Government cuts 'compromise improvement chances' of low-paid women

The Government may be "talking the talk" on equality but their "cuts agenda compromises any chances" of an improvement for women on the lowest pay, a Labour MP has claimed.

Ruth Cadbury told MPs that, while the Prime Minister had pledged to end the gender pay gap within a generation, "when 85% of Government tax and benefit cuts hit women they are giving with one hand and taking from them with the other".

The Brentford and Isleworth MP said: "The work that women do is crucial to the functioning of society but the pay does not reflect that. Despite the fact that women have as good or better qualifications than men, their skills are not rewarded at the same value as men and career progression is slower. We need to ensure that there is equal pay for work of equal value."

Speaking during her Westminster Hall debate on women and low pay, Ms Cadbury said living on low wages meant not having enough to give your children nutritious food, not being able to escape a violent relationship or losing pay on the cost of fares travelling to work.

Forty five years after the Equal Pay Act was passed in Parliament, she said, "we are yet to achieve it", with a gender pay gap of 19% still existing in the UK, 3% higher than the EU average.

She said: "Women on low pay, it's not just about the pay they are receiving but the interconnection with zero hours contracts, with the benefit regime, with tax credits, and of course to pensions, because a working life of low pay means a retirement of very low income."

The majority of low paid workers, she said were female, with three in five minimum wage jobs held by women. Every major piece of legislation that had improved the lives of women, she added had been introduced by Labour.

UK women, she said, earned on average 91% of that of men, adding: "Put another way, from the 9th November just over a week ago, women are now effectively working for free for the rest of the year. This is simply not acceptable in the 21st century, progress has not been quick enough."

While the gender pay gap, she said, had narrowed for full time workers, it had widened for part time workers.

Ms Cadbury argued more attention needed to be paid towards women in low pay, rather than "simply focusing" on women in high paid jobs.

Legislating for companies who employ more than 250 people to publish the difference between male and female employees' pay was she said a good way to push companies to pay equally, but traditional women's employment in clerical, catering, caring, cashiering and cleaning were often in smaller companies who will not need to publish the information.

She said: "The Government needs a strategy to boost the esteem and pay of those jobs that are typically undertaken by women. Raising the minimum wage by the end of this Parliament and rebranding it doesn't fool me or those women working on wages that are below the true living wage, a living wage that is calculated as being enough to live on.

"And cutting tax credits for millions of working families doesn't fool them either."

Labour's Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) raised the issue of women born in the 1950s, arguing the Government introduced changes to retirement and state pension ages without offering transitional protections.