UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 317-iHouse of COMMONSMINUTES OF EVIDENCETAKEN BEFORECOMMUNITIES
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This is an uncorrected transcript of evidence taken in public and reported to the House. The transcript has been placed on the internet on the authority of the Committee, and copies have been made available by the Vote Office for the use of Members and others.
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Transcribed by the Official Shorthand Writers to the Houses of Parliament: W B Gurney & Sons LLP, Hope House, Telephone Number: 020 7233 1935
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Oral Evidence
Taken before the Communities and Local Government Committee
on
Members present
Dr Phyllis Starkey, in the Chair
Mr Clive Betts
Anne Main
Alison Seabeck
________________
Witnesses: Maria Eagle MP, Minister of State, Government Equalities Office and Ministry of Justice, and Mr Jonathan Rees, Director-General, Government Equalities Office, gave evidence.
Q1 Chair: Minister, can I ask you first of all, a great deal of the work that the GEO does seems to be measuring whether targets have been met, and most of the work in meeting those targets is done by other departments. Could you say whether the office is actually influencing the achievement of these targets, or just measuring them?
Maria Eagle: We are certainly
not just measuring them, I believe that we add a lot of value, and although I
can see why it might appear that we measure what others do, certainly our main
targets, which are in
Q2 Chair: Apart from the Equality Act which I accept is a big piece of work, can you think of one concrete example of where you have added value to what another department has been doing?
Maria Eagle: Well, for example, we lead on international issues in the EU, for example, on the equal treatment directive, we are leading the negotiations from the British side in respect of that, so there is a piece of work that is ours. Obviously, we draw upon the policy and stances of other departments in order to do that, but we do lead on those negotiations, so that is one piece of work internationally. I think the Equality Bill is an important piece of work across government and across departments that we lead on. We also add value in other ways, for example, whether it is in trying to make sure that women in prison are treated more appropriately, we have been having cross-government and local government events to try and focus on keeping vulnerable women who should not be imprisoned out of prison, that is partly GEO priorities, government for women priorities, but it is also a priority in MoJ, we have brought together local government and other agencies at local level to try and promote local solutions and alternatives to imprisonment in particular areas for those women who would otherwise be sent to prison, so we add value in that way. We have done a similar thing in respect of trying to encourage more black, Asian and minority ethnic women into political representation at local and national level across parties; we have run a taskforce, which has actually been very successful, and has engaged all mainstream political parties around the nation, again regionally based events to do that. So I think there are a number of areas. We have to be focused and pick our priorities, because we are a small department, but I do believe we add value, and are able to bring together a focus on this agenda which can join up some of the efforts going on in other departments which might otherwise be disparate and not joined-up.
Q3 Chair: So just to focus down on your four priorities, which other priorities did you leave out in order to get the Minister for Women's priorities down to the four that exist?
Maria Eagle: I do not think that we started with a list of 100 and cut it down to three, I think that what we did was focus on some areas in respect of gender equality that would be symbolic and meaningful, and that would add value, and that is how we came up with the three that we came up with.
Q4 Alison Seabeck: Your Autumn Performance Report indicated a narrowing of the gender pay gap by 0.5 per cent. I have listened to your comments about a lot of work being value adding: how do you assess GEO's contribution to that 0.5 per cent? Some of it undoubtedly will be trade union work, some of it will be individuals being particularly strong-minded and arguing their corner. How do GEO fit into that or contribute?
Maria Eagle: We lead
on that particular aspect of
Q5 Alison Seabeck: Can we come back to the figures in their own right, so to speak? The ONS clearly are not happy with the way the figure was being produced, in terms of the gender pay gap, changing it to look at median pay across a range of different levels of employment, part-time, full-time and so on. How confident are you that those figures actually will give us a better picture than the one we currently have, given the vagaries that exist in the system? The fact that part-time women workers seem to do better than men, and how much of that is professional women being job sharing, you know, that is not necessarily pulled out of it, and then the media simplify it.
Maria Eagle: I think
that there is always a balance to be struck in indicators between a very
complicated set of numbers which give you a fuller picture and choosing one
that gives you a flavour to focus upon.
There are pros and cons. The more
you have, the more complicated it is, the less easy it is to focus on it, and
the less easy it is to engage other departments and to explain to the public,
and those who need to be convinced about this, like employers and employees,
where you are at. The more simple it is,
the less able you are to be clear about how it really encapsulates the
issue. We do still, of course, as well
as this single figure, have a range of other numbers produced by ONS on a
regular basis, that you can look to for additional information, that might not
form part of the
Q6 Alison Seabeck: Can we move on to the variations between public and private sector, and the measure in the Equality Bill to require employers of over 250 staff to publish their gender pay gap by 2013? A lot of concern has been expressed that it only applies to companies or people employing that number. Why was that decision taken?
Maria Eagle: You have to have a balance between transparency; the underlying policy in the bill is that greater transparency promotes more focus on the issue, and therefore greater leverage in order to narrow the pay gap, which everybody says they want to do. So transparency is something that we seek to get, but you do not want to put such a burden on employers, especially smaller employers, that it is disproportionate. So you do not want to require them to produce so much that they feel like it is diverting them from their main business, which is whatever business they are in.
Q7 Alison Seabeck: Can it only be done by getting the details separately, it cannot be done through HMRC or any other form of data that is already collected?
Maria Eagle: It depends what you choose to ask them to produce. I am going to ask Jonathan to give you some details of what other arrangements have been considered, but remember, the main aim of this is transparency, not to be overburdensome, but to produce some figures that are meaningful, and we are going to lead in the public sector by producing these figures ourselves on a voluntary basis for organisations of over 150, so leading by example is important. We are already encouraging business to do this voluntarily, and we will resort to the requirement that you are discussing if by 2013 we have not seen some good statistics produced. The overwhelming and underlying idea is that transparency promotes focus on improvement, and that is really what we are getting at.
Mr Rees: The 250 figure, a company of that size will have both an HR function and a payroll function, and actually, the evidence shows that producing the single figure causes them no problems whatsoever. So that is the reason we chose that particular figure. As companies get bigger, they can then produce different types of figures, including broken down by pay grade, by pay range and so on, and we are not against people producing more. The whole thrust of the debate on transparency is if you cannot see a problem, then you cannot begin to tackle it. As the Minister said, in the public sector we will introduce it earlier, spring 2011, and it will be for all public sector organisations employing more than 150, by and large because public sector organisations have much more of the infrastructure than private sector ones do.
Q8 Alison Seabeck: Government is a huge procurer; are you saying that within your procurement process, you will be insisting that companies of 150 will be doing this as part of their contract? If they cannot meet that public sector target, will you press them on it, will you say, "You cannot have the contract if you do not give us this information"?
Maria Eagle: I do not think it will be quite as stark as that, but there are provisions in the bill that enable the public sector, in pursuance of its equality duty, which is also, of course, in the bill, to use the significant purchasing power that it has, and we are talking about upwards of £75 billion a year, to require those who wish to do business with a particular bit of the public sector to show that they are making progress in the areas of equality. Now it will not be as crude as, "You will not get the contract if you do not do this", it is not contract compliance in that sense, but what it will do is require a set of standards, and a focus from those seeking to do business with the public sector, that they are addressing these equality issues. So it is a powerful tool, but it has to remain sufficiently flexible not to just be burdensome, and not to impinge upon the value for money requirements which public procurement is about.
Q9 Alison Seabeck: What would you judge as being sufficient progress by 2013? You talked about taking a decision in 2013 about whether or not further action was required. What in your view --
Maria Eagle: We do not have a template yet for what that will definitely be, but there is clearly a difference between a snail's pace type of movement and a very -- these things are better done voluntarily, if they can be done voluntarily, because clearly, if people are volunteering, there is no question of there being any duress, or people being dragged along unwillingly. We think once these things are focused upon, there is a really good business case for doing this. That is part of the reason why we want the public sector to lead the way by example, that you get a better quality of effort from a diverse workforce that does not have unjustifiable barriers to get past in order to even be in the workplace. So we have to take a view on that. Jonathan, there may be some planning going on that you want to tell the Committee about.
Mr Rees: In essence, the Equality and Human Rights Commission last week produced a baseline report to show how many companies actually report on this, and it is very small. It corresponds to the research we did before we put the provision in the bill that many companies do not collect the data, so if they do not collect the data, how do they know they have got a problem, and very, very few companies publish the data. So one of the key criteria that we have said is that we would expect to see much greater transparency by all companies between now and 2013. Now it is not actually very difficult to publish this data, therefore if companies do not publish it, then it is even more likely that we will resort to bringing the clause into effect. If they do publish it, as the Minister said, then there is no need, in a sense.
Q10 Anne Main: Can I just follow up on that? When the data is published, what is going to be done about the data as published? Is anyone going to analyse it here, or are you expecting the company themselves to do something with it? Other than it just being quite an interesting set of figures, what is going to happen as a result of that data then being out in the public domain?
Maria Eagle: Well, a number of things. I think first and foremost, I am sure that the Commission and/or ourselves will analyse it. I think there are other stakeholders out there with an interest in gender equality who will analyse it, and draw conclusions from it. Having data available enables evidence-based policy making, rather than prejudice-based policy making, which is the alternative that you get if you do not have data. So I think that having the data there and available will be a great help to policy makers, and to campaigners and stakeholders generally. I think the other issue is in respect of individual companies --
Q11 Anne Main: I am just wondering if it is going to become a name and shame thing really. We know the gender pay gap is there, because that is recognised, so therefore are we really just looking to see who the culprits are in this? We might guess who they are, but this will be a way of shaming them publicly?
Maria Eagle: I think transparency may have that impact in particular instances; if there is, for example, a particularly bad gap, and we saw the Equality and Human Rights Commission's survey of gender pay gaps in financial services, for example, and that was quite shocking. So I think that any company that wants to have a good name and wants to attract the best women as well as the best men may well wish to address a significant gender pay gap that it becomes apparent that it has, because it has to publish figures. That is to the good, I think.
Q12 Anne Main: But if I went along for an interview, I would either be happy with the pay that was on offer and the conditions on offer, I would not necessarily need to know what the pay gap was, but I will just park that one. I would also quite like to ask you then, in terms of government procurement being such a huge tool, would the Government, and obviously, it is your views I am listening to at the moment: would the Government be then thinking, well, we would only place contracts with companies that showed a significant improvement or a commitment to improving, is this how it is going to be used, or how you envisage it being used?
Maria Eagle: I think transparency in the first instance is about enabling potential employees, as you indicated, to compare themselves; for example, you might be happy with your starting salary, but if you are highly ambitious and you saw that women did not get on in a particular company, and there was a pay gap five years down the line, you might re-evaluate whether it was worth your applying for a job in that particular company.
Q13 Anne Main: I can see that one, but I have now flipped the reverse coin, and said: would, for example, the Government restrict procurement to any companies that showed a more favourable approach to the gender pay gap?
Maria Eagle: I think the Government, in pursuance of the policy and the legislation about using public procurement to improve the quality, could certainly use the information that is produced as an indicator of how well a particular company is doing, whether it is meeting the obligations that one would wish to see in terms of closing a particularly large pay gap, yes.
Q14 Chair: Can I just pursue this issue about the financial/insurance sector? As you said, it is the one with the largest pay gap, and there are many members of the public that would suspect that it is also the industry that has been the most unhelpful to the public good recently. Do you think there is a connection? Do you think if you improved the gender pay gap, it might improve the performance?
Maria Eagle: It is not
Q15 Chair: Two questions: are bonuses included in that analysis?
Maria Eagle: I think bonuses were included in that analysis. In fact, I think it was the bonuses that were making a big difference.
Q16 Chair: It would be quite interesting to know whether, if you took the
bonuses out, the gap would be so big.
The second issue is you will know that the French government, for
example, has just announced -- I am not quite sure how far they have got with
it -- that they are proposing to make it mandatory for boards to have 40 per
cent women, I think. There is probably a
timescale on that, is there? Are we
considering doing something similar, and are you going to be looking at the
experience there and in
Maria Eagle: I am not
sure about company law in
Mr Rees: Just to say
that we did publish research in November about the Norwegian experience,
Cranfield did it for us. A number of
countries, not just France, the Spanish have also looked at the best way of
doing this, and as the Minister said, the way our company law is constructed,
we could not actually follow directly the Norwegian or indeed, I think, the
French model, because directors are also employees under British company
law. But that is not to say that we are
not doing quite a lot of work talking to the
Chair: Can we move on to another subject, which is to do with tackling violence against women?
Q17 Anne Main: As you say, you have the Stern review ongoing at the moment. Why did you set up the Stern review? What did you expect it to achieve?
Maria Eagle: Well, I think we expect it to focus on how better to ensure that rape is dealt with appropriately by the entire criminal justice system, because there is certainly evidence at present that it is not dealt with as well as it ought to be by every bit of the criminal justice system. What we hope is that Baroness Stern will be able to make recommendations which will enable us to do better in respect of dealing with that particular crime across the criminal justice system.
Q18 Anne Main: So if there is that commitment, will there be the funding available to enable the Rape Crisis Centres to stay open in 2010? Is the funding committed for that?
Maria Eagle: As far as I am aware, none of the Rape Crisis Centres have closed over the last two years, none of the ones that we are aware of. We do not have a central record of all the Rape Crisis Centres, we know the ones that have come to our attention, but they are locally-based organisations, often from the third and voluntary sector, who set up in their locality.
Q19 Anne Main: Do you think they are a valuable thing to have?
Maria Eagle: Absolutely, and in fact, this department has assisted in making funding available to make sure that they can continue to do the work that they do over the past two years, and will be doing so again this year. We are also doing work with others to look at how best to make them sustainable over the longer term.
Q20 Anne Main: So you think there is enough funding for those Rape Crisis Centres that you have identified to stay open? Because you just said you were not sure how many there were.
Maria Eagle: We are not. We are only sure they are there if they come forward. There is not a central register. I mean, we have a list of Rape Crisis Centres that we know exist, because they have come to our attention one way and another, sometimes because we have funded them centrally or they have been funded by other central government departments, but we do not have a comprehensive list, I could not say to you now or in a Parliamentary answer that we definitely know how many there are and where they all are.
Q21 Anne Main: I was just about to say that: if you do not have a list, are you sure that there is not patchy coverage, that some areas are very well covered, and in other areas are not?
Maria Eagle: There is patchy coverage, and that is quite clear from the work the Equality and Human Rights Commission has done, that is what its Map of Gaps work indicates. These are locally based organisations, and as you will know, much of the funding that is meant to support the third sector is devolved down via various government departments, whether it is Home Office, whether it is DCLG, via local government and regional structures in health and other departments, to fund those organisations. To the extent that they apply and sometimes do not get funding from there, that is where the gaps emerge. I think there is an issue here that we have identified locally, because some fund locally and others do not, and I think the work that the Equality and Human Rights Commission has done, which it has published as its Map of Gaps, indicates that there can be that issue, and they have taken steps to try and enforce more of a focus locally where there are gaps on the local authorities and local and regional agencies who fund the commissioners to address those gaps, and that is work that we welcome in the GEO.
Mr Rees: If I could just add, one of the big issues is that most of these Rape Crisis Centres are very, very small, and therefore, where we have been working with them is to try and help them become sustainable. Part of what has happened over the last three years is you have to be much more professional at applying for local government or indeed Office of the Third Sector or other funding, and we will be publishing a report on that in the next month or so, as to how they can become sustainable. So we have run two funds in each of the last two years so that all of those Rape Crisis Centres that we were aware of have been able to be funded, but clearly what we want to get to is a position where they can sustain themselves going forward.
Q22 Anne Main: But if the funding is not protected, is it going to be something like the sexual health services whereby as soon as it is not ringfenced, it becomes a competing priority and it may not happen; in which case, how does that sit with the ambitions of the department?
Maria Eagle: There is an issue here about educating local commissioners and regional commissioners, and this is in health, in local government, sometimes in the criminal justice system, that funding organisations such as this is part of what their core business ought to be. Some of them get it and some of them do not, which is why you have the gaps that you have. Now the money that we have put into making sure that the existing Rape Crisis Centres do not go out of business over the last few years has been about sustaining them until the local commissioners can recognise their own obligations in this respect. So this is not a matter of there being funding or there not being funding, it is a matter of priorities in respect of local commissioners. So there is an education job to do there which the Rape Crisis Centres themselves also have a part in playing, in making sure we get that across, but central government departments which do not generally fund such things, and that includes GEO, should not be having to step in to fill gaps that local commissioners, who ought to be commissioning these services, have left.
Q23 Anne Main: You have just said about education of local authorities, the Fawcett Society recommended having an awareness raising campaign similar to the drink driving awareness campaign, a campaign on rape and sexual violence. Is that something you would consider then, in terms of part of educating the whole process?
Maria Eagle: I think we have done a certain amount of that already, and so have the Equality and Human Rights Commission. They do it by publishing their Map of Gaps and then writing to local authorities where there are gaps, and saying: do you know you ought to be doing this?
Q24 Anne Main: I think they were thinking more, as I say, like the drink driving campaign, something on the television, perhaps a Rape Crisis helpline as well, like a ChildLine-type thing.
Maria Eagle: We do fund the Rape Crisis helpline.
Mr Rees: We do, and that is one of the issues that will flow from the review that Baroness Stern is undertaking. What we are talking about here is there is a need for commissioners to understand the role that the voluntary sector can provide in helping women who have been raped, but also occasionally men. There is then a need for the voluntary sector to understand, if I can put it in these terms, how to get money in a much more professional way, where services are tending to be bundled up and commissioned over three years. Then there is the point that you are making, which is there is also a need to raise awareness across the whole of the community, and that is one of the things that we will be looking at with Baroness Stern when she does her recommendations in the next few weeks.
Q25 Chair: I think there is a problem in that rape, and domestic violence for that matter, are very under-reported; the pressure on the local police force and others is to reduce crime figures, and yet it can be argued that a really successful campaign highlighting domestic violence, that it is unacceptable, et cetera, could actually worsen the crime figures, because more people would come forward and report it, not because there is actually any more crime. So there are kind of two things pushing against each other.
Maria Eagle: I think
that is true. I think part of what you
have seen over the last few years has been increased reporting of rape and of
this kind of crime, and the criminal justice agencies, including the police and
the
Q26 Alison Seabeck: The Corston review report almost three years old now, what is your view on the implementation of it? How successful have government departments been, for example, and others in taking forward her suggestions?
Maria Eagle: Very successful. I mean, in terms of the recommendations which were accepted, and almost all of them were, most of the recommendations and the actions that flowed from them have been implemented, and so we have seen over the last year, since some of that was done, almost a 5 per cent fall in the number of women in prison, at a time when the adult male prison population has gone up by 2 per cent. You have to remember that the male population is 95 per cent of the total, and the female population is 5 per cent of the total, and this is one of the reasons why you had a certain amount of invisibility in the prison and probation system, was that there are far fewer women and girls involved in it than there are boys and men. So there was a tendency amongst those who organise it, entirely understandably, not to really understand fully the differences between women's offending and men's offending, and therefore the different approach that there ought to be to dealing with it. The fact that far more women are sent to prison for less serious offences, when government policy quite clearly is that prison is for serious and dangerous offenders, in part because such a small percentage of the population who get involved in the criminal justice system are women, there are not the interventions there in the same numbers, and there is not the same amount of learning about what works with women as there is about men. So consequently, we have to adjust the understanding of the entire intervention across the criminal justice system. That is a cultural thing that takes time, but I think the work that MoJ has been able to do, putting in extra money to provide community based solutions to some of the problems that lead to female offending, has the potential to make that 5 per cent fall a much bigger fall.
Q27 Alison Seabeck: But there are still issues, are there not, you know, I hear what you are saying about working in the community, trying to keep women out of prison, and that is very welcome, but you still have women in prison who are entitled only to a five-minute phone call once a month, women with children. Where are the improvements there? What can be done to improve that?
Maria Eagle: There is no limit of five minutes once a month in terms of phone calls.
Q28 Chair: Free, I think. You have to pay for them beyond that.
Maria Eagle: You have to pay for them, indeed, but there is no such limit on time. There may well be an issue about whether people can afford to pay for them; yes, they do have to be paid for. Generally, because there are far fewer women's jails, only 13, women tend to be kept further away when they are imprisoned from their families than men. This is one of the reasons why, if they are not a serious or dangerous offender, it is better to find a solution outside of sending them to prison if at all possible. We know that a third of the women who are sent to prison are sent there for theft and handling, probably persistent petty theft rather than serious conspiracy to steal millions of pounds, petty, smaller levels, but no doubt to the magistrate that they keep coming in front of, there is an issue about, what do I do with this person if they keep breaking all the orders that are made, apart from sending them to prison? There is an issue there, which is where I hope the community provision, the one-stop shops, the women's centres that we are putting into place, and that MoJ has found £15.6 million to fund, will start providing some alternatives that work. In fact, GEO has been helping in respect of this by running some awareness raising and networking events, I am speaking at the final one tomorrow in Cardiff, which brings together all the local agencies to talk about the different nature of women's offending, and what can be done instead; the fact that many women who end up in prison are drug addicted, 80 per cent of them have mental health problems, 60 per cent of them have a dependent child, who often then gets taken into care, or loses their main carer, because there may only be a single carer, and that putting women in prison in those circumstances for usually a very short period of time does not give the Prison Service time to intervene properly to address the offending behaviour, because short-term sentences are difficult to do that during, but also can cause a downward spiral for the woman in terms of losing her home, losing her children often, and it is not necessarily the best way of tackling the offending behaviour.
Q29 Alison Seabeck: And contributing to the very high levels of self-harm in prison. Indeed, something like 30 per cent of self-harm in prison is committed by women who are less than 5 per cent of the population, so there is a very significantly higher level of self-harm amongst women in prison than amongst men. There are these very striking differences which does justify, under the gender duty, different treatment in terms of solutions. I think that the response to Corston, and to the work that Jean Corston did, and the work that the Government has done in implementing her recommendations, has made the administration of prisons and probation really see that there is a difference, which previously was pretty invisible to them. One example, and this was one of Jean Corston's clear recommendations, end strip searching, it is called full searching in prison terms, but it does not routinely happen in any women's prison any longer. Given that many of the women who end up in jail were victims of violence and sexual abuse before they became offenders themselves, one could see how the idea of routine strip searching might add to distress. I have visited a lot of women's prisons in my other role as MoJ Prisons Minister, and what those responsible for security say to me is that the new full searching regime not only makes for much better relationships between prisoners and staff, but it also means that they get better intelligence about when searches do need to be conducted, because they get told, "Oh, X is bringing something in"; better all round, effectively. I think that is as a direct result of the understanding that Jean Corston brought in her report, which has been taken on board by the Prison Service.
Q30 Alison Seabeck: Can I come back to the gender duty and the implementation of it by those involved in the criminal justice system? How happy are you with that implementation? Sorry to come back to measurement again, because I do accept some of the points you have been making, but how can you measure that, that they are actually making progress?
Maria Eagle: It is
anecdotal at present, because it is hard to measure, but I think the fact that
we now have, in the prison end, the custody end of the criminal justice system,
gender specific standards, a framework for how to deal with women that
indicates that there are differences with men, shows that in policy terms, the
gender duty is being taken on board, and is being understood. I think there are other bits of the criminal
justice system that could learn from the work of the custodial end, and I think
actually one of the advantages of some of the provision that we are supporting
in communities, the one-stop shops for women offenders, one of the advantages
of that provision is it can help aid understanding across other parts of the
criminal justice system about these differences, and that has to be good, but I
think there are local authorities and perhaps the police and
Q31 Chair: Can I ask about foreign prisoners? I notice that 20 per cent of the female prison population are foreign nationals. Would a high proportion of them be involved in bringing in drugs?
Maria Eagle: Yes, I think it is fair to say that a high proportion of them are either drug mules, as they are called, serving long sentences therefore, deterrent sentences, or people who have been charged with fraud because they do not have the right identity papers, although some of them may be trafficked women, but I think a high percentage of them, yes, indeed, drug mules.
Q32 Chair: Obviously there is a need to discourage other women in the countries from which the drugs are coming from thinking this is a risk-free way of getting a lot of money, but does the department have any thoughts about a better way of doing it than just locking these women up, far from their homes, for a very long period of time, and then deporting them at the end of their sentence, presumably?
Maria Eagle: It is
quite difficult once a sentence has been given to start interfering, obviously
the judge has made his decision in respect of particular individuals. I think the deterrent sentences are working,
in the sense that combined with the work that Foreign Office, DfID, MoJ and
Home Office do in some of the countries of origin, if you combine that with the
deterrent sentences that others who have tried to do this have got, it is
acting as a deterrent. The numbers of
foreign national prisoners that we have in our prison system, male and female,
and the percentage is higher in the female estate than in the male estate, it
is 14 per cent in the male estate, is relatively low compared with most of the
rest of
Q33 Chair: That is interesting.
Maria Eagle: In fact, one of the lowest.
Q34 Chair: It is not something you would gain from reading the press.
Maria Eagle: It depends which newspaper you read.
Q35 Anne Main: Empowering black and ethnic minority women is one of the key
objectives of the department. I would
like to ask a controversial question: in
Maria Eagle: Yes, I do, I do not agree with that.
Q36 Anne Main: I am not sure what you do not agree with.
Maria Eagle: I do not agree with that statement, with that view of the veil --
Q37 Anne Main: Being a prison?
Maria Eagle: -- or the various types of clothing.
Q38 Anne Main: Like the niqab, I am thinking.
Maria Eagle: I do not
think it is, in
Q39 Anne Main: No, but obviously the French are saying they do not want to be part of the British way, and that is why they are doing it, they have actually cited that.
Maria Eagle: Yes, I do not suppose the French are as concerned as we might be about what the British way of doing things is.
Anne Main: I just thought I would ask.
Chair: Shall we move on the questions we were going to ask about age discrimination?
Q40 Anne Main: Yes, obviously that has been all over the media this morning, I am sure you are aware about some of the concerns about age discrimination. Could not such businesses such as Saga, who have been making quite a high profile campaign on this, be forced to close or open their doors or services to everyone?
Maria Eagle: No, because the ban on discrimination on the grounds of age in the provision of goods, facilities and services is not an absolute ban, it is a ban on unjustified discrimination that is detrimental, and so therefore, there will be exceptions to it, and it will also be possible to objectively justify any discrimination.
Q41 Anne Main: So all these newspaper hype headlines, that holidays for over 50s will not be allowed, child-free hotels --
Maria Eagle: Complete nonsense, it is complete and utter nonsense.
Q42 Anne Main: So you can debunk that one?
Maria Eagle: Yes.
Mr Rees: As we have made clear on many occasions over the last 12 months, and we will produce a policy statement later this week which will make it even clearer, there is no foundation in them whatsoever.
Maria Eagle: But funnily enough, those bits never get reported.
Anne Main: I would just like to have it on the record for today.
Q43 Chair: Regrettably, the only press person walked out before that question.
Maria Eagle: Yes, they knew you were going to ask that, and thought they would get out while the going was good.
Q44 Anne Main: So why have mandatory retirement ages then in contracts of employment not been abolished in the Equality Bill?
Maria Eagle: As the
Committee is almost certainly aware, there is some ongoing work arising out of
the original provisions, the regulations in 2006, about default retirement age,
which is being reviewed at present. Now
the default retirement age is something which the original employment
provisions from 2006 set in place to say that an employer, where they wish, can
set a time at which it wants its employees to go, or it can choose to enable
them to continue to work beyond that retirement age, whether that is the state
retirement age or whether it is their own normal retirement age, as it used to
be known in employment law, and so that has been there. Now the review that is going on this year, which
has been brought forward from next year, and is being conducted by
Q45 Anne Main: Do you think there may be a mismatch with the fact that you may have to work longer, wait before they get their pensions; do you see at the moment there is a concern that there is a mismatch between potentially expecting people to work maybe until 68, because they physically cannot afford to retire, and yet a default retirement age that has not kept up with the longevity that people are experiencing, generally speaking?
Maria Eagle: I think clearly speaking, your own party has its own views on when women ought to retire, which is going up and up and up, as far as I can see.
Q46 Anne Main: I am asking a matter of principle.
Maria Eagle: I think if you are going to make state retirement pension available at a later age, any government that is going to do that would have to have in mind and bring into line any requirements on default retirement age, because what you could not do is enable employers to require people to retire before they qualify for their state retirement pension, that would be nonsensical. So whatever policy position one chooses to take about when it ought to be, these things clearly have to be aligned.
Q47 Anne Main: People do say, particularly in the media, that women are particularly discriminated against as soon as they get a few wrinkles. There has been a lot of hoo ha amongst media presenters, as soon as women get to a certain age, they are deemed not attractive enough to be presenting such worthy things as the news. Do you think then that the media stereotype of a pretty girl sitting next to an older man with gravitas is something that ought to be being considered?
Maria Eagle: I think that the media does have to put its house in order in respect of this, especially the visual media. They also influence, disproportionately but very much, the attitudes in society, I think, by what one sees, in any visual media, really, and those attitudes are reflected, I think, in society quite a lot. So I think that visual media and other media do need to put their house in order. I think it is harder for women as they get older to be taken appropriately seriously in such professions.
Q48 Anne Main: Because it is one of the big complaints that a lot of the news presenters, the women do not get paid as much, and they also do not get the opportunities. I wonder if you could have a word with the BBC.
Maria Eagle: I am happy to have a word with the BBC, maybe the Committee can have a word with the BBC, and the more people who have a word with the BBC, the better, but there are other broadcasters, there are other media. This is not just the responsibility of the BBC. The BBC have a responsibility as a public service broadcaster, but this is a matter for other companies as well.
Q49 Anne Main: Last one on the Equality Bill from me: how will the Equality Bill protect those with disabilities from discrimination?
Maria Eagle: Well, it re-enacts, of course, first and foremost, all of the provisions in the Disability Discrimination Act 2005, which I will not go through in detail, because I was the Bill Minister who took that through Parliament, and we would probably be here all night if I were to do that, I do know a bit about that one. It does add extra protection in over and above what was there before, so for example, it protects carers from discrimination, following the Coleman case, so anybody who is discriminated against on the grounds of their association with a disabled person is also brought under protection by the bill. That is a significant extension of rights for disabled people. It extends the current disability duty, obviously disability is included in the public sector duty in respect of equality, the one duty instead of us having six, so there is no regression there. Again, it may well be that some of our transparency requirements on the public sector, particularly in respect of the gap between disabled people's employment and able-bodied people's employment will be made more clear, and it ought therefore to assist disabled people in employment opportunities. It makes it easier for disabled people to have something done to make accessible the common parts of their domestic dwellings, although of course it requires them to pay for it, but this is an extension into a new area of accessibility where the law has not previously been. It makes it easier for disabled people to show they have been treated less favourably because of their disability; some disability discrimination legislation had become very complicated, with slight differences between slightly different aspects of discrimination, which the new bill clears up and makes more simple. I think extending the use of positive action, making it clear that the law enables positive action, where there is disproportionate -- for example, an employer who does not have many disabled people in employment, but wishes to redress that historical imbalance, will have it made clear to them that positive action is allowed, and so there will not be any question of them worrying that it is not, with the new legislation.
Q50 Anne Main: Can I just jump in there: allowed or expected?
Maria Eagle: Allowed, it is totally permissive. There has been a bit of an issue in the past where employers have worried that positive action of that nature amounts to positive discrimination, and that they might be taken to court for doing it, whereas the bill makes it clear that that is not the case, and where you are judging, say, an employment contest between two candidates who are capable of doing the job, it will be clear following the passage of the bill that choosing the person who has a disability is allowed rather than worrying that it might not be allowed, because it amounts to positive discrimination.
Q51 Anne Main: That is not the same as, say, for example, insisting on an advert that read, "Disabled people only need apply" type words, would that be permissible, under what you are describing?
Maria Eagle: No, I do not think that is permissible. There are some posts under, I think, the previous race legislation that were reserved in that way, but not under the disability legislation. So it makes that clearer, which is a small but important change. It extends the power of employment tribunals, from just giving out in an individual case, it enables them to make recommendations that can benefit an entire workforce, so that not everybody has to take a case before the employment tribunal to get an improvement. Generally, those are the improvements made for disabled people. Disabled people under the 2005 legislation already have the public sector duty, for example, and have made great strides in legislative terms over the last few years. In fact, the Equality Bill brings many of the other strands up to that standard, there is clearly no regression, but there are some improvements for disabled people.
Q52 Mr Betts: In terms of the mandatory age of retirement, I have a constituent who again last week got in touch with me, very disgruntled at the fact that he had worked for Royal Mail, he worked beyond retirement age, and then, of course, the financial crisis came and Royal Mail found it easier to recruit younger workers; they dismissed him, all right, they said he had to retire, but he regards it as dismissal; they did not write and confirm he could not do the job, but simply they can now find someone younger who can do it as well. I think you can see how people in that situation feel very unhappy indeed, they feel they have devoted their lives, they have done a good job, and suddenly, just because they happen to be 65 or 67, they are out on a limb. Now how long is this review going to take, have we any idea? Because clearly people are looking for something, and in that situation, I would like to be able to tell my constituent a little bit of positive news if I could.
Maria Eagle: Yes, the review has been brought forward from next year to this year, we are expecting it to be finished some time this year, and come out with its recommendations about whether or not the default retirement age should go. I cannot give you a precise date beyond saying it will be this year.
Q53 Mr Betts: Of course, there will not be any retrospection in it, will there? So if my constituent has lost his job, that is really it, he will suffer from the existing situation, and no new situation is really going to help him.
Maria Eagle: No, I am pretty sure there will not be any retrospection.
Q54 Chair: Can I move on to one of the non-departmental public bodies that the department is responsible for, the Equality and Human Rights Commission? You will be relieved to know we are not going to do it in detail, since several other Select Committees seem to be trawling all over it at the moment, but I would just like to ask you how satisfied you are with the work of the Commission so far, and what improvements you would like to see.
Maria Eagle: I think they have done some good work in respect of some of the work that they have produced, they have undertaken a decent amount of enforcement and litigation, I think something like 330 enforcement actions and litigation actions. We have mentioned some of the work that they have produced, the Map of Gaps, which they do on an annual basis, and the legal action that they took against the British National Party in respect of its membership rules had quite a big impact, so they do do some impact work. The work that they did on the financial services sector gender pay gap, the work they have produced this morning on default retirement age, they do do some useful work in that respect. Obviously, they have obligations under the legislation to produce guidance, which we will see how well they do that; they are just starting to do that in respect of the Equality Bill, but they have inherited the obligations of their predecessor bodies to produce guidance, and this is a key part of us making sure that the equality legislation succeeds, and so one would hope that they would do a good job of that. They have other work programmes in respect of specific strands, and I think it is important that they focus on the work that they do for specific strands. I think it would be fair to say that they have had a rocky start, but that they are looking to the future with some confidence. We have just appointed a new set of Commissioners, because there were some resignations, as the Committee will know, and others got to the end of their appointments, and I am hoping that the new board of Commissioners will be a good solid team that will hold the officers and the staff to account in terms of delivery. They certainly have plenty of public money with which to deliver, and we, along with others, will want to be seeing some value for money delivered in respect of the work that they do.
Q55 Chair: That suggests you do not think that there has been value for money thus far.
Maria Eagle: I think they have had a tough start, and I think they could do better, and I think they will do better.
Q56 Chair: Specifically how do you think they should do better?
Maria Eagle: Well, I think that they need to show that they can produce useful good guidance, that they can be authoritative in what the meaning of the law is, and help people to implement it. Some of the law in the Equality Bill is quite complicated. For example, in respect of the new goods, facilities and services age provisions, this is a new area of law that will cause confusion, we have already seen that the newspapers do not necessarily report the truth about it, there needs to be a good, authoritative, easily accessible version of what the law is, and we rely on the Commission to produce that. We also rely on them to do some good enforcement work, and I think they have done some of that. So I think there are some achievements to build on, but we want to see them built upon.
Q57 Chair: Given the evidence that has been given to the Human Rights Committee by some of the departing Commissioners about the Chair, do you think the Government made the right decision in deciding to re-appoint him?
Maria Eagle: I think we need to look to the future and make sure that the Commission does the job that it is there to do. I think that those troubles now need to be firmly placed behind them, and I think that they need to show by delivery that they are fit for the purpose that they were established for. I am confident they can do that.
Q58 Chair: Are you confident that the Chair can do it?
Maria Eagle: Well, I mean, he is now in post to do that, and he will be held to account by this Committee and others, and by the GEO, to ensure that he does.
Chair: Thank you very much.