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I also pay tribute to the two maiden speakers. I remember only too well what it felt like when I stood up and thought, “This is it. Now I have to make my speech”. But maiden speeches are also an interesting moment for noble Lords, because we get to hear something about the individual rather than a purely political speech, controversial or not. It was a rare treat to hear about the lives of the two maiden speakers, not only about the small village in India which I know the noble Lord, Lord Stern, studied but about the journeys that both noble Lords and their families have made to find themselves here today. Their speeches also celebrated difference, an issue on which I suspect we will hear much more from the noble Baroness, Lady Afshar. On behalf of everyone in the House I congratulate both of them on their speeches. Congratulations are particularly appropriate when one has arrived on a train that has caught fire. That is above and beyond the call.

We also had great opening speeches from both Front Benches, from the noble Lords, Lord Strathclyde and Lord McNally, both of whom did not make the mistake of missing out references to their wives. I pay tribute to them and to the other men who spoke—some with quite a bit of trepidation, which, knowing what they are usually like in debate, always makes me smile. We also had some incredible contributions from the women in your Lordships' House, on subjects ranging from the practical to the philosophical—stories of real life, and quite often stories from the women who did it. One of the great joys of being in your Lordships' House is having the opportunity to be among the women who made the reality of the life I lead. I pay tribute to all of them. I pay tribute, too, to the right reverend Prelate, who worries that some of us might wish to be on his Benches. It is just that we fancy the frock, actually. Like other noble Lords, I look forward to the day when women, too, grace the right reverend Prelate’s Benches; but I take nothing away from the important contribution that he made today.

My noble friend Lord Haskel said that these debates are a bit like an annual report, and in a sense my noble friend Lady Gould began by reporting on the Government's priorities for the future. I should like briefly to recap those priorities, which the Minister for Women and Equality published in July. Supporting families was a big theme in today's debate—particularly bringing up children, caring for older and disabled relatives, tackling violence against women and improving how we deal with women who commit crimes. Reference was made to my noble friend Lady Corston’s important report, which has

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been discussed in other debates your Lordships' House, and to empowering black and minority ethnic women to build cohesion within their communities and as a bridge between communities.

Those are the priorities my right honourable friend Harriet Harman has set out but I also want to report a little on how far we have come in the past year. In July we established the Government Equality Office which we hope will strengthen further the ability to deliver across the entire equalities agenda. In April 2007 we introduced the gender equality duty which requires public sector bodies proactively to promote gender equality of opportunity. We have decided to extend the right to request flexible working to parents of older children. There is a review underway as we speak to consider what the new cut-off age for the child should be but we will extend it. The Equality and Human Rights Commission opened its doors for business in October last year and I pay tribute to all those involved in it. It will challenge unlawful discrimination and help to protect individuals’ rights to fair treatment. The adult national minimum wage was increased in October 2007 to £5.52 an hour and yesterday my right honourable friend the Prime Minister announced a further rise to £5.73 this autumn. Noble Lords know only too well the importance of the minimum wage for helping the poorest women in our society. It will have risen by 60 per cent since it was first introduced. The working mother’s statutory maternity pay, statutory adoption pay and maternity allowance increased from 26 weeks to 39 weeks in April 2007. We also increased the flat rate for maternity pay from £55.70 a week in 1997 to £112.75 a week in April 2007 so that has doubled in 10 years.

These are important elements of the Government’s strategy but they are by no means the end. I look forward over the coming years to working with noble Lords to demonstrate how much more the Government wish to do. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, that I am extremely pleased that the Conservative Party has discovered that it wishes to be the party of women. This is against a backdrop of the Conservatives voting against all of the key measures that the Labour Party has introduced to improve women’s lives. In fact Mr Cameron criticised and voted against the plan to give fathers more paternity leave, although I am pleased to say he took advantage of it himself. He has indicated that although flexible working is important, he sees it as a way of making substantial potential savings for the Exchequer, such as through a decrease in the need for childcare provision. So there is more for all of us to do but there is a lot more for some of us to do.

I want to try and deal with some of the questions that have been asked of me by pulling together the different issues raised and attempting to give as much information as I can with the proviso that I will make sure that what I have missed is dealt with by correspondence. There were issues around employment and pay and around education and opportunity. I want to start with part of a speech that I found yesterday which might cheer up the noble

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Lord, Lord Strathclyde. It was made during the equal pay discussions in 1970 and the person speaking said this:

That person was Mrs Margaret Thatcher, then MP for Finchley. I mention it as a tribute to the way in which women have come together to look at the issues of equal pay.

The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, and my noble friends Lady Dean and Lady Lockwood, to whom I pay tribute for the work that she has done, referred to the issues of women’s employment and the pay gap. The pay gap is down from 17.4 per cent in 1997 to 12.6 per cent. We are committed to a further reduction and for the first time ever there is a PSA target to reduce the pay gap. I have indicated the importance of the national minimum wage in helping to narrow that pay gap. The Low Pay Commission said:

My noble friend Lord Young talked about agency workers in the broadest context. He will know that the Prime Minister is committed to trying to deal with this issue, either at a European level or domestically. I know that he will be interested in and aware of the concerns my noble friend has in the context of women and, indeed, of fair trade and trade, which I shall come on to say a little more about.

The noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, who has done an enormous amount, talked about women’s enterprise. She will know that we have established the Women’s Enterprise Task Force to accelerate the levels of female entrepreneurship and are working with our key partners—for example, regional development agencies—so that we can support women’s enterprise with a network of 1,000 women entrepreneur ambassadors. Like the noble Baroness, I pay tribute to Enterprise Insight, Girls! Make Your Mark, which is a campaign I know about, and the work of Elizabeth Crowther-Hunt, who has done so much on this issue. It is an extremely important campaign.

Apprenticeships also have their part to play. My noble friend Lord Young raised this subject. My noble friend Lady Gale spoke about women plumbers, which resonated with what my noble friend Lord Young had said, and about the importance of apprenticeships. I was surprised to learn that it is harder to get a British Telecom apprenticeship than it is to get into Cambridge, but these are important opportunities, not just for young people, which should be extended and expanded across the range. My right honourable friend John Denham is looking at what we can do to expand apprenticeships, how we can be more creative in thinking about them to ensure that different people, particularly women, see them as something that they can achieve through and how we can celebrate the achievements of those who gain

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apprenticeships. My noble friend Lady Gale talked about specific projects. I would be grateful if she would give the details to me; my noble friend Lady Morgan, in her new role on skills, would be the relevant person to look at those issues.

We also talked about higher education. I was grateful to my noble friend Lord Giddens for the trip around Beatrice Webb and for raising the issues of how we make sure we have enough women in academia and how we recognise women who are now attaining at the highest possible levels in education but still need to see that reflected in what happens to them beyond it. Universities are independent bodies and I look forward to them taking the opportunity to make sure that they recruit and retain women and find ways in which women can have flexible working to enable them to reach the highest echelons of university life.

My noble friend Lady Howells talked about the work of the commission and the importance of streamlining legislation. I could not agree more. That is very important. She also spoke about the importance of supporting minority ethnic women. Like my noble friend, I pay tribute to my predecessor, who was and remains an important figure not only in your Lordships’ House but in the life of this country and internationally, where she is well known for her work and is held in the highest regard. Getting legislation streamlined will be an important part of how we deliver more effectively in the world of equality. I agree with my noble friend about supporting minority ethnic women in particular. I was fortunate to be at the birth of the Windsor Fellowship, which specifically sought to support young undergraduate men and women from minority ethnic groups. I thought that it was extremely successful. I hope that through the gender duty we will see some improvements in this area.

The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, asked a specific question about the review on sex and relationship education. I am told that it will cover all aspects, including how such education is delivered in schools. It is being conducted by my honourable friend Jim Knight. If the noble Baroness would like to write to him with her thoughts and views on it, I am sure that he will be pleased to receive them.

I am pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Addington, talked about sport. How long have you got? Like the noble Lord, but without his knowledge and expertise, I can talk at length on all the issues about why girls do not participate. I agree about diversity of provision in schools and opportunities for young girls to have the chance to do dance, aerobics, table tennis, hockey or anything else that they wish. That is true for young people in general. When I was responsible for school sports, I used to say that I thought that we could make them dress better for sport. There are issues about what girls are expected to wear, particularly young teenagers. That was something I felt strongly about in terms of not putting them off being involved in sport.

There are issues about young girls and young men making the transfer from school sports into adult clubs. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport

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has been trying to address that for some time and I hope that we have made some progress on it. One aspect of the Olympics—I am fortunate enough to know two girls who will participate in the Olympics that we will host in London; one of them will also be at the Beijing Olympics—is the opportunity for young girls and men to be able to make that transition more easily. I hope that that will be one of the legacies. I could have told noble Lords about school participation rates, but I do not have any information on them, so I was only kidding.

We have a public service agreement to increase the take-up of opportunities by people aged 16 and over by 3 per cent, which includes women and girls. That may make some difference. My right honourable friend the Prime Minister said in November last year:

I think that the noble Lord, Lord Addington, and my right honourable friend would agree with every word of that.

Noble Lords spoke around a range of issues that I have loosely categorised as choice, which covers all aspects of how women can make choices in their lives: flexible working, child care, the issues raised by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester about his daughter—which I have described as “It’s a man’s world”—celebrating differences, as the noble Baroness, Lady Afshar, said, and, as my noble friend Lord Haskel said, being victims of circumstances that affect women’s lives, whether that is having to look after elderly parents, having young children and so on.

On the last, I begin with a quotation from Harriet Taylor Mill on the enfranchisement of women, which was written in the Westminster Review in 1851. It fits in with what the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, said in his opening remarks about choice. Harriet Taylor Mill stated:

I agree with all the sentiments expressed in that.

I pay tribute to my noble friend Lady Pitkeathley for all the work that she has done on carers. We know that demographic changes in our society, referred to by a number of noble Lords, and the increasing incidence of childhood disability coupled with longevity, lead to an increasing reliance on the work of people caring for family members. There are 4.27 million carers of working age in Great Britain, 2.4 million of whom are women. Sixty-six per cent of male carers of working age are in full-time work; for women, the figure is only 32 per cent. I agree with my noble friend that we have to review the strategy for carers and produce, as we intend, a 10-year plan to set out the proposals to improve support for those who care. That review is under way and will report to us in

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the spring. I am sure that noble Lords will be interested in hearing about it.

We should remind ourselves of the work of young carers, often girls, for whom I had responsibility. The age profile of a young carer is 11. That can sometimes lead to a lack of opportunities for boys and girls who cannot then fulfil themselves educationally because they simply have too much to do. It is important that schools support young carers, who, especially if their parents are mentally ill, often feel reluctant to talk about the issues with anyone.

Flexible working was mentioned by the noble Baronesses, Lady Walmsley and Lady Verma, the right reverend Prelate and others. It has been a great success. It has certainly had an impact: 56 per cent of employees—that is, 14 million—work flexibly or have done so within the past 12 months. Forty per cent of men and 78 per cent of women with children under the age of six have requested to work flexibly. As I indicated, a review of what the cut-off age should be is taking place, because it has been raised with us that older children, too, would benefit very much from parents having that right. Noble Lords who have spoken to those who have worked flexibly will know how valuable it is. It is an especially important aspect of what we have been able to offer to lone parents, who have been able to work perhaps in term time or to alter their hours.

The right reverend Prelate was concerned about the tax benefit system. He will know that, from April 2009, it will benefit 6 million families and 10 million children. Any family with children with an income of less than £58,000 is eligible for some tax credit support, usually paid to the main carer, who is usually the mother. We believe that that is an important aspect of what we do. I take nothing away from what has been said about the importance of family; I simply remind noble Lords that there is a diversity of family and that what matters for children is to be brought up in a loving, caring environment by those who can support them in the best possible way.

Pensions are an important issue. I hesitate even to go there with my noble friend Lady Hollis in the Chamber. Noble Lords made much of the importance of the pension credit. The noble Baroness, Lady Verma, was concerned that we should look at it and make sure that it is working as effectively as it might. The Pensions Bill is coming through but we have already made reforms that make it much easier to build up the full entitlement to state pension for women who are working or caring today. We believe that that will take almost half a million more women to full entitlement by 2025. We estimate that what is in the current Pensions Bill will enable 3.5 million to 4 million women to be automatically enrolled into a workplace pension scheme, which for many will be the first time they will have gained access to such a scheme.

I accept that social care and respite care are real issues with which we will have to deal. I do nothing more at this stage other than note them with interest. I will make sure that we think about them and come back to the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, on them.



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We then moved to a group of issues that are, in a sense, about the tragedies of women’s lives—the horrors of rape, domestic violence, female genital mutilation, prostitution, trafficking and forced marriages. My noble friend Lady Gould spoke about violence, particularly domestic violence. We know that it accounts for 16 per cent of all violent crime and we know that with 30 per cent of victims it starts and escalates during pregnancy. We know that it costs services £3.1 billion and the economy £2.7 billion, but the human and emotional cost is incalculable. The pain and suffering, outside what it costs the services, we calculate at £17 billion a year.

Much is going on in the domestic violence strategy. We are working with midwives because of the escalating problem in pregnancy. We are also working to provide independent support for women, so that they feel enabled to deal with the problem before it escalates out of control, and we are working to rescue them. Very important work is going on, but there is more to do, of course.

The noble Baroness, Lady Verma, asked about the implementation of the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act. We are implementing Section 9 in the summer of 2008. Section 12 is more problematic and will take time to implement. I am sure that that does not surprise the noble Baroness, but we need to look at when we can do it as soon as possible.

It is important that there are initiatives across the issue and that children who are witnessing domestic violence are supported and able to go and tell professionals. Certainly when I was one of the Ministers responsible for considering how to tackle this problem, we were looking to provide expertise and support so that schools would have somewhere to go should a child come to them and say, “I have a problem at home because my mom”—very occasionally “my dad”, but usually “my mom”—“is being beaten up by my dad”, or her partner; we wanted to ensure that the school was able to deal with the problem. That is an important aspect and I support all those who said that we should do more in that area.

The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, asked about the funding for the sexual assault services. We are spending about £3 million to extend the sexual assault referral centres. There are currently 20; we have plans for 40. We are piloting independent advisers in the UK and providing funding for the victims fund to help voluntary organisations to provide additional support. The reporting of rape has increased from 6,628 in 1997 to 13,780 in 2006-07. We believe that this is because victims have more confidence in coming forward, which is very important. But I hear what noble Lords have said about making sure that we translate reporting into people being convicted and punished for their crimes.

My noble friend Lady Rendell has been consistent in making sure that the issue of female genital mutilation has stayed on the agenda in your Lordships’ House and beyond. Although today she talked about other issues, which I shall come on to, I want to pay tribute to her for that. Noble Lords will know that we are putting funding into the Foundation

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for Women’s Health, Research and Development to ensure that we do as much as we can to protect people here, to support the work that is going on to prevent FGM from happening abroad and to prevent people from being taken from this country for that purpose.

We are looking to reintroduce the prostitution provisions in the Criminal Justice Bill when we are able to and in the mean time to encourage services and schemes that seek to divert individuals away from the criminal justice system and into routes out of prostitution. The noble Baroness, Lady Thomas of Walliswood, talked about trafficking, as did the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde. We are accelerating our plans to ratify the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings; we want to make sure that we have the necessary legislation and procedural changes in place before the end of the year. That is part of a much wider strategy, however. The Poppy Project has of course been a major part of the work that we have done. The dedicated Human Trafficking Centre was launched in October 2006. We are making sure that legislation suitably criminalises the activities.

Forced marriage is an issue on which I spent a lot of time when we translated the efforts of the noble Lord, Lord Lester of Herne Hill, into a government Bill, with the support of the noble Baroness, Lady Verma. I know that the noble Lord cannot be with us today; I think that he is in Strasbourg. There was also support in another place, where the Conservative Party enabled us to get that Bill on to the statute book in record time. I think that it was the fifth Bill ever converted from a Private Member’s Bill into a government Bill. It got through the House in record time and I pay tribute to all those involved. For that reason, I was surprised to hear Mr Cameron talking about criminalisation. I say to my noble friend Lady Dean that we spent a huge amount of time talking with victims of forced marriage and all the experts whom we could find to see whether we should go down the criminal or civil route. I visited young women in a refuge and talked to them at great length about the kind of things that would make a difference. The universal view was that we should use the civil courts because, despite everything, they did not wish to see their families criminalised. That was the route that we took. Of course we need to keep this under review, but that was important.

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