Women: Economic Crisis — Debate

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 3:14 pm on 12 March 2009.

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Photo of Baroness Pitkeathley Baroness Pitkeathley Deputy Chairman of Committees, Deputy Speaker (Lords) 3:14, 12 March 2009

My Lords, one of my noble friends said to me earlier today that, in a debate such as this, it is a great privilege to speak last before the winders because you can finish with a flourish. Perhaps; but the real problem is finding something—anything—to say that has not already been said effectively by other noble Lords. However, I make no apology for repeating my thanks to my noble friend Lady Gould, not only for this debate but for her indefatigable work on behalf of women throughout her working life.

Many of today's themes have been dear to my heart as a single mother and breadwinner for my family, as a granny and as a social worker. I always try on these occasions—I think we have now had six of them—to highlight the needs of women as carers. I shall come to that but first I want to draw attention to the huge contribution that women in this country and around the world make to public service. I refer to their commitment as trustees on the boards of charities and on non-departmental public bodies. Indeed, many in your Lordships' House find, as I did, that being a full-time chief executive of an organisation does not sit too comfortably with being a committed Member of this House. So what do we do? We change our working patterns to become members or chairs of other bodies in public service in posts which are part-time, non-executive and enable us to have what is known as a portfolio career. In addition to those who earn a living in this way, countless thousands contribute as volunteer trustees.

My concern is that there is now going to be more competition for these posts and activities and that many more men will be appointed to them, cutting women out, perhaps, or at least reducing the proportion of women who take on these jobs. As more men are forced out of jobs or where promotion opportunities become less plentiful, more will perhaps want to go portfolio. Far be it from me to suggest that where equality of opportunity exists women would not be able to compete for and win such posts, but, sadly, it does not work like that. I have now chaired seven different non-departmental public bodies and in several cases have been involved in setting them up from scratch, appointing councils, boards and so on. I am afraid that it is more difficult to attract applications from women than from men; that women often lack confidence in interviews; and that, as a consequence, it is frequently difficult to achieve an equal gender balance on such committees. The charitable sector and the public sector are both notorious for having many more women in the workforce at the front line but when it comes to senior executive, board and, even more so, chairing positions, men predominate. It is essential that we do not let the greater number of males who will no doubt be in the market for this type of service deflect us from our commitments to gender balance on boards and councils, and from recognising the contribution that women make.

We have heard many times today that if there had been more women on boards or in other positions of authority in our banking system, a good deal more common sense and sense of proportion might have prevailed. But perhaps many of these would-be non-executives in that sector had a similar experience to my own. When seeing a head hunter about the possibility of non-executive positions on various private sector boards, I was firmly told that as I had worked all my life in public service or third sector organisations, I had no experience of any value to bring to such a position. We all know that is right, don't we? After all, I have run only organisations where budgets ran into billions, which employed thousands of people, which had very high public profiles and whose aims and outcomes were both controversial and significant for millions of people. Of course I, and dozens of women like me, have absolutely no experience that could be relevant or valuable to the private sector.

I turn now to the position of carers in these difficult times. Great progress has been made in recognition and support of carers, and the Government have a record in that regard that is, literally, the envy of the world. One of the great advances has been in recognising that we should not expect people to give up paid work as they become carers but rather that the best thing we can do for them is to enable them to remain in paid work as long as possible. Not only does that help them at present, emotionally, financially and practically, but it stops them building up poverty for the future by their pensions being affected as little as possible.

As jobs become scarcer there may be a tendency for employers to pay less attention to the business case for supporting carers and to move back to the assumption that it is better for anyone with caring responsibilities to remove themselves from the workforce for as long as the caring lasts. This we absolutely must not do. We must not waste the talents of carers who are forced to give up work, because the retention of staff is particularly important in a tight economic period.

Most employers want to be carer-friendly, but they need to translate that into concrete action and support. Calls to the Carers UK helpline find that many carers are having problems accessing the right to request flexible working, which the Government brought in and was very welcome. There is a lack of awareness among employers but there is also a cultural reluctance to take caring responsibilities seriously. That makes carers reluctant to identify themselves and to request flexible working. I hope that the Government will encourage more employers to join Employers for Carers, a membership forum with a core group of employers that enables them to understand the benefits to them of keeping carers in their workplace.

I make a plea for a review of the position of carers regarding welfare benefits. The benefit system does not recognise the work that carers do. A review of the system was promised in the National Carers Strategy and recently echoed by the Work and Pensions Select Committee. That review is desperately needed and should be delayed no longer.