Meeting of the Parliament 08 March 2018
I am grateful to Angela Constance for leading this debate, which is being held on international women’s day—a worldwide event that is aimed at celebrating women’s achievements and inspiring people across the world to continue the fight for gender equality. The campaign, which began with a women’s march in New York in 1909, is an opportunity for Governments and women’s organisations to come together and to reaffirm our priorities with regard to achieving true gender parity.
Following the events of the past year, in which women’s rights have dominated the news in the wake of a global reckoning on sexual misconduct, it is more important than ever that we avoid complacency and, in the spirit of this year’s theme, continue to press for progress. That is why I will support the Scottish Government’s motion today as we seek to protect and promote the rights of women and girls across the world.
Tying in with last month’s centenary of women’s right to vote, we have much to celebrate in the way of progress. I look at the women and girls of today and see that the choices that are open to them are far greater than the ones that I had. I remember having my careers talk at school and saying that I wanted to join the army or the police. Although the reason that I was steered away from that idea was more my height than my gender, the alternatives that were presented to me at that time were either administrative or secretarial roles. When I was at secondary school, I attended a night class in computer programming—something that was new and exciting to me—but at no point did any of my teachers suggest that that might be a route into a career.
Fast forward 20 years and I am greatly pleased to see the emphasis that is now placed on improving female uptake of STEM subjects. In my region, Glasgow, we are lucky enough to have a number of initiatives that seek to promote gender equality in that area. For example, Glasgow Caledonian University has worked with SmartSTEMs to host workshops for school pupils in areas such as coding, aviation and digital modelling. Nationally, we have seen the likes of tech she can—that charter, led by PWC, is a national commitment by organisations to work together to increase the number of women in technology roles in the United Kingdom through shared best practice.
At the moment, just 5 per cent of STEM apprenticeship starts in Scotland are women. In the UK as a whole, the percentage of women studying a STEM degree makes up just 25 per cent of the total; that figure has been stagnant for the past two years. I welcome the effort by the Scottish Government to improve girls’ uptake of STEM subjects, but if we are to have a serious impact on those figures we have to ask ourselves as individuals how we are encouraging the young women and girls in our lives to consider a career in STEM. In Scotland’s year of young people, it is more important than ever that we look at how education and decisions that are made early in life impact on young women for the rest of their lives.
On women in the workplace more generally, figures relating to the gender pay gap make truly uncomfortable reading. Four decades on since the Equal Pay Act was passed, the UK gender pay gap remains remarkably high. According to the Office for National Statistics, when all workers are included, the pay gap is 18.4 per cent. That means that, in effect, women work for free for 67 days of the year.
I am pleased to see that, in recent months, that has been spoken about more in the media and that women are becoming increasingly aware and confident in challenging the gulf that exists between male and female pay. As we saw recently with BBC presenters, it is absolutely right to challenge the status quo. After figures came to light that showed that most of the top earners were men, the gender pay gap became an embarrassing shadow that the BBC could no longer ignore.
Transparency is key. There has been a snowball effect as a result of just a few figures being made public, and pressure is now being laid on the BBC to publish data on the individual salaries of all its staff. I sincerely hope that the UK Government’s wider policy on mandatory gender pay gap reporting will have a similar effect and will create a culture in which companies simply cannot afford to tarnish their image in that way.