International Women's Day

Speech by Jo Swinson delivered to House of Commons on Thu 6th Mar 2008

Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD): It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd). I particularly enjoyed her remarks about the American elections, which I have also been following with much interest. My overriding concern is that either Obama or Clinton should be in the White House next time; I shall be pleased to see the back of its current occupant. However, I confess that, faced with the choice between the two Democrat candidates, I would be a Hillary supporter. I share the right hon. Lady's abhorrence of ageism, but as the youngest Member of the House, I should point out that the issue works both ways.

I must apologise on behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Lynne Featherstone), who would normally speak for my party on women's issues; she has a prior constituency commitment. I am delighted to speak in her place in this debate to mark international women's day. Yesterday, there was a wonderful cross-party event just outside Parliament to pay tribute to Emmeline Pankhurst of the suffragette movement. It was a bit of a shame that the nearest she has got to having a statue in Parliament is having one outside it in Victoria Tower gardens. None the less, the event was very enjoyable and it was good to see so many men there as well-one of whom, the hon. Member for Braintree (Mr. Newmark), is in the Chamber now.

This debate is particularly appropriate, not only because it is international women's day but because 2008 is a year of many anniversaries. It is 90 years since women achieved the right to vote and 80 years since they achieved the right to do so on the same basis as men. On the subject of history, I should like to share what I tell constituents is my favourite part of the tour of the House of Commons. It is the marble statue in the approach to Central Lobby. I do not know the background to its subject, but he was clearly deemed to have been worthy of a statue in the House of Commons when Emmeline Pankhurst was not. He was, apparently, the second Viscount Falkland, who obviously had some importance. What attracts me to that part of the tour is not the subject of the statue, but the little crack along the sword that he holds; both his hands are clasped on the sword, which goes down to the statue's marble base.

That crack is there because on 27 April 1909, one Marjory Hume, also a suffragette, handcuffed herself to the statue and the only way to remove her was to break the sword. It is my favourite part of the tour because when I stand by the statue, I think about how nearly 100 years ago, a piece of history took place by it.

Judy Mallaber: I understand that the statue had to be broken because there was no blowtorch. After the incident, there was a worry about further demonstrations, so the order went out to buy a blow torch so that the chains, rather than the valuable statues, could be broken.

Jo Swinson: I thank the hon. Lady for that further information about the event.

I would argue that the representation of women is important in itself-for equality and fairness in a 21st-century society. It is also important for the credibility of this Chamber in the eyes of our constituents. When they turn on the television to watch the goings-on here, as they may occasionally do, it does politics no service when they see such a lack of diversity in the House; that applies not only to gender, but to age, background, ethnicity and many other elements of diversity.

It is also important to note that better representation of women changes the issues that are discussed. I highly recommend an excellent book called "Women in Parliament" by Boni Sones and the hon. Member for Luton, South (Margaret Moran), which chronicles interviews with many women MPs. I read it a few months after my election and found it contained a few tips. I also found, pleasingly, that some of the experiences of women elected in 1997 of extreme and awful cases of sexism, even in the Chamber, did not relate to my experience eight years later in 2005. I am pleased that there has been good progress in the House. The book also found that there has been a noticeable change in the issues discussed as a result of having more women in the Chamber.

We have heard many issues raised today-trafficking, women in prisons, armed forces, child poverty, carers, forced marriage, black and minority ethnic women-all of which are important. But time is limited for the debate and it is impossible for me to cover everything. If more speakers can contribute, it will make for more interesting debate. I intend to confine my remarks to a few areas that particularly affect women; equal pay, violence against women, pensions, the international dimension and women's representation.

Margaret Moran: I thank the hon. Lady for that unanticipated plug and for her support for the follow-on project that Boni Sones and I have been involved in-women's parliamentary radio-through which we can provide unmediated information about women in Parliament and about what we are doing, rather than the stereotypes about women in this place that are often promulgated in the media.

Jo Swinson: The hon. Lady is absolutely right; the project is an excellent one that deserves support and its website is www.wpradio.co.uk. I would certainly encourage hon. Members to become involved with that excellent project.

The Minister mentioned the pay gap and accepted that it was still a problem. It is simply shocking that, more than 30 years after the equal pay and the sex discrimination legislation, we still have a significant pay gap between men and women-17 per cent. of the mean average for full-time workers and as high as 35 per cent. among part-time workers. That latter figure is particularly worrying because so many more women as a percentage work part-time than men.

The current mechanism to deal with equal pay claims is not working. In the year to 1 April 2007, some 130,000 claims were made under the legislation. Before it was wound up, the Equal Opportunities Commission pointed out the great problems that it had and the time taken for cases to be heard, an understandable delay given their volume. Effectively, the legislation is not managing to tackle the issue.

Pay audits are a good, proactive way of dealing with the pay gap and are now common practice in the public sector. I would like that arrangement to be extended to the private sector. We have the gender equality duty but we should require private companies to undertake pay audits and, as a quid pro quo, say to them that if problems are uncovered during the audit, claims cannot be made against them as long as they put right those problems.

Sandra Gidley: Does my hon. Friend accept that it is in the best interests of companies to provide the information? All the evidence from those companies that provide such information is that they get better women applying for jobs as a result. It is win-win situation for women and for the companies.

Jo Swinson: My hon. Friend makes an excellent point and the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) pointed out that businesses are increasingly recognising the different skills sets that women bring to an organisation and the complementarity of having mixed teams of men and women.

Katy Clark: I agree with the hon. Lady on mandatory pay audits. She mentioned the number of equal pay claims that are currently being brought, many of them by the public sector. Does she agree that one of the problems was that equal pay legislation was effectively ignored and that it is only within the past 10 years that the issue has been addressed?

Jo Swinson: I read a shocking report about the team that is set up to deal with claims from the NHS. Even within the public services, the issue is not being addressed and the thought that Government services are part of the problem, rather than part of the solution, is very concerning.

On equal pay, we have to look at the issue of child care and I would propose that we allow maternity leave to be shared between fathers and mothers as they see fit. Currently, it could be said that fathers get quite a raw deal, in getting only a short period of paternal leave, and that helps to reinforce discrimination against women. An employer interviewing a woman of child-bearing age might perhaps wonder whether this person, whom they might employ, will end up taking maternity leave, but would not necessarily think the same about a man. By sharing the parental leave, more choice would be given to parents about managing child care, and it would help to tackle some of the indirect discrimination that is difficult to prove and to deal with through legislation.

Julie Kirkbride: There is broad agreement in the House about equalising pay, but I want to mention one of the things that shocked the Select Committee when we looked at the findings of the Women and Work Commission. The commission studied women graduates and compared them with male graduates five years' out of university. One would have thought that there was a reasonable expectation that the pay gap would not even exist there, let alone be very big, but it was still 15 per cent. I worry how intractable the problem of the pay gap is.

Jo Swinson: Indeed. The issue is very concerning. In my experience of working in the private sector, one got a pay rise only if one asked for and negotiated it.

Julie Kirkbride: And the boys do.

Jo Swinson: As the hon. Lady says, "The boys do." From an early age, boys, through social conditioning, are encouraged to speak out and to shout out in class; boys are less likely to be disciplined for that. It is "Be a good girl," but "Boys will be boys." There is an in-built discrimination of which, to a certain extent, we are all guilty. Partly this could be addressed through education, which is why pay audits and the requirement on companies to be proactive in that respect is so important.

I welcome the Government's commitment to extend flexible working to parents of older children, but I would go further and say that we need to change the mindset and culture of work in this country. Businesses need to be able to make decisions based on business reasons, but why should not everybody have the right to request, not demand, flexible working? If everybody had that right, we might start to change the working culture. That can be in the interests of business; if one member of staff wants to start and leave early and another wants to start and leave later, a customer-facing business might be able to open for longer.

On violence against women-a scourge on our country and the world-I pay tribute to the great work of the End Violence Against Women coalition, which has done great things to highlight the issue. The shocking statistic that almost half of all women in the UK will, at some point in their lives, face domestic violence, sexual assault or stalking is frankly unacceptable. In the past few years, much progress has been made to counter such violence, and the Labour Government have introduced specialist domestic violence courts, sexual assault referral centres and so on to deal with certain aspects of it. But there is still a huge amount that needs to be done. Recently the End Violence Against Women coalition found that one third of local authorities have no specialist violence against women services. Rape crisis centres are closing in increasing numbers; surely we need to be going in the other direction.

The recent report "Map of Gaps" highlighted Scotland as a good example to be followed, as Scotland had ring-fenced the funding for support for women's services. As a Scottish MP, I was particularly pleased to read about that. That is why it is with great disappointment that I have to inform the House that the recently elected Scottish National party Government in Holyrood have reversed that pioneering and forward-thinking move and, in the recent local funding round, have ceased ring-fencing the money for women's aid services and for work to counter violence against women. The money will now be rolled up into the general local government settlement. When budgets come under pressure, I have a fear that some of those services for women will be cut.

Stewart Hosie: The hon. Lady, I am sure, will confirm, for the sake of completeness, that the local government settlement is much bigger and there is every intention that every one of those services will continue to be provided.

Jo Swinson: There is no guarantee. When the funding was ring-fenced, it had to be spent on those services. It will now be subject to decision making and there is great pressure on local authority funding in Scotland. Councils must make difficult decisions because they have effectively been blackmailed into providing a zero per cent. council tax rise. I have great concerns that some important services will be cut.

Katy Clark: In my constituency there is a 3 per cent. cut in local government funding, and Women's Aid is one of the organisations whose funding is being cut. That is the experience in many parts of Scotland. The hon. Lady makes a valid point.

Jo Swinson: I welcome the additional information that the hon. Lady provides about her area. I know that she will be concerned about the cuts to those services.

What is missing, and what the End Violence against Women coalition is calling for, is a cross-departmental approach to the issue. We need to recognise that violence against women is not just about the often excellent Department responsible for women and equality matters. It is not just about the health service providing support when women have been victims of violence, or the justice system dealing with such cases. It is not just about safe transport for women or education to prevent such violence. All the relevant Departments need to work together.

On 25 January 2006 at column 1435 of Hansard I questioned the then Prime Minister about that. I asked him if he would commit to developing an integrated strategy. I was somewhat disappointed by his answer, which related solely to victims of domestic violence. The point that I was making was that violence against women is much wider than just domestic violence. The Government were given one out of 10 in the first year by the coalition in its report on those services, and two out of 10 the following year. I hope that there will be continued progress.

I hope that in her summing up the Minister will be able to report further on the issue. I raised it again on 17 July 2007 following a statement from the Minister for Women, who said:

"We are considering merging the inter-ministerial group on domestic violence and the inter-ministerial group on sexual offences in order to take an overall view across Government on violence against women."-[ Official Report, 17 July 2007; Vol. 463, c. 183.]

That would be welcome. I should like to know, some months on, whether that has happened or the status of the proposal.

With reference to violence of women, I tabled early-day motion 765 on the campaign for justice for victims of rape, which 84 hon. Members have already signed. The conviction rate for rape, as we all know, is appallingly low-around 5 per cent., which is down from 33 per cent. in the 1970s. That is not the conviction rate for cases that get to court. More than four out of five cases do not get to court, so the problem is not necessarily at the jury stage. The difficulty tends to arise at an earlier stage, with cases being dropped because insufficient evidence has been collected.

I know that the Government have been consulting on the issue, which is to be welcomed. We need to know how we can improve criminal practices to ensure that more cases get to court and are successful, but it also important that the support services receive stable funding. That can be an important factor in determining whether a woman will pursue a case, decide to drop it or not report it at all.

We need to address the myths about rape. There have been some shocking reports about the perception out there. In 2005, an ICM poll found that a third of British people thought that in some circumstances a woman could be held partly responsible if she was raped. That must be scotched. It is not a woman's fault if she is raped. It is not her fault if she has been drinking. It is not her fault depending on what she is wearing. If somebody was murdered or mugged, we would not say that it was their fault because of the way they had acted, and we should not say that in the case of rape.

The right hon. Member for Maidenhead mentioned a horrifying statistic about the number of young girls being pressurised into sex. A recent Amnesty study showed that 40 per cent. of young people know girls whose boyfriends have coerced or pressurised them into sex. In one sense, that is shocking, but it is not all that surprising when one considers the education that is currently provided and the different views about sex that are allowed to develop between boys and girls. We must tackle the matter from an education point of view so that it is clear what is and is not acceptable behaviour.

I questioned the Minister for Schools and Learners about that in December. The point that I was making was that it was not just sex education that was important-relationships education must be an integral part of that. When young people are learning about how to have safe sex, about the biology of sex, about what happens, they also need to understand the context of the relationships in which that can happen and the issues of consent, love and confidence that go with that. I do not see how the two aspects can be separated, so I was extremely disappointed when I asked the Minister if he would consider making such education a statutory requirement, and he replied:

"Sex education is statutory, but the relationship side is not."-[ Official Report, 17 December 2007; Vol. 469, c. 584.]

He went on to say that he wanted better sex and relationships education, but would not make a commitment to make that a statutory requirement. If the Government are serious, they need to look carefully at that issue.

On women's pensions, the Government, to give them their due, have made some progress, particularly for women with caring responsibilities who do not have a complete national insurance record. However, the way that changes are being introduced means that there will be a cliff edge where the difference in entitlement between women who are eligible after 6 April 2010 and women who are not eligible the day before will be £27,000 over their lifetime.

The Government should have considered introducing the new scheme in a more staggered way to avoid such a cliff edge. They should also consider a citizen's pension. It will still be a requirement to have 30 years of national insurance contributions for a full pension. Even with that change from 39 years, some women will still not achieve a full pension because of their caring responsibilities. That needs to be taken into account.

My hon. Friend the Member for Northavon (Steve Webb) has drawn attention to the problem of women who have gaps in their contribution record, which they could pay to have filled. There was a six-year period when the Government did not inform women that that was possible. Women can do that retrospectively and in some cases be eligible for a lump sum of a couple of thousand pounds or more, plus an enhanced pension going forward. I have tried to raise awareness of the matter in my constituency and help women in individual cases, but the Government should take responsibility for being proactive and making sure that women get what is rightfully theirs.

On the international agenda-after all, we are celebrating international women's day-it is important to consider the issues that women face around the world. There are countries where female infanticide is common. As has been mentioned, 2 million girls every year go through the appalling practice of female genital mutilation. Rape is used as a weapon of terror. We saw that in Rwanda, yet the same is happening again in Darfur. Women are oppressed in societies and countries across the world, unable to access education and denied equal rights in judicial procedures. Poverty tends to hit women the hardest. This week there is an excellent exhibition in the House, in the Upper Waiting Area, about the impact of climate change on women. In the developing world women will be hardest hit by the effects of climate change.

Interestingly, as the right hon. Member for Maidenhead said, women can often be part of the solution, even though they suffer the worst elements of the problem. There is a high correlation between the education of women in a country and that country's level of development. We see microfinance initiatives run by women throughout the world to make their communities better, and this Government, through their international development work, should rightly ensure that the involvement of women in the solution to many of those problems is a priority.

That brings me to women's representation, which brings all of those issues together. There are 126 women Members of Parliament at the moment-fewer than one in five-which is clearly not enough. The figures are slightly better in some of the other authorities and Parliaments. A third of the Members in the Scottish Parliament are women, but I am sad to say that that is a decrease from 40 per cent. previously. The Welsh Assembly has an excellent record, with 47 per cent. of its Members being women-I congratulate the Assembly on achieving that. In the European Parliament, 31 per cent. of Members are women. Although representation in local authorities is better than it is in this House, with 29 per cent. of councillors being women-and I am delighted that the Liberal Democrats have the highest percentage of women councillors, at 32 per cent.- we have no reason to be complacent.

Sometimes in meetings, I have raised that problem, and men will turn round and go, "Oh, a third are women. That's quite good." And I say, "Hang on a second-it might be quite good compared to the really awful representation in other areas, but there is no way that a third of representatives being women is good." We can probably say that a figure of 47 per cent. is quite good-it is not always going to be exactly 50:50-but we cannot be complacent about a proportion such as a third. The Labour Benches are made up of many more women, and I hope that there is no complacency there, because even on their Benches, there is still a long way to go.

We need to look at the variety of reasons why representation is so low. Is sexism the reason? It probably is partly sexism, but I do not think that it is the only one. The reason is less likely to be sexism now that it was 30 years ago. We certainly know that the electorate are no less likely to vote for a woman. In fact, I have seen research showing that not only does turnout go up when women stand, but that women are marginally more likely to be elected than men-so it is an advantage to have women candidates. If the electorate are no longer sexist, it would be slightly strange to suggest that political parties have a higher degree of sexism. Although sexism is probably still a factor in some cases, it is not the only one.

Is it a matter of lifestyle? Is it that women look at us debating until 11 o'clock-on at least two nights so far this week-and at the sometimes strange procedures and practices of this House, and say, perhaps entirely sensibly, "Hang on a second, that's not for me. I can make an impact in another career in business or in one of the professions, or through working in my local community." I suspect that that sentiment has a role to play. However, it would not explain the low percentage of councillors. Combining the lifestyle of a councillor with the other sensible things that one might want to do is easier than combining them with the lifestyle of a Member of Parliament, which involves two lives and two homes.

Cash is certainly part of the problem. The pay gap exacerbates the representation problem. Let us be honest about it-standing for Parliament and being involved in politics leads to additional costs. Like it or not, as the right hon. Member for Cynon Valley said, women get judged on their appearances more, so there are wardrobe costs. There are certainly child care costs. But there is also the cost of going to party conferences and accommodation, and the little things that happen all the time when one is a candidate, such as taking volunteers out for a drink after a hard day's work. A lot of incidental costs are involved, and because there is a pay gap, the financial implications are even worse for women.

Another real problem is confidence. One of my favourite things about the job is speaking to school groups. Rather than being deferential, they will always tell it exactly like it is, and they are inquisitive and enthusiastic. I have noticed with interest that when I meet a school group and ask for questions, nine times out of 10 the first question is from one of the boys, and very often the second question is, too. There have even been occasions when I have had to turn to the class and say, "Come on girls, you must be thinking interesting things, too. Why don't you put your hands up?" And then, fair enough, some of them do. I have noticed that; I do not know whether other women, or male Members, in the Chamber have done so.

I remember the feeling of sitting in a political meeting or a classroom and thinking of something, then thinking, "Shall I say that? No, I might look stupid." I have a sort of internal conversation, and decide that it is safer not to put my hand up, or not to contribute. Then, of course, some bloke says the same thing far less eloquently, and everyone lauds them for it. It is only through making myself speak, and through others helping me to have the confidence to do it, that I got to a position where I felt happy to stand for Parliament. I did not wake up one morning and think, "I want to be an MP"-other people suggested the idea to me.

I did a straw poll of my female colleagues on the Liberal Democrat Benches, and about half of them were asked to stand by someone else. I have not done a scientific poll with the male Members of Parliament, but I suggest that there might be a different result. I would urge all hon. Members who want to see more women in politics to ensure that they say to someone, "Why don't you put your name forward and do it?", rather than just expect women magically to think that they will do it. Even if they do not want to, they will be flattered to be asked.

Lynda Waltho: I am inspired by the hon. Lady's comments and I am sure that many young women will be inspired by the way in which she is making her point. Most of my colleagues will have attended meetings where they felt exactly the same. A Labour politician advised me that I should "feel the fear" and do it anyway. If the hon. Lady tells that to the women to whom she speaks, it will go a long way.

Jo Swinson: That is good advice and a tactic that I urge others to employ.

I acknowledge the progress that the Labour party has made on electing many more women to Parliament-it would be churlish not to do so. I disagree that all-women shortlists are the solution for every party, but I would support an extension of the sunset clause in the Sex Discrimination (Election Candidates) Act 2002 till 2030 or until the issue is no longer a problem. Parties should have the opportunity to use that as a tool to tackle the problem, but it is not the only tool. If the problem is sexism in the selection process, I can think of few other things that would change the outcome. However, if that is not the main problem, all-women shortlists are not necessarily the right solution.

I speak from several years' experience of dealing with the matter in my party. We examined the figures, did the research and found that women were as likely to get selected in seats-winnable and otherwise-as men, but five times as many men came forward as candidates. When working with such numbers, ending up with a gender balance would be a statistical anomaly.

We have been working on the matter since the conference debated how to tackle the problem in 2001, and I chair the Liberal Democrats' campaign for gender balance, which is the approach that we have taken. We have encouraged more women to come forward. About three times as many men as women want to become candidates, but we have made some progress.

Julie Morgan: I have enjoyed listening to the hon. Lady's analysis. However, I disagree with her last point because our experience in the Labour party is that, when we had shortlists that were half men and half women, the men still won.

Jo Swinson: That may well have been the case in the Labour party. I have not conducted research on the Labour party, only on my party. We found that, when shortlists were half men and half women, men won half the time and women won half the time. I will not say that there was never an instance of sexism, or that a sexist comment was never made, in Liberal Democrat selection contests, although in my experience, for everyone who said, "What would you do if you had children?" or, "Are you sure you can do this?" someone else said, "It's great to have more women in Parliament and I'll vote for you because of that." Things can even out, but I cannot speak for other parties-obviously, I do not know their internal procedures and cultures as well as those of mine.

Each party should be entitled to find its own method of dealing with the problem. Our approach is to encourage more women to become candidates, and we have good support mechanisms to help them with that and to get selected. Given that we still have many more male than female candidates, we must ensure that those women punch above their weight and are more likely to get selected. We undertake intensive mentoring and training. Two weekends ago, we held our now annual event, "Calling all Future Women MPs!" Fifteen women attended and it was inspiring-I hope to see many of them on our Benches in future.

Many "firsts" have happened in the past few decades. An important first was the election of the first UK female Prime Minister in 1979. I was surprised and disappointed that Labour Members could not recognise that achievement. I share many of their concerns about what Baroness Thatcher did in office-I am also speaking as a Scot, and I do not believe that she was necessarily good for the country-but I can still acknowledge that important achievement, which deserves to be recognised, as do many achievements more recently by Labour women. They include the first woman Speaker, Baroness Boothroyd, the first woman Foreign Secretary, who is still a Member of Parliament, and the first female Home Secretary. As was mentioned earlier, we now have the first female Serjeant at Arms-I was delighted when that appointment was made, and it is a shame that she is not here today.

Julie Kirkbride: At the risk of appearing rude about some of my hon. Friends, Lady Thatcher was voted leader of the Conservative party almost exclusively by men, and that is an even greater achievement than the hon. Lady implied.

Jo Swinson: Absolutely. The hon. Lady is quite right.

I intend to draw my remarks to a close shortly, because there are many hon. Members present who want to make contributions and I am keen to hear them. We have made a lot of progress, but there is still so much more to do. One problem is that although we have debates and discussions about equality, I suspect that we can sometimes put women off. There is a feeling out there that this place is an old boys' club that is full of sexism and that the job is really difficult for women, but a lot of that is not true. Women Members in all parts of the House will say that being an MP is a wonderful job and very suited to the skill sets of women. It is not all about standing up and making speeches. So much of the job is about listening, dealing with constituents' problems and finding ways to work with those from different parties or other agencies in our constituencies to find solutions, and even in this place there is nothing like the sexism that there used to be. Indeed, this job is very enjoyable.

I sometimes think that we need to make that case more strongly. In December I had an exchange with the Minister for Women and Equality in which I made that suggestion, following it up with a letter to ask whether she thought that a cross-party initiative would be a good idea. She responded in January-I should apologise for not replying yet; my time has been monopolised somewhat by the European Union (Amendment) Bill over the past month-by saying:

"It would be good if either myself or"

the Minister for Equality

"could meet with you to discuss how the parties can work more effectively on this important issue."

I very much welcome that sentiment. However, rather than having the right hon. and learned Lady or the Minister meet just me, I would hope that we could involve Conservative Members and launch a cross-party initiative looking at how, collectively, we can sell the job of being a Member of Parliament and ensure that we get the message out there and in the media that this is a very job enjoyable to do.

Richard Younger-Ross: Does my hon. Friend agree that part of the problem is the image that the House projects of what the standard MP is? The image that the media give is of a white, middle-class man who looks a bit like a stuffed suit. If my hon. Friend's grouping can persuade hon. Members to change the rules of the House, to make men look slightly less stuffed and starched, there might be a different image of what being an MP is.

Jo Swinson: I would never say that my hon. Friend looked like a stuffed suit.

There is a lot that can be done. It would be wonderful if the message that went out from this debate was that being an MP is something that women throughout the country with talents to offer should consider and if we used the debate as a starting point to work together on the issue. We should celebrate very much all the achievements and work of women in the past, but also look forward to much better representation of women in the future.