My Lords, I too thank my noble friend Lady Gale for introducing this debate, which is important not just for women but for men and for all of us in the country at large.

In May, we discussed aspects of the Queen’s Speech in this Chamber and I chose to speak on the subject of levelling up as it was taking place between men and women. At the end of the debate, when the Minister was making his remarks, he drew attention to my comments on levelling up between men and women and said that, of course, the Government are

“levelling up for women, for men and for everybody.”—[Official Report, 11/5/22; col. 96.]

At which point, I thought he had spectacularly missed the point: if people start off unequal, levelling everybody up means that they are still unequal. I hope that today we can get the Minister to recognise that we need to think about levelling up for women.

I concentrate, as always, on women in the world of work. First, back when we had a Labour Government, we had a programme that concentrated on recognising the continuing gender pay and opportunities gaps. As part of that programme, the Government introduced various positive action ideas. I ask the Minister today to say whether this Government will recognise that positive action is important and necessary. For example, we all know that many women find it impossible to carry on with their employment when faced with the extraordinarily high costs of childcare. Many women at that stage choose to work part-time; that is fine, but we need companies—the Government can play a major role here—to work together to identify better part-time opportunities. In the past, most of those women went to work in retail, but over the last five years, 650,000 jobs have gone from retail, so even those chances are no longer there. Many women with qualifications and the wherewithal to move on to better things ended up not being able to do so, simply because the job chances were not there.

Secondly, will the Government work with businesses to provide positive action training programmes for women? Many women go to work in all kinds of places, from food factories to the legal profession, doing different kinds of work. They often have the intelligence, wherewithal and determination to move on and do better things that will bring them better rewards, yet those chances are not there. Companies can provide those training chances; they have done it in the past. As I said earlier, it would be beneficial to the whole country to enable women to move forward in that way.

My final point is not about the world of work but about the fact that, through the limited opportunities in the world of work, many women end up with very little of their own money in their own pockets. We all abhor domestic violence; it is often mentioned in this Chamber. Many women are stuck in relationships where there is domestic violence because they do not have the financial wherewithal to be able to take themselves off and get out of that situation. Again, this is a very important issue. I look forward to the Minister’s response.