Meeting of the Parliament 12 March 2014
Many members who are here supported the motion that I lodged last week, which pays tribute to the late Professor Ailsa McKay. As professor of economics at Glasgow Caledonian University, Ailsa was a founding member of the Scottish women’s budget group and the European gender budgeting network. She was also a member of the International Association for Feminist Economics.
Ailsa’s commitment to promoting a new Government policy approach to gender equality has played a major part in where we are now—quite literally: this horseshoe-shaped chamber was proposed by women because it was thought that it would promote a less adversarial style than the face-to-face, confrontational style of the House of Commons. A crèche, family-friendly working hours and encouragement for more women to stand for election as MSPs are positive actions towards better gender balance.
As a feminist and an economist, one of Ailsa’s drivers was the concept that women are not some kind of add-on that we can pour into the mix and stir to get a result. Women approach and use resources in fundamentally different ways from men. As Ailsa put it, the Scottish women’s budget group
“continually pointed out how the different needs and resources available to men and women will affect the way they access everything from jobs, to public services such as housing, transport, education and training. By taking account of these differences, policy-makers can ensure better policy targeting, more effective delivery and greater equality.”
We have talked a lot about oil revenues today. In Norway, the economic contribution of women is far greater than the contribution from oil resources, which is an amazing statistic.
Childcare in the UK is expensive. According to a recent report by the Family and Childcare Trust, the cost works out at about £7,500 a year. That covers a two-year-old at nursery for 25 hours a week and a five-year-old in an after-school club. The figure is slightly more than the cost of the average mortgage, which, according to official statistics, is £7,207 a year. The report’s authors said:
“the current childcare system is not working for anyone.”
However, other countries seem able to provide excellent facilities. Sweden is often upheld as a great example, but how can it afford to provide such facilities? The answer is not difficult. The Swedes can afford to do that because the return on the investment is far more women in work, which generates more wealth and taxes and thus pays for better public services such as childcare.
This Scottish Government’s way forward, in tackling gender inequality and maximising the contribution of this nation’s incredibly talented, ambitious and able women, is to put women at the centre. That is where the Government’s commitment to transformational childcare came from—real women in real families, with a real desire to give their children the best possible chance.
We will kid no one if we do not pay further tribute to Ailsa McKay, who pushed that agenda, providing information to the Scottish Government and arguing that we can grow the country’s economy only by giving the women of this country the best possible opportunities.
If women join the workforce at a similar rate to Sweden’s rate and pay tax into the system, tax revenues can be boosted by £700 million a year in an independent Scotland. There will be another 35,000 jobs in childcare as a result. By the end of the first session of an independent Scottish Parliament, every three and four-year-old and vulnerable two-year-old will be entitled to 1,140 hours of childcare a year—the equivalent of 30 hours a week in term time.
Let us create the best possible tribute to Professor Ailsa McKay. Let us have the best possible childcare in our independent Scotland. We cannot do that now, because Westminster would deny us access to the revenues collected from the economic boost that such an approach would give us. In an independent Scotland, we can, we should and we must do it.
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