work which is traditionally done by women,
that is a very important thing, that there are a lot of women
doing work which is clearly undervalued, otherwise you have got
to accept that a part-time woman is worth 40% per hour less than
a full-time man. Therefore, part of it is about us doing what
we can to make sure the work which is traditionally done by women
is not undervalued. Even without women training for further opportunities,
even without women going into work which is traditionally done
by men, there is something which needs to be done just about how
women doing jobs which are traditionally done by women are valued
in terms of the amount of pay they get. The question about jobs
traditionally done by men is very much an issue for young boys
and girls in school and people newly into the labour market because,
of course, the nature of work is completely changing. Work which
might have been traditionally done by men in factories that might
have been regarded as very heavy manual work will often involve
the use of computers now, like in a warehouse which might have
involved masses of lifting huge amounts which does not involve
any because of machinery. I think we need to try and think afresh
about what are traditional male jobs because the work in those
traditional male areas is changing because of new technology.
The third point in relation to training and upgrading of women
in terms of them getting on in their jobs is it is important for
people to have as much choice as possible about the areas they
work in and that we have as little preconceptions and stereotyping
of jobs. I also think one of the key areas for women is the inability
for women in part-time work to take training opportunities and
to get advancement, the difficulty of the labour market recognising
that somebody is just as committed to their job even if they work
fewer hours and, therefore, are just as worthy of promotion and
extra training, so I would say those three issues.
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