Women's Wages

HC Deb 08 March 1995 vol 256 cc270-93 11.29 am

Mrs. Anne Campbell (Cambridge)

Today is International Women's Day and it is right to celebrate that with a debate about an issue that is dear to the hearts of many women, who comprise 51 per cent. of the people of this country. It is worth saying at the outset that there arc at least 4 million low-paid women in this country. We define low pay as being below two thirds of the male median earnings.

That is not an insignificant number. Divided equally, on a geographical basis, it would mean that there are 6,000 low-paid women in every constituency in the United Kingdom. However, the geographical distribution of low pay is not completely even. In inner London, only 18 per cent. of women are low-paid, while in west Yorkshire the figure is 58 per cent.—a much higher figure. East Anglia, the part of the world that I represent, is often seen as more prosperous, but in fact 54 per cent. of women in East Anglia are low paid. That is perhaps a surprising figure, but East Anglia has low-paid employment in agriculture, hotel and catering, cleaning, the health service, social services, and many other jobs traditionally done by women.

Mr. Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley)

The hon. Lady is saying that women earn less in certain parts of the country than in others. She is also a well-known supporter of the national minimum wage. If the national minimum wage were introduced, would there be a regional differences in the minimum wage?

Mrs. Campbell

The hon. Gentleman misunderstands the point that I was making. I said that the distribution of low pay was different in different regions. I will come to the minimum wage later. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will wait until I reach that point.

One of the rather surprising things—or perhaps it is not so surprising, given the national situation—is that in Cambridge and the surrounding areas there is a great deal of high-tech industry, but although people working in those industries are often highly paid, on the whole women are not benefiting from that high-tech industry which has grown so successfully in and around Cambridge over the past 15 years. I am pleased to say, however, that Doctor Elizabeth Garnsey of the Judge Institute in Cambridge is embarking on a study to determine why so few women are employed in the high-tech industries in the Cambridge region. It will be interesting to see the results of that study.

Much of the ground was covered in yesterday's debate, when Ministers and Conservative Members spent a great deal of time telling us of the tremendous improvements that had been made, and it is true that for some women life has got better over the past few years. There are more women in professional jobs, there are more women at the top of their professions and there are more women Members of Parliament, but that has not been achieved as a result of Government policies; it has been achieved despite the Conservative Government.

A good way of illustrating that is to look at how the number of women Members of Parliament has increased. It has increased because the Labour party has taken positive steps to improve the chances for women in our party, and we are continuing to take those steps, which bring nothing but criticism and carping from Conservative Members.

Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey)

We all welcome the increase in the numbers of women who manage to rise to the top of their professions, but does my hon. Friend agree that the fact that just 5 per cent. of professors in higher education and 6 per cent. of QCs and High Court judges are women is not exactly a startling achievement as we approach the end of the 20th century?

Mrs. Campbell

My hon. Friend makes a valuable point. Although some progress has been made, the situation is far from satisfactory and certainly does not merit the kind of complacency that we have seen from Front-Bench Conservative Members.

Ms Jean Corston (Bristol, East)

My hon. Friend referred to the Labour party's determined efforts to ensure that our electoral representation in the House reflects Great Britain, where half the population is female. Does she not find the schizophrenia of Conservative Members on this issue fascinating when they attack—[Interruption.]—and laugh at the fact that the Labour party has quotas for women but fail to acknowledge that the deputy chairman of the Conservative party, the right hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Dame A. Rumbold), is frequently given permission to be away from the House to try to persuade constituency associations to comply with the Conservative party's target of 50 per cent for women candidates? Is not the only difference the fact that the Labour party is serious about it and the Conservatives are willing, the means?

Mrs. Campbell

My hon. Friend makes an important point. The Conservatives are trying to improve on their 63 women candidates in the past election compared with Labour's 138.

Several hon. Members

rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Morris)

Order. Even hon. Ladies must take their scats. The debate is about wage levels for women. It is not really about party politics and which party has which candidates.

Mrs. Campbell

As women Members of Parliament are perhaps more highly paid than other women, an increase in their numbers will help in a small way to raise wage levels for women.

Lady Olga Maitland (Sutton and Cheam)

Will the hor. Lady give way?

Mrs. Campbell

Perhaps the hon. Lady will wait until I have made a further point.

If we define low pay as less than two thirds of a full-time median wage—not just men's wages, but taking men and women's wages together—we can compare ourselves with our European partners.

Mr. Richard Spring (Bury St Edmunds)

Will the hon. Lady give way?

Mrs. Campbell

Not at the moment.

In Belgium, for example, which has clear minimum wage legislation, less than 5 per cent. of women come into the category of low-paid. In the Netherlands, which also has minimum wage legislation, although perhaps not quite so good, only I I per cent. of women come within the definition of low-paid. In Ireland, however, the figure rises dramatically to 18 per cent., in Spain it is 19 per cent. and the UK tops the European Union tree with 20 per cent. That says something important about the effect of a minimum wage on low pay for women.

Mr. Spring

Will the hon. Lady specify what she is saying in quantitative terms? She has defined low pay as being two thirds of male median earnings. What are male median earnings in quantitative terms? Unless we know that figure, talking about low pay and linking it with some kind of poverty makes no sense whatever.

Mrs. Campbell

I have the figures and I can inform the hon. Gentleman that, according to the 1994 wages survey, male median earnings were around £300 per week, so two thirds of male median earnings is a little over £200 a week. The hon. Gentleman can find those figures quite easily if he would like to look them up. In the last case, I was talking about two thirds of the full-time median wage, taking both men's and women's pay together.

Yesterday the Trades Union Congress launched a new document, "The New Divide". It is a study of the pay of part-time workers. The TUC says something that is important for us all to take on hoard, and we should celebrate the contribution that part-time workers make to the economy. Many men and women want to work part time because of family responsibilities, others perhaps want to study at the same time or they may be caring for elderly parents. There are all sorts of reasons why people want to work part time. We should encourage that if it is what people want to do. But why should part-time work mean low pay and worse conditions than those of people in full-time employment?

It is shocking that half a million part-time workers, mainly women, earn less than £2.49 an hour. That is disgraceful, and it is an indictment of the Government's complete lack of policy on ea[...]nings and incomes. Many workers earn less than the national insurance threshold, which is currently £57 per week. Those workers not only take home low pay but lose a number of contributory benefits, especially pensions, so those who are poor at work tend to be poor in old age as well.

In the context of social justice, it is obviously important for part-time workers to be treated in the same way as full-time workers. With more people choosing to work part time, it is becoming more essential to treat people equally. The Government have an appalling record and have continually tried to block part-time workers' rights. Following the House of Lords ruling in March 1994 that the Government were acting illegally in denying employment rights to part-time workers, in December last year the Government were forced to give equal rights to part-timers.

The Secretary of State for Employment last year blocked European directives on parental leave which would have been of enormous help to men and women in employment. That now has to be introduced under the social protocol, which excludes the UK and means that our workers are not able to benefit from it.

The Equal Opportunities Commission has produced a good report on low pay and women. The report identifies that low pay is associated with having children and/or caring responsibilities and having a part-time job. I can illustrate how that affects ordinary people from the letters of one of my constituents. She is a highly qualified woman with a degree in microbiology. In her letter to me she describes how she had worked while living with the father of her two children. He became violent and threw her out. As a single parent she was able to draw £600 a month in benefit.

However, when she tried to go back to her job, which was quite well paid compared with most of the jobs that women are able to get, the loss of benefit and the cost of child care reduced her income from £600 to £450 a month. Not surprisingly, with two children, that woman found that quite impossible to live on. She wrote to me pointing out how ridiculous it was that the Government were paying her £600 a month to stay on benefit rather than £150 a month to be in work. That is the amount that she would have needed to bring her income up to what she had while on benefit. That is absurd.

It is essential to increase opportunities for women by increasing the provision of low-cost publicly funded child care and abolishing the anomaly by which people can reclaim tax on their secretary's wages but not on child-minding costs. It is no coincidence that, on the whole, men employ secretaries and women employ child minders, and it is clear discrimination that the one is allowable against tax while the other is not.

Mr. Peter Butler (Milton Keynes, North-East)

It would be discourteous to allow the debate to go much further without congratulating the hon. Lady and her lady colleagues on having overcome the ingrained male chauvinism within her party to which she referred earlier. Not one male Labour Member is in the Chamber or has been here since the start of the debate. Does the hon. Lady feel that that is a symptom of the fact that perhaps there is still a long way to go? There is an empty space where one male Labour Member was sitting, so I apologise for being incorrect in that, but certainly no one has bothered to stay. The one who was here left as soon as the hon. Lady started to speak, which was grossly discourteous.

Mrs. Campbell

I understand that my hon. Friend the Member for Wallsend (Mr. Byers) has slipped out for a few moments and will be hack. He was here at the beginning of the debate. The Opposition can celebrate the fact that we have enough women to keep the debate going without falling back on our male colleagues. The Conservative party would dearly love to solve the problem of having too few women hon. Members, but it has no idea how to go about it.

Lady Olga Maitland

Will the hon. Lady give way?

Mrs. Campbell

I have given way a number of times and I will give way to the hon. Lady later. At the moment I should like to make some further progress.

It is important to look at ways of increasing access to existing child care, and we also need to increase the amount of it. I am pleased that in my constituency we have been able to put together a project involving the city and county councils, the local employment agency office, the training and enterprise councils from Cambridge and Greater Peterborough, the Cambridge Training and Development Organisation, which is a private training body, and the Benefits Agency.

We have formed a working party to look at ways to make child care and work more accessible to those who wish to return to work after a period of being at home and looking after children. We have decided to have points around the city to give information through the form of a one-stop shop so that people can find out where child care and training opportunities are to he found, where they are likely to find a job and what difference that will make to their benefits. That is to say, they can discover what their income will be at the end of the day.

We plan to make that service accessible through a computer-based system which will, of course, be linked to the information super-highway. I am pleased that the project has attracted all-party support in Cambridge. Of course, we cannot pursue it without money, and I am pleased that all the major banks, plus Philips Telecom, some of the Cambridge colleges and two training and enterprise councils, have contributed substantial sums to get the scheme off the ground. That shows how important people think it is to have good quality child care and to give people proper access to it to enable them to get hack to work.

Labour party policy on the minimum wage has been mentioned. The statistics show that it is essential to have a minimum wage to help the 3 million British workers who earn less than £3.50 an hour. Four out of five low-paid people are women. We have only to look at the stories of people on very high salaries to realise that there are not many women among them. Mr. Cedric Brown springs to mind immediately, and the National Grid chairman recently managed to effect a pay deal worth £2 million. There is no chance of that person being a woman. A 28-year-old man on £200,000 a year managed to break a hank but did not contribute much to the economy in the process.

The Low Pay Unit has come up with examples of people being offered extremely low pay, not in a covert way but by advertisement in Government job centres. There are examples of shop workers being offered £1.66 an hour and hairdressers being offered £1.43 an hour. How could anyone survive on such wages? They are totally disgraceful.

Despite the rhetoric of Conservative Members, economists in Britain and America who have studied low pay have concluded that a statutory minimum wage does not cost jobs and may even increase employment. That is what the research is showing. Time and again, we hear Conservative Members say that we must not let workers price themselves out of jobs. Let us consider, however, what happened in 1990 when the United States Government raised the national minimum wage to the equivalent of approximately £2.70 an hour. Despite everyone's efforts, study after study found that that was effective in raising the income of some of the poorest people in America, and that it had done so without jobs being lost.

A further example is the east coast state of New Jersey, where local legislators raised the minimum wage to $5.05 an hour, compared with the state of Pennsylvania where the minimum wage was only $4.25 an hour. If what the Conservative party is saying is correct, one would have expected jobs to increase in Pennsylvania and to decrease in New Jersey, but that did not happen. Economists examined one sector of the industry—fast food restaurants, where wages are traditionally low—in both states. They found that employment had fallen in cheap—rate Pennsylvania but risen in higher-rate New Jersey—the reverse of what the Conservatives claim would happen. The research simply does not bear out the points that they make.

Mr. Spring

Is the hon. Lady aware that in the United States the rate of female participation in the labour market is significantly lower than in the United Kingdom and that the percentage of earnings gained by females in the United States does not compare favourably with that in the UK?

Mrs. Campbell

I do not see how the hon. Gentleman's point refers to the minimum wage, but it is true that there are far more fragmented part-time jobs in the United States than in the UK.

Ms Clare Short (Birmingham, Ladywood)

Does my hon. Friend agree that Conservative Members are not interested in the research, that they do not consider it and that they do not care? They believe ideologically in low pay. They cannot stand the idea of a minimum wage. They attack it constantly because they crudely and ideologically believe in market forces. They cannot believe that paying people a decent rate is a proper social policy, and therefore they are not listening to the research that my hon. Friend has outlined.

Mrs. Campbell

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. She is right. If Conservative Members are not interested in the facts, they should stop making comments which are not true.

Mr. Nigel Evans

Will the hon. Lady give way?

Mrs. Campbell

I am not giving way again as I wish to make some progress.

Low pay tends to increase staff turnover and to make it much more difficult to recruit staff, so firms often lose business because they are unable to meet orders. They also face much higher training costs, because a constant turnover of staff means that they will have to train people more frequently. Firms which pay low wages do not do well. Some of the squeals that we have heard from employers in the past few weeks should be taken with a pinch of salt, because the evidence does not bear out what they are saying.

Since the Government abolished wages councils, which set minimum rates for workers in the retail, hotel, hairdressing and other trades, hourly wage rates have decreased. According to Government theories, when wage rates go down we should naturally expect an increase in vacancies, but that has not happened. The Low Pay Unit found that, after wages councils were abolished, employment in the hotel trade decreased. [Interruption.]

Ms Eagle

Did my hon. Friend pick up the little sedentary comment from the Conservative Benches—that jobs fell in the hotel trade because of the recession? Conservative Members seem to think that it is acceptable to have lower wages and fewer jobs.

Mrs. Campbell

For the past two years, the Government have been telling us that we are coming out of recession, that we are in a boom period, that we should all expect to be feeling much better and that there should be a feel-good factor, but if they are now saying teat we are in recession, that directly contradicts what they said previously.

No other country is considering abandoning the minimum wage and the constraints that we had under the wages councils. Not even Newt Gingrich is proposing the abolition of the minimum wage in the United States. We should recognise that minimum wages encourage people to work instead of staying at home on benefit. We want to encourage that, and we thought that the Conservative party was in favour of it.

We have one of the worst records in Europe on women's wage levels, and poverty at work leads to poverty in old age. We need to improve conditions and pay for part-timers, and we should not block European directives intended to help them. We desperately need to ensure access to good quality publicly funded child care, so that women can work without worrying about their children. Because the Government have so resolutely turned their face against a minimum wage, which has been widely adopted in other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries, we need to ensure electoral victory for a Labour Government, who will introduce a minimum wage and increase opportunities for all women.

11.56 am

Mr. Richard Spring (Bury St. Edmunds)

I thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to say a few words. I congratulate the hon. Member for Cambridge (Mrs. Campbell), my near neighbour, on securing an Adjournment debate on this important subject.

I remember the hon. Lady's maiden speech some three years ago, as I was in the Chamber at the time. Although it was a good maiden speech, I recall her painting a gloomy picture of life in her constituency. I hope that she will acknowledge that all over East Anglia, and most notably in Cambridge, dramatic falls in unemployment have begun to take place. That is to be welcomed. Male and female workers alike have benefited from that. East Anglia is enjoying the fastest rate of economic recovery of any region in the United Kingdom. I hope that the hon. Lady will recognise that, in the past three years, job opportunities for females and female participation in the labour market have expanded markedly, both in her constituency and in East Anglia.

The hon. Lady is right to refer to the gap between male and female earnings. In many respects, that is not acceptable. Members of Parliament are paid the same amount, whether they are male or female, and it would be preposterous if it were otherwise. That principle should be extended across many other spheres of employment. The Labour party's policies, however, are destined to destroy the very job opportunities which have caused so many women to make such tremendous and remarkable strides in employment since 1979.

Of all the European Union countries, only the UK has a lower unemployment rate for women—currently 4.6 per cent.—than for men. Compared with the larger countries in the European Union, the participation rate by women in the UK labour market is at the highest level.

Ms Eagle

Will the hon. Gentleman admit that the number of hours that women work in Britain is the lowest in the European Union? That means that many women are working fewer hours than they would prefer because of the constraints of lack of child care and non-availability of decently paid employment.

Mr. Spring

The hon. Lady misses the point entirely. The purpose of a dynamic and flexible economy is to create job opportunities. The policies that she espouses would destroy job opportunities and the enormous progress that women have made in the labour market in the past 15 years. It cannot be denied that there is a gap, but it has been closing partly because of legislation and partly because cultural attitudes to female employment have rightly moved on. I welcome that, but what is needed is a competitive, efficient and flexible labour market and a Government committed to widening choice and opportunity for everyone. The surge in flexible working has been greatly welcomed by women employees and we are seeing the fruits of that flexibility.

Let us examine whether that supposition is backed by the facts. In 1970, average gross weekly earnings for women were 54.3 per cent. of men's earnings. By 1994, the figure had risen to 72.2 per cent., and the figure for full-time hourly earnings is now 79 per cent. That is due to an expansion—both relative and absolute—of female earnings.

Ms Corston

The hon. Gentleman talks about the desirability of flexibility in the labour market. Will he explain the desirability of zero-hours employment contracts, which are increasing especially in the shop and hotel sector, whereby employers do not contract to provide any hours of work for employees but employees have to be available for work at all times? Whose opportunities are increased by such contracts?

Mr. Spring

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for making that point. In my constituency, where employment has increased substantially and where the tourism and hotel sectors arc expanding, unemployment has dropped to 4.6 per cent. precisely because of such flexibility. If we had the regulated labour market and total lack of flexibility advocated by the Labour party, there would be no such employment opportunities and unemployment in my constituency would double.

Mrs. Anne Campbell

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Spring

I will deal with the increase in female earnings and then give way to the hon. Lady.

In the four or five years since 1990, female earnings have risen by 30 per cent., compared with a rise of 23 per cent. in men's earnings. Again, Labour's policies would destroy that growth because of the ossification of opportunities that would certainly arise. The female activity rate continues to rise while the male activity rate continues to fall.

An article in The Guardian—so it must be true—written by Edward Balls in September last year stated:

Since the early seventies female employment has risen by a fifth, while male employment has fallen by the same percentage. He is the same Mr. Edward Balls who, significantly, contributed to the intellectual thrust of the Labour party's economic policy—namely, the introduction of a neo-classical endogenous growth theory and symbiotic relationships—so what he says must he of great interest to the Labour party.

Ms Eagle

It was not a neo-classical endogenous growth theory, but a post-neo-classical endogenous growth theory which recognises that labour markets and the supply and demand curve which so obsesses free-market Conservatives simply do not represent the real world.

Mr. Spring

I am grateful for the hon. Lady's attempt to clarify Labour's economic policy. During the years that I spent at university learning about economics and hearing a catholic spread of ideas, at no time did I hear a theory along those lines. It has nothing to do with the real world and made the Labour party a laughing stock.

It is most impressive that female self-employment has risen by 80 per cent. since 1981. The hon. Member for Cambridge will know that the small business sector in East Anglia is one of the most important elements of growth in our part of Britain. Our economy is very much based on small business. In the late 1980s, a considerable part of the expansion in employment during the boom period was in the small business sector. The fact that so many more women are deciding to become self-employed in that sector is greatly to be welcomed.

Lady Olga Maitland

Is my hon. Friend aware that one in four small businesses are now started by women, who are making a considerable success of them? Indeed, banks tell me that they would rather give a loan to a woman because they know that she will be successful.

Mr. Spring

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for pointing that out. I am sure that she is correct. I hope that in future there will be many more women entrepreneurs who will start and build seedcorn businesses like the Body Shop and many others that have been so commercially successful.

I am sure that the hon. Member for Cambridge agrees that the key to employment success and higher wages for women lies in education. There is a clear relationship between professional success and education. When the Labour party was in office, one in eight young people went on to higher education, a figure that was regarded as a scandal in the 1970s. It is now one in three, and I am sure that the hon. Member for Cambridge welcomes that.

Below university level, we find that, in 1979, under a Labour Government, 44 per cent. of A-level entrants were female, but the figure has risen to 52 per cent. under the Conservatives. In 1979, 40 per cent. of full-time students in higher education were female; today, 48 per cent. are female and their number is growing. If one adds the figure for those in further education, more than half the students are female. In the same period, three fifths of those involved in further education are female compared to two fifths when Labour were in power.

I am sure that the hon. Lady welcomes the tremendous progress that has been made and is anxious to share the following information. At Cambridge university in the 1970s, one in four undergraduates were female, but the figure is now 43 per cent. and rising. All this shows what a dynamic, open and growing economy is doing to create opportunities for women. There is clear evidence of increasing and very welcome professional success among women. An article in the Financial Times of 22 August 1994 carried the headline "Women 'beating men for top jobs'". It stated:

Women prove more successful than men when they are competing for senior management positions, statistics released by an executive recruitment consultancy show. The survey, which focused on 85 posts in the £30,000 to £75,000 salary range handled by the London office of NB Selection, found that from the shortlisted candidates for the posts one in four women, compared with one in six men, secured management positions. The company also examined the sample of 31 vacancies covering 3,000 applicants and found that, proportionately, women again fared better. Some 22 per cent. of women applicants secured interviews compared with 10 per cent. of male applicants. I am sure that everyone welcomes the considerable professional success at management level that is now manifesting itself and which will certainly continue to boost female earnings.

Ms Eagle

The hon. Gentleman is painting an extremely rosy picture, but is he aware that the recent trend towards more women in management has gone into reverse? A recent survey shows that 9.5 per cent. of managers in 1993 were women, compared with 10.3 per cent. in 1992. Only 2.8 per cent. of directors were women. Those figures are taken from the Institute of Management survey of 1994. The hon. Gentleman must admit that there are large problems.

Mr. Spring

>: From the figures that I have given, the hon. Lady will accept that progress for women in professional life is strong. I entirely welcome that, and I hope that it will go further. However, I do not especially want to bandy around endless surveys.

I come next to the employment forecast for women to the year 2000, put out by no less an organisation than the Equal Opportunities Commission, working together with the Institute for Employment Research. The report shows that the proportion of women in the labour force has increased steadily despite the last recession. Using a forecasting model which relates activity rates to various socio-economic variables, the author of the report finds that

women are likely to increase their share in almost all occupations, particularly in the managerial, professional and associated professional areas where they are currently under-represented. For example, the proportion of female corporate managers is predicted to grow from 30.5 per cent. in 1991 to 39.6 per cent. by 2000. Over the same period the female proportion of science- and engineering-associated professionals is expected to increase from 22.5 per cent. to 29.9 per cent. and in other associated professional occupations from 38.9 per cent. to 44 per cent. I hope that the hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) agrees that such a report, produced by an impartial body, is especially welcome.

Ms Glenda Jackson (Hampstead and Highgate)

What was markedly lacking in the list of figures that the hon. Gentleman shared with the House was any mention of wages. Can he furnish us with those figures and perhaps with details of the differentials between men's and women's wages which still exist in every area of working life?

Mr. Spring

The hon. Lady makes a fair point. There is a gap, but it is closing. There is a direct correlation between education, professional accomplishment and wage levels. The point that I am trying to make is that, as more women rightly occupy senior positions, the gap will close. It is now closing rapidly as a result of a mixture of legislation and a dynamic economy which produces growth opportunities for everyone in the labour market.

Ms Jackson

The hon. Gentleman agrees, I presume, with his Government's view that low wages create more jobs. On the point to which he has devoted so many figures, does he therefore believe that the way to close the gap between male and female employment in managerial positions is to lower wages in those positions'?

Mr. Spring

I believe that, in a growing and dynamic economy which provides job opportunities, we shall see general standards of living rising. Those living standards will be based on an increase in average earnings in a non-inflationary economy. That is to be wholly welcomed.

Since my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister launched in 1991 his well-known initiative to increase the proportion of women appointed by Government to public bodies, the proportion of women holding public appointments has risen from 5 per cent. to 28 per cent. The Government are committed to equality and to a comprehensive legal framework. We have a legislative foundation. We have seen clear evidence that women are advancing, rightly, at all levels. We have seen clear evidence that the gap in earnings is closing and will continue to close, and I wholly welcome that.

Mrs. Anne Campbell

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Spring

I must conclude.

At the heart of this remains one point that is crystal clear. All that I have described can happen only if we have an open, free and dynamic marketplace economy providing the opportunity. What we do not need is the imposition of a social chapter, which will destroy jobs, and a minimum wage which has had catastrophic employment consequences for both men and women across the European Union. The way that I have described is the way in which women can advance, and that is the way in which, under a Conservative Government, that is now happening.

12.14 pm

Mr. David Chidgey (Eastleigh)

I am conscious that there is limited time in the debate so I shall be brief, if hon. Members will allow me.

There are some areas in which there is a common awareness of the difficulties women face. We all recognise that women have made great strides over the past 20 years and that more women are now in paid employment than at any other time. The gap between male and female wages has narrowed. As the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Spring) said, women now take up more than half of all further and higher education places. We can say that for some women, especially young, childless women from white, well-educated middle-income backgrounds, equality of opportunity has become a reality, but for many others, the old injustices and inequalities remain and new problems limiting their choice have arisen. On average, women who work full time are still paid only 79 per cent. of the pay of their male counterparts. A large majority of those who earn less than half the national average wage are women. The large majority of pensioners on income support are women. Some 90 per cent. of all lone parents are women. The vast majority of employees with the primary responsibility for caring for children, caring for the elderly and caring for the sick are women. Women make up 44 per cent. of the United Kingdom work force, but only 20 per cent. of our managers and a mere 2 per cent. of senior executives.

Mrs. Anne Campbell

Does the hon. Gentleman share my disappointment that there are no women chief police constables?

Mr. Chidgey

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. Indeed, I share her disappointment. That point illustrates the problem of discrimination to which I shall come later.

The Low Pay Unit recently reported that half of all full-time women workers and three quarters of all part-time women workers earned less than 68 per cent. of the average wage. We heard earlier that some 4 million women earn low wages. The latest figures from the Low Pay Unit tell us that 6.5 million women are earning low wages. Two thirds of low-paid workers are women. More than 70 per cent. of those earning less than £3 an hour are women. Women are the primary victims of low-wage exploitation. I am sorry about the continual recounting of figures, but I believe that they illustrate the fact that women are the victims in this respect.

Lady Olga Maitland

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that women would far rather have a job than not? Does he also accept that Britain has the second-highest proportion of working women in Europe? We are second only to Denmark. Does he agree that a woman with a job, even a part-time job, is better off than a woman who has no money at all?

Mr. Chidgey

The hon. Lady repeats points made earlier, which is a waste of the time of the House. I do not believe that we should expect anybody, woman or man, to work for wages that are akin to slavery. I do not believe that this country should move towards a third-world economy. It is women who are exploited, because they have fewer choices.

We need to have a flexible, but firm, approach to low wages. We need to establish a regionally based minimum hourly rate in determining wages. We need a minimum hourly rate which is agreed by employers and by representatives of trade and commerce, working closely with a low pay commission. We need to protect the vulnerable from the unscrupulous; women are usually at the sharp end of that.

Low wages are not the only problem. Our tax and benefits system discriminates against women. We need reforms to present going to work as a genuine option. We need to remove the mechanisms in the tax and benefits systems that reduce economic independence for women and stifle opportunity. We should remove the lower rate of national insurance contribution on earnings of less than £3,445. We could take 50,000 low-paid workers out of the tax system altogether by that simple move. That would help mainly women.

Ms Short

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman's proposal is well meant, but has he looked at the lower threshold? Something like 3 million people, mostly women, are trapped beneath it with no entitlement to pensions or anything else. It becomes an incentive to employers to pay their workers wages that are just below that threshold and to keep them low so that those workers never receive any national insurance benefits or other entitlements, which is a real problem.

Mr. Chidgey

I entirely agree with the hon. Lady. That is one of the basic reasons why we need to look closely at our tax and benefits systems to try to avoid such exploitation.

On that very point, many women's employment is severely disrupted, usually because they have taken on the responsibility of bringing up children at some stage during their lives. They therefore have incomplete contributory records, which, of course, lead to all the disadvantages of the future loss of entitlements. We need to move towards phasing in a system of benefits and pensions which are paid on the basis of residence and to merge the national insurance contributions into the same tax base as income tax. That may begin to overcome some of the problems mentioned.

We need to examine how carers are treated. Changes in the contributory principle would help to remove some of the benefit system's built-in disadvantages to carers. We also need to consider training provision. Training for work and increasing employability are vital, and improvements in education, training and skill levels would bring the greatest benefit to the low-paid, who, again, are mainly women.

I shall sum up briefly, because I know that there is little time.

Ms Eagle

The hon. Gentleman mentioned training. Does he agree that the representation of women on training and enterprise council boards is lamentable and that there are very few women throughout the entire TEC system? Does he agree that it would be much better to have better representation of women on TEC boards?

Mr. Chidgey

TEC boards need to be reviewed because there is widespread under-representation, not only of women. I am particularly concerned that small firms are inadequately represented on TEC boards, yet they often need the most help, liaison and dialogue about training needs. Many small firms have never engaged in training, and their under-representation is a great flaw in the system.

Most importantly, we need to improve anti-discrimination policies. Better child care provision, improvements to the tax and benefits system, minimum hourly rates, improvements in training, and so on are all peripheral if the central issue of discrimination is not tackled. Replacement of the Sex Discrimination Acts and the Equal Pay Act 1970 by an equal treatment Act would help to counter all discrimination, unintentional as well as intentional. Employers should take responsibility for ensuring that the inequalities in pay and conditions are not the result of discrimination.

The approach to policies that I have tried to outline in my short speech would ensure that, in future, all employees were paid according to the quality of their work, not according to their gender. We need to help ensure that the structural imbalances which prevent women from getting and retaining the sort of work that they want are removed. Women should have the same opportunities as men. The aim of the Liberal Democrats is not equality of outcome, but equality of opportunity. We do not propose special treatment for women, but equal treatment.

12.22 pm

Lady Olga Maitland (Sutton and Cheam)

I particularly warmly welcome the fact that this debate is taking place at all. I say that because I have worked all my adult life and I have never felt in any way discriminated against by wage levels because of my sex. I have worked as a secretary and I have never felt discriminated against. The Labour party asks why there are not more male secretaries. I have not had a single male apply to be my secretary.

Ms Eagle

I am sure that the hon. Lady would like to know that I have a male secretary and he is extremely good.

Lady Olga Maitland

I am delighted for the hon. Lady and I am sure that lie gives her excellent service.

Ms Glenda Jackson

Discrimination is not left to the individual to feel or to recognise. We are arguing that the discrimination from which millions of women suffer is set in place by an employer who makes a distinction between a male and a female employee. Women are discriminated against quite deliberately. They earn less money. It is not a feeling or a sense; it is a fact.

Lady Olga Maitland

Women earn less money partly because of the kind of job that they do. From my experience in whatever area I worked, whether in Fleet street as a junior reporter or as a head of a department, I know that I always had the same salary as everybody else. The Government are concerned about the iniquities which may arise, which is why they set up the Equal Opportunities Commission and, indeed, pour £5 million

Ms Short

It was set up by a Labour Government.

Lady Olga Maitland

Oh, well, I withdraw that remark. None the less, this Government pour £5 million a year into the commission to ensure that women get a fair deal.

This is a very artificial debate. It is the result of the spin doctors in the Labour party trying hard to get the women's vote. They say to themselves, "Ah, the women's issue." It is all meticulously planned, the ball is set rolling down the road and the Labour women, if I may say so, just do as they are bid.

More than that, the Labour party is saying, "Let's attract the women's vote by offering baubles." It is looking, for instance, at different forms of tax relief. Indeed, I read with the greatest interest an article in She magazine, which featured the right hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair), who said that he would look at tax relief for child care—in other words, a nannies charter. I am sure that the poor working woman would not be very happy to find that her increased taxes are paying for nannies for wealthy women.

I regard this debate as the product of a rather cynical ploy that will not work. The Labour party totally underestimates the intelligence of the British woman. We are not that easily fooled. The women who come to see me in my surgery do not talk about the issues that the women in the Labour party raise or about sexist issues. They say that they want a stable, sustainable economy, which is dynamic and which will give them jobs for themselves and their husbands, which we all want.

They welcome the fact that unemployment has fallen by 500,000 over the past two years and they welcome the fact that in Sutton the number of unemployed people is barely 300 above the peak unemployment level of 1986. We should be looking at the real issues of how we are helping women.

Dr. Lynne Jones (Birmingham, Selly Oak)

Will the hon. Lady give way?

Lady Olga Maitland

Very well, for a moment.

Dr. Jones

What does the hon. Lady say to the 80 per cent. of women who earn less than half the median rate paid to male workers about her Government's policies of removing the protection which was provided by wages councils, which has led to those low levels of pay being further reduced? Is she not concerned about the low levels of pay that so many women have to put up with?

Lady Olga Maitland

I am always concerned about wage levels for all people. This cant of positive discrimination totally overlooks the main issue, which is ensuring that our economy is dynamic and determined to help all women.

Mr. John Gunnell (Morley and Leeds, South)

rose—

Lady Olga Maitland

I shall not give way any more. The hon. Gentleman has only just arrived, and tokenism is not acceptable today. Time is tight and precious and I want to address a very important issue which was raised by the Labour party yesterday and has been raised again today, about the lack of a national child care strategy.

If the House wants a national care strategy, it should look to the Conservative Government, because we are doing just that. They have an excellent record on child care. Does anybody give us any praise? No. Why does not the Labour party acknowledge that 90 per cent. of all three to four-year-old children are in some form of education or organised day care? Why does the Labour party not thank us for that? Why does it not accept it? It certainly takes advantage of it. Why does the Labour party not praise our Prime Minister, who has set the target that over time he will provide a pre-school place for every four-year-old whose parents wish to take it up.

Why does the Labour party not welcome the fact that in 1992 there were 133,600 places in registered day nurseries and nursery placcs—more than double the number in 1983? Why do Labour Members stay silent on that? In 1993, there were 296,000 places with registered childminders, and childminding increased by 40 per cent. between 1988 and 1991. What a fantastic track record.

We know that we have a record of helping women—a record of which we are proud. The Conservative party will carry far more credibility in the cause of women than the Labour party will.

12.30 pm

Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey)

It is a great pleasure to take part in the debate, especially as I was involved in Committees yesterday and could not attend yesterday's Supply day debate on women. I note that, for two years running, we have had debates in Opposition time on the extremely important subject of the position of women in society, and what kind of progress is being made.

Today's debate has been won by my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Mrs. Campbell), and I congratulate her on having secured it—but we still await a debate in Government time. If the Conservative party is really so interested in the progress of women and wishes to spend time demonstrating to us how central the issue is, the Government might at least condescend to give the House time to discuss it at length. I certainly hope that they will, but in 16 years of Conservative rule we have yet to see it happen.

Women constitute the majority of those in low-paid and insecure employment, and in the deregulated labour market insecurity is growing and wages have been falling, ably aided and abetted by the Government's abolition of the wages councils two years ago. As a result of that, in the affected sectors 42 per cent. of the part-time vacancies overall—and 75 per cent. in some sectors—are for jobs that still pay less than the low wage rates stipulated by the wages councils when they were abolished two years ago.

Yesterday, my hon. Friend the Member for Peckham (Ms Harman) said that almost 75,000 people, most of whom are women, now earn less than £1.50 an hour. How on earth can anyone keep his or her life together, try to support someone else or have any kind of dignity in the world earning such a wage? There are 200,000 people who still earn less than £2.70 an hour. Again, most of them are women.

We must abolish such low wages in our economy. Working for such low wages does not aid dignity, and is unlikely to allow for training or to lead to career prospects. It is merely exploitation, and we should see it for what it is.

There is an interesting discussion that always takes place about the minimum wage. Of course, the minimum wage and the arguments about it are at the core of the pretty fundamental disagreements between the main political parties on such issues. We believe that a minimum wage will help to banish exploitative jobs from the economy.

Mr. Spring

The hon. Lady is right to say that that is a fundamental point, and I invite her to examine other European countries in which the minimum wage exists. For example, in Spain 35 per cent. of young people are unemployed, and in France the proportion is 25 per cent. The hon. Lady talks about exploitation, but there is nothing more cruel than the exploitation of having no hope, no job and no prospects. That is the tyranny of the minimum wage, where it exists, right across Europe.

Ms Eagle

I fear that the hon. Gentleman is mixing up different economic effects. I do not think that the existence of the minimum wage has created that high youth unemployment in other countries, or that it would create it here.

In the lower income sectors in this country wages are so low that the Government now subsidise, via top-up benefits to the tune of billions of pounds, the employers who pay those low wages. Some recent parliamentary answers have demonstrated how much taxpayers' money is paid to employers to exploit their work forces, and that is neither economically efficient nor morally acceptable. A Labour Government would certainly get rid of it.

The argument that a minimum wage would destroy jobs has been demonstrated to be false this side of the second world war. In the early 1970s, there were discussions about introducing equal pay legislation, and the Conservative party—which, by the way, opposed equal pay legislation all down the line, and also opposed the introduction of the Equal Opportunities Commission, which the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Lady Olga Maitland) praised—told us all that millions of women's jobs would be destroyed and that women would be forced back into the home.

Conservatives said that the paradoxical effect of the Labour Government's pushing for equal pay legislation to improve some of the low wages, and of their trying at least to ensure equality between men and women, would be to push women back into the home. But what has happened since the legislation was put on the statute book?

Mr. Gunnell

Will my hon. Friend give way?

Ms Eagle

I shall give way in a minute, but I was going to explain what has happened since the legislation was passed.

There has been a massive increase in the number of women entering the work force. Because of the Government's economic incompetence, there has also been a massive decrease in full-time male employment, which has been partly replaced by part-time female employment. It is estimated that nine out of every 10 jobs created between now and the year 2000 will he part-time and will be taken by women. Whatever has happened as a result of equal pay legislation, it has not been the destruction of women's jobs in the economy. The opposite has happened.

I now give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Morley and Leeds, South (Mr. Gunnell).

Mr. Gunnell

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way, and for not showing the discrimination against males shown by the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam, who also spoke about equal pay. I do not think that my hon. Friend will recall the time when equal pay for teachers was won, but is she aware of the enormous opposition to that proposition by the male teachers union that was afterwards absorbed into another union? It put up a tremendous fight on the ground that equal pay would depress the wages of males because women teachers' earnings were merely a second wage.

Ms Eagle

My hon. Friend makes a valid point.

Now we see the pattern repeating itself. The Labour party puts legislation on the statute book and argues for the further advance of women in our society, against discrimination where it exists and in favour of equal treatment, whereas the Conservative party spends all its time and resources opposing those moves every step of the way. Yet, when the legislation is on the statute book, Conservatives later claim that they supported it all along.

Mr. Spring

Will the hon. Lady give way?

Ms Eagle

I have only three minutes left, so I do not want to give way at this stage.

We must realise that there is always a fight to enable women to take their rightful place in society. Where there are areas in which women have not yet arrived, the Conservatives will always oppose any change. I read yesterday's debate in Hansard, and there was nothing but carping about the quota system and the way in which the Labour party is seeking to integrate women into political life. Of course that is relevant to today's debate, because the more women we have here and in other decision-making areas, the more likely we are to be able to combat the low pay and discrimination that currently exist for women throughout their working lives, and even in the shape of the pensions industry.

The Labour party, by introducing the state earnings-related pensions scheme, gave women equality in pensions provision for the first time, but the Conservative Government have now made two attacks on that, which have reduced the value of SERPS to one quarter of what it would have been had it been left undisturbed.

The Conservatives destroy women's opportunities and oppose any attempt to make progress and to create equality. Because those things are so popular, they realise that they must pretend to he in favour of equality, but they do nothing about it. The first woman Prime Minister did nothing to help women make their way in society, except by the pure example she gave as the first ever woman Prime Minister. That was a powerful example, but she did nothing in legislation to help women. She showed contempt for the idea of allowing women to make progress in society.

Mr. Spring

rose—

Ms Eagle

I am sorry, but I have little time left and cannot give way.

One final thing which we must get right is affordable child care for women who wish to go to work. I am a member of the Employment Select Committee, which has been looking carefully at child care, and a report is due next week. The Committee has been overwhelmed by the sheer logic of the case to provide decent and affordable child care for women who want to go out to work. We were particularly concerned about the plight of lone parents. Fewer lone parents now work because of unacceptable benefit traps than worked 10 or 20 years ago.

The Opposition are addressing the issues of social policy seriously, and that is shown by the fact that we keep having debates in Opposition time—

Mr. David Sumberg (Bury, South)

Endless debates.

Ms Eagle

The hon. Gentleman may say that the debates are endless, but, frankly, the Government provide us with no time to discuss the issues. The hon. Gentleman has just wandered in at the end of the debate, and he has not even deigned to grace us with his presence. At least the Opposition provide time in the House to discuss issues which are important to 51 per cent. of the population.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge on securing the debate. We shall continue to push the issues because we know that justice must be done for women through the political process. We will fight to gain that justice, and we will not stop until we have equal opportunities and a proper place in society—whether the Conservative party likes it or not.

Mr. Deputy Speaker

I call Ms Clare Short.

12.41 pm

Ms Clare Short (Birmingham, Ladywood)

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. [Interruption.] I am sorry, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I also spoke in yesterday's debate, when Madam Speaker was in the Chair.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Mrs. Campbell) on introducing this debate. The issues which we are debating go to the heart of the difference in values between the Tory party and the British Labour party. We are approaching the end of a failed economic experiment known as Thatcherism. The experiment encouraged a belief that inequality is good for people and for the economy and a belief that one had to remove all protections for low-paid workers and let the market rip. Workers had to find their rate, no matter how low it might be. One had to stop taxing the wealthy, so that they could get rich and not pay taxes.

The moral contradiction at the core of the experiment is that the rich have to get richer to get more efficiency while the poor have to get poorer. Those are the core values of Thatcherism. The Opposition have always said that the Government were demonstrating a morally bankrupt set of values which was causing great pain to the British people. Galbraith said that Britain would do a service to the people of the world by testing those ideas to destruction in a fairly homogeneous and stable society. We have paid the price, and we have proved that those values are economically incompetent. Enormous damage has been done to the British economy by the present Government while they have conducted an experiment which has promoted inequality and inefficiency in the economy.

Conservative Members suggest that women Opposition Members do not realise that women's lives have improved. It is incredible to suggest to my generation that we are not aware of that. I am deeply aware that I am part of the luckiest generation ever to grow up in Britain. I thought that the generations who came after me would do even better, but that has not happened as yet, and it will not happen until we get a Labour Government.

I am a product of the post-war settlement. I am a product of that proud Labour Government who dealt with the previous terrible recession, and who brought in a comprehensive welfare state, full employment and expanding educational opportunities. I had all that. I am part of the first generation of my family to have had a university education. I have always been employed, and I have worked in a whole series of senior positions. I have always had the same pay as men, and I have always been at least equal to my male colleagues. I realise how lucky I am, and I am massively grateful for the opportunities which were given to me by that fine Labour Government.

We now have a Government who have ripped up those opportunities for current generations. I appreciate—unlike the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Lady Olga Maitland)—that not all women in my country are as lucky as me. I see it as a part of my duty in politics to make life more just for everyone, and not just to be happy that I am okay whereas others can go and rot while working in low-paid jobs.

I am aware that there is an ever-growing number of women in Britain working in part-time and very low-paid employment. There is nothing wrong with part-time work. In the future, both men and women will work part time and will have careers in part-time work. They will therefore be able to share the care of their children, and of their parents as they become older. We can then all be civilised, and be all the things we wish to be. We can care for our families, use our brains and abilities, operate in the economy and care for the people we love and are responsible for.

Mr. Nigel Evans

rose—

Ms Short

I am sorry, but I am very short of time. If I get on with my speech, I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman.

The model to which we should aim will he the model which the next Labour Government will seek to bring about in Britain. We will create a more just, generous and comfortable quality of life for everybody.

The present Government have failed, in that they deliberately and positively encourage low pay. They have absolutely and deliberately stripped away all the protections which exist for low-paid workers, and they have deliberately created a lower national insurance threshold to encourage the trap in which 3 million low-paid workers find themselves. Those workers are not even earning enough for their national insurance entitlements.

Secondly, the Government provide the lowest quantity of publicly funded child care of any European Union country. The consequences of that are that half the women in Britain who care for their children—that has been their traditional role—have to work part time. Their work is therefore extremely badly paid. Part-time work in Britain is so organised at the moment that it goes with poor pay, no training, no access to promotion and no pension rights, and leads to poverty in old age. Half the women in Britain are trapped in such a position.

That is not good for British men, for whom employment has dropped massively during this failed economic experiment. Some 93 per cent. of men were in employment in 1971, while just 75 per cent. of men were in employment in 1992. Men have been squeezed out of the labour market because employers are using the cheapness of women to damage women and to push men out of the labour market.

Mr. Spring

Will the hon. Lady give way?

Ms Short

I am sorry, but I have only three minutes left.

The Government's third failure is that their experiment leads to poor economic performance. Competition by wage-cutting leads to poor investment, poor training, a high labour turnover and, therefore, a poor performance in the British economy.

The Government's fourth failure is the massive benefit bill. There is the high cost of unemployment—by God we are paying a high cost in benefit expenditure—and also the high cost of subsidising the worst employers in the land who pay rotten wages on which people cannot live. Therefore, we have a £1 billion family credit bill, plus an additional £1 billion in housing costs. The Government's economic and labour market strategy is disastrous, and it is a part of the Government's ideological commitment to free market forces and inequality. It is damaging British women, British men and the performance of the British economy. It is a disaster.

The Labour Government will soon replace that failed economic experiment, and we will steer forward in the way which I have just described. We will produce a more comfortable society in which to live and a more efficient economy. The issue of where women sit in our society is a core issue. We must decide whether we wish to take our economy forward and modernise it to be successful, or whether we want to be held back—as the Government are doing.

Mr. Nigel Evans

The hon. Lady may be coming to the national minimum wage. I suspect that she will not give us the rate of that wage, but I would be delighted if she did so. Does the hon. Lady think that the deputy leader of the Labour party was wrong to say that any old fool knows that the national minimum wage would bring with it a "shake-out" in employment?

Ms Short

The national minimum wage, full-time rights for part-time workers, a national child care strategy—all those are part of the new economic settlement that I mentioned. One of the differences of morality, principle and economic understanding between the Opposition and the Government centres on the value of the national minimum wage. It is part of preventing employers from using women as cheap labour to push men out of the labour market, and using cheap labour instead of training and investment and thus holding back the British economy. We proudly put the national minimum wage at the centre of our economic strategy.

The Conservative party attacked us when we introduced the Equal Pay Act 1970, but Conservative Members are now boasting about how women have made some progress in their pay levels as a consequence of our Act. They said that we would put up women's wages and that women would he pushed out of the labour market and would lose jobs—that there would be massive unemployment among women. There was not, so they are wrong, as the international example and the example of our own history prove. They want to attack the minimum wage because they hate the idea that market forces will not be let rip and that lots of British workers will not he used as cheap labour by rotten employers. A Labour Government will not permit that.

12.50 pm

The Minister of State, Department of Employment (Miss Ann Widdecombe)

Today, we witnessed the second wasted opportunity in two days. I congratulate the hon. Member for Cambridge (Mrs. Campbell) on her choice of subject, and that is about as far as my congratulations extend. For the rest, we have seen exactly what we saw yesterday—the massed ranks of the Opposition sisterhood, with a token man from time to time. Women speakers only and tokenism personified—that is what we have witnessed in the past two days.

What do the Opposition do? Do they welcome the great improvements in the way in which women live their lives? Do they welcome the great improvements for women in the labour market and in education? No, they whinge and whine, and moan and groan. Every time that a single good fact for women is produced, they look as glum as owls. The truth is that they want bad statistics, proof of suffering and low pay so that they can say, "Look, it's all the Government's fault." They will not welcome one good fact. I am going to give them some good facts. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Ms Short) said, "Hear the research." I am going to let the Opposition hear the research as well. First, we will start with the good facts. Since 1979, which, in case the Opposition missed it, was the year we came to power, women's pay—hourly, weekly, full-time and part-time—has increased faster than that of men. There are 1.5 million more women at work than 10 years ago, which is a 16 per cent. increase. That is the product of a Conservative Government.

The Opposition whinge about child care, by which they mean publicly funded child care. They discount all the rest, because if one is not spending public money, one is not doing anything according to their policy. Yet the greatest increase in the work force has been among women with children under five—from 27 per cent. in 1984 to 46 per cent. in 1993. That has been done under a Conservative Government.

There has been a rise of nearly 80 per cent. in the number of self-employed women since the Conservative party came to office. Of course there has been, because we are the party of the self-employed and of the women self-employed. All that has been done under a Conservative Government.

In the decade 1984 to 1994, the proportion of women in management and professional occupations increased from 25 per cent to 30 per cent., but the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Mr. Chidgey), in what was otherwise a fairly thoughtful speech, criticised the lack of women at managerial level. He picked on training and enterprise councils and said—

Mr. Chidgey

That was the hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle), in an intervention in my speech.

Miss Widdecombe

I am sorry—the Opposition picked on TECs and it was said that there were too few women on their boards. Another fact is that there are 12 women chief executives of TECs, but only four women general secretaries of trade unions.

During the 1980s, women moved into new occupations. The number of women lawyers trebled, and they now account for one third of the profession; the number of women accountants doubled, and they now make up one quarter of chartered accountants; and nearly 30 per cent. of doctors are women. Those are achievements from which our country will receive lasting benefit and of which we can be proud.

In comparison with other European countries, we have done remarkably well. The United Kingdom has the second highest female participation rate in the European Union and that has been achieved by a Conservative Government with a flexible labour market. There are more women in employment in the United Kingdom than in any other EU country, except Germany. Only the UK, among the EU countries, has a lower unemployment rate for women than for men.

Mrs. Anne Campbell

Will the hon. Lady give way?

Miss Widdecombe

No, I shall do exactly as the hon. Member for Ladywood did and allow the last two minutes for interventions, so that we can get some of these important facts on the record.

Those are the facts. Now for the research. According to the hon. Member for Ladywood, we do not hear about that. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development studies acknowledge that statutory minimum wages have an adverse effect on employment prospects, especially among the young and in low-productivity regions. How about the International Monetary Fund's "World Economic Report", which called on the industrial nations, especially those in Europe, to lower their minimum wages and to institute a wide range of other policies to make labour markets more flexible.

We have heard a lot about what is going on in the United States and how the minimum wage there has led to increased employment. Let us have the facts on the minimum wage in the United States—the way in which the hon. Member for Cambridge analysed the workings of the minimum wage there did not do justice to the name of Cambridge.

The federal minimum wage has fallen from more than 50 per cent. of the average wage in the late 1960s to 36 per cent. in the late 1980s. The freezing of the nominal wage in the 1980s led to a dramatic fall in its relative value, so the national minimum wage that the hon. Lady trumpets as an example is now at a 20-year low. We all know that President Clinton came into office promising that he would uprate the national minimum wage, but he found that he could not do so because, as his Labour Secretary said, of its adverse impact on jobs.

May we also have the answer that the hon. Member for Ladywood—the hon. Member for Cambridge can relax on this occasion—did not give, when we asked her about the deputy Leader of the Opposition and his clear admission that a national minimum wage would result in shake-outs? What will be shaken is people and what they will be out of is jobs. Many of them will be women. That is what the Opposition are promising women.

Dr. Lynne Jones

rose—

Miss Widdecombe

I shall give way in the last two minutes only.

We have heard much spurious analysis about low pay today. The low pay network's attempts to show that pay has fallen since the final abolition of the wages councils in 1993 are a complete failure and are based on flawed surveys that study unfilled job centre vacancies, not the pay that workers get. It is not surprising that unfilled vacancies offer significantly lower pay than people really earn, because the higher-paying jobs are filled more quickly and are therefore under-represented in such surveys. It would be the economics of the kindergarten not to he able to work that out.

We have also heard the usual adverse comments about part-time workers, but 87 per cent. of those who work part time do not want a full-time job. I have, of all things, the Trades Union Congress on my side—I do not usually quote the TUC, but I am delighted to have this opportunity—which has carried out a survey that says that part-timers are more than twice as happy with their jobs as full-timers. That is not very surprising, is it?

I congratulate my hon. Friends the Members for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Spring) and for Sutton and Cheam (Lady Olga Maitland) on their pertinent interventions. I am delighted that, on the Conservative side, men took part in this debate, because women's rights, and pay and equality for women, concern all society and not just women. That is why the restriction of speeches to women on the Opposition Benches yesterday was one of the most shameful aspects of the debate—as if only women should be concerned about that.

The Labour party boasts that it is the only party concerned to have such debates, but, since 1979, it has initiated only two debates on the subject. Labour Members should not castigate us when, at the last moment and as a token gesture, they have suddenly realised that they can do something by instituting Supply day debates on the subject. Are we to understand that, from 1979 until last year, they did not think that the subject was important because they had no Supply day debates on it?

Dr. Lynne Jones

When the Minister has a chance to look at the Hansard record of yesterday's debate, I hope that she will withdraw those remarks, because a number of men participated early in the debate. What she said was therefore completely untrue and—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Geoffrey Lofthouse)

Order. It is now time for the next debate.