Tag: Women and Equalities Committee

Urgent action required to tackle ‘endemic’ misogyny faced by women in the music industry, committee warns

Women pursuing careers in music face “endemic” misogyny and discrimination in a sector dominated by self-employment and gendered power imbalances, Westminster’s Women and Equalities Committee (WEC) has warned.

WEC’s ‘Misogyny in Music’ report laid bare a “boys’ club” where sexual harassment and abuse is common, and the non-reporting of such incidents is high. Victims who do speak out struggle to be believed or may find their career ends as a consequence.

Despite increases in representation, women encounter limitations in opportunity, a lack of support and persistent unequal pay; these issues are intensified for women facing intersectional barriers, particularly racial discrimination, the report found.

Female artists are routinely undervalued and undermined, endure a focus on their physical appearance in a way that men are not subjected to, and have to work far harder to get the recognition their ability merits.

Making a series of strong and wide-ranging recommendations, the cross-party committee of MPs called on ministers to take legislative steps to amend the Equality Act to ensure freelance workers have the same protections from discrimination as employees and bring into force section 14 to improve protections for people facing intersectional inequality.

It also recommended the Government should legislate to impose a duty on employers to protect workers from sexual harassment by third parties, a proposal the Government initially supported and then rejected last year.

Both the music industry and Government, WEC said, should increase investment in diverse talent and make more funding available to the schemes that support it. Pathways to careers for women working in the sector must improve it added, particularly in male-dominated areas such as Artists and Repertoire (A&R), sound engineering and production.

Record labels should commit to regular publication of statistics on the diversity of their creative rosters, with all organisations of more than 100 employees required to publish data on the diversity of their workforce and gender and ethnicity pay gaps.

On non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), the report cited distressing testimonies of victims “threatened into silence”, with WEC urging ministers to prohibit the use of non-disclosure and other forms of confidentiality agreements in cases involving sexual abuse, sexual harassment or sexual misconduct, bullying or harassment, and discrimination relating to a protected characteristic.

The Government, WEC recommended, should consider a retrospective moratorium on NDAs for those who have signed them relating to the issues outlined.

The report also called for strengthened requirements for industry areas where harassment and abuse are known to take place. It recommended that studios, music venues and the security staff that attend them should be subject to licensing requirements focused on tackling sexual harassment and that managers of artists should also be licensed.

WEC supported the Office for Students’ proposed new condition of registration and potential sanction for educational settings aimed at improving protections for students and urged the OfS to “implement its proposals swiftly and to enforce them robustly”.

The establishment of a single, recognisable body, the Creative Industries Independent Standards Authority (CIISA) WEC’s report concluded will help to shine a light on unacceptable behaviour in the music industry and may reduce the risk of further harm.

But the committee cautioned it is “not a panacea for all of the problems in the industry” and “time will tell whether it has the powers required to drive the changes needed”.

Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, Rt Hon Caroline Nokes MP said: “Women’s creative and career potential should not have limits placed upon it by ‘endemic’ misogyny which has persisted for far too long within the music industry.

“Our report rightly focuses on improving protections and reporting mechanisms, and on necessary structural and legislative reforms.

“However, a shift in the behaviour of men—and it is almost always men – at the heart of the music industry is the transformative change needed for talented women to quite literally have their voices heard and be both recognised and rewarded on equal terms.”

Women being let down by “glacial” Government progress on menopause

The Government response to the Women and Equalities Committee report on menopause and the workplace is a “missed opportunity to protect vast numbers of talented and experienced women from leaving the workforce.”

Published today, the UK Government’s response rejects five of the Committee’s recommendations outright, including the recommendation to consult on making menopause a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010 and pilot a specific menopause leave policy.

In a letter to Health Minister Maria Caulfield, the Chair of the Committee Caroline Nokes expressed concern that the Government has “ignored the significant evidence base” for equality law reform and called on the Government to review its position.

The Committee also highlights the low cost but high impact opportunities for model workplace menopause policies and menopause leave, which the Government has dismissed.

In the letter, the Committee highlighted it was “extremely disappointing that the Menopause Taskforce has not met since prior to the summer recess, and that the industry roundtable on HRT supplies has been delayed a number of times.”

The Committee’s report, published in July 2022, argued that the overlooked impact of menopause is causing the UK economy to ‘haemorrhage talent’.

It also argued that the current law does not sufficiently protect women experiencing menopause and does not offer proper redress to those who suffer menopause related discrimination, with evidence that many women have to demonstrate their menopausal symptoms amount to a disability to get redress.

Though the Government said it has accepted, partly accepted or accepted in principle six of the recommendations, it comes under criticism from the Committee for not actually committing to any new work in response to the report.

Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, Rt Hon Caroline Nokes MP, said:  “This belated response to our report is a missed opportunity to protect vast numbers of talented and experienced women from leaving the workforce, and leaves me unconvinced that menopause is a Government priority.

“For too long women have faced stigma, shame and dismissive attitudes when it comes to menopause. The evidence to our inquiry was crystal clear that urgent action was needed across healthcare and work settings to properly address women’s needs, yet Government progress has been glacial and its response complacent.

“Its refusal to even consult on reforming equalities law doesn’t make sense and we urge it to look again.”

UK Government must assess equality impact of every policy

Westminster’s Women and Equalities Committee has published its report on coronavirus and the gendered economic impact. The report has found that the economic impact of coronavirus has affected men and women differently. This is because of existing gendered economic inequalities, the over-representation of women in certain types of work and the actions the Government has taken.

The report calls on the Government to:

  • Conduct an Equality Impact Assessment of the Job Retention Scheme and the Self Employed Income Support Scheme. This should draw on existing inequalities and would better protect those already at a disadvantage in the labour market, including women. It could also inform more effective responses to future crises.
  • Assess the equality impact of the Industrial Strategy and the New Deal, and analyse who has benefited from the industrial strategy. Priorities for recovery are heavily gendered in nature, with investment plans skewing towards male dominated sectors.
  • Conduct an economic growth assessment of the care-led recovery proposals made by the Women’s Budget Group. (Treasury)
  • Maintain increases in support, including the £20 increase to the Universal Credit standard allowance. (Department for Work and Pensions)
  • Review the adequacy of and eligibility for Statutory Sick Pay. Women are over represented among those who are not eligible.
  • Legislate to extend redundancy protection to pregnant women and new mothers.
  • Review childcare provision to provide support for working parents and those who are job seeking or retraining.
  • Reinstate gender pay gap reporting and include parental leave policies, ethnicity and disability.
  • Provide better data to improve reporting and analysis on how gender, ethnicity, disability, age and socio-economic status interact to compound disadvantage.
  • Ensure that the Government Equalities Office and Minister for Women are more ambitious and proactive.

Committee Chair Caroline Nokes said: “As the pandemic struck, the Government had to act quickly to protect jobs and adapt welfare benefits. “These have provided a vital safety net for millions of people. But it overlooked the labour market and caring inequalities faced by women.

“These are not a mystery, they are specific and well understood. And yet the Government has repeatedly failed to consider them.

“This passive approach to gender equality is not enough. And for many women it has made existing equality problems worse: in the support to self-employed people, to pregnant women and new mothers, to the professional childcare sector, and for women claiming benefits. And it risks doing the same in its plans for economic recovery.

“We heard evidence from a wide range of organisations, including Maternity Action, the National Hair and Beauty Federation, the TUC, the Professional Association of Childcare and Early Years, the single parents campaign group Gingerbread, the Young Women’s Trust and the Women’s Budget Group. And written evidence from many more.

“The message from our evidence is clear: Government policies have repeatedly skewed towards men—and it keeps happening.

“We need to see more than good intentions and hoping for the best. The Government must start actively analysing and assessing the equality impact of every policy, or it risks turning the clock back.

“Our report sets out a package of twenty recommendations for change and a timescale. Taken together, these will go a long way towards tackling the problems and creating the more equal future that so many women—and men—want to see.

“The Government should seize this opportunity.”

Responding to today’s report by the Woman and Equalities Committee, which sets out how women have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic, TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady (above) said:  “Women have been put in an impossible situation during the pandemic – often expected to work and look after children at the same time.  

“Too many working mums are having to cut their hours or being forced to leave their jobs because they cannot manage.  

“If ministers don’t act, women will be pushed out of the labour market. And that means women’s and children’s poverty will soar.  

“Ministers must give all parents a temporary right to be furloughed now.  

“And they must fix the UK’s lamentable support for working parents. That means giving all parents at least ten days’ paid parental leave each year, making real flexible working available to all, and funding childcare properly.    

“Unless ministers strengthen rights and support for working parents, women’s equality risks being set back decades.” 

On the committee’s recommendation to carry out and publish an equality impact assessment on how government policies have affected women, Frances O’Grady added: “The government must urgently carry out and publish equality impact assessments of all its policies during this pandemic. 

“This crisis, and the government’s response to it, is deepening inequalities for women at work.” 

A TUC survey of 52,000 working mums published earlier this month revealed that  9 in 10 had experienced higher levels of anxiety and stress levels during this latest lockdown.    

Nearly three-quarters (71%) of those who had applied for furlough following the latest school closures have had their requests turned down.    

The TUC says this situation results from the UK’s failure to help families balance paid work and childcare. 

It is calling on the government to introduce:     

  • A new temporary right to furlough for groups who cannot work because of coronavirus restrictions – both parents and those who are clinically extremely vulnerable and required to shield.     
  • Ten days’ paid parental leave, from day one in a job, for all parents.  Currently parents have no statutory right to paid leave to look after their children.    
  • A right to flexible work for all parents. Flexible working can take lots of different forms, including having predictable or set hours, working from home, job-sharing, compressed hours and term-time working.     
  • Give additional financial support to the childcare sector so that childcare providers can continue to offer support to working parents.   
  • An increase in sick pay to at least the level of the real Living Wage, for everyone in work, to ensure workers can afford to self-isolate if they need to.    
  • Newly self-employed parents to have access the self-employment income support scheme (SEISS).     

Restrictions on disabled people’s rights must not become the new normal

Temporary Coronavirus Act provisions due to be debated in the House of Commons on Weds 30 September could substantially restrict or curtail important, hard-won rights that disabled people rely on for their quality of life, says a new report by Westminster’s Women and Equalities Committee.

The Committee insists that they must not become new norms, setting back disabled people’s rights by many years.

The Committee’s scrutiny has focused on three areas:

Care Act easement provisions

Under the Care Act 2014, local authorities have duties to assess and meet care and support needs that meet certain criteria. Where local authorities’ resources are severely affected by the pandemic, the Coronavirus Act can essentially replace these with a duty to do this only where failure to do so would be a breach of an individual’s human rights. In some cases this is a would be a greatly reduced level of support.

Temporary Mental Health Act provisions

The Coronavirus Act allows applications for temporary detention under the Mental Health Act (sectioning) to be made by a single doctor, and extends some time limits, for example the time someone can be detained awaiting medical assessment from 72 hrs to 120, and removing the 12 week time limit on remand to hospital.

Education, Health and Care Plan duties to young people with SEND

Parents of children, and young people aged 16-25, with special educational needs or disabilities, have a right to request their local authority carry out an assessment of their child’s (or their own, if aged 16-25) education, health and care needs (Children and Families Act 2014).

Where these met the threshold, local authorities have a duty to secure a package of integrated support known as the Education Health and Care Plan within 20 weeks. The Coronavirus Act gives the Government the power to modify this absolute duty to one of “reasonable endeavours”. Regulations also temporarily suspended the time limits.

The report also looks at the statutory arrangements for the six month reviews of the Coronavirus Act, arguing that the “take all or leave all” approach to continuing the provisions is unsatisfactory.

This is an interim report of the Committee’s inquiry into the impact of coronavirus on disabled people’s access to services [link]. The full report will be published [check] later in the autumn.

Chair’s comments

Committee Chair Caroline Nokes said: “Restricting disabled people’s hard-won rights must not become the new normal. This pandemic is an unprecedented challenge for Government but we must ensure that does not become a reason to turn the clock back on equality.

“The “take all or leave all” binary vote will present MPs with no real choice over provisions which have clear and obvious equality impacts for their disabled constituents, and which they may believe are no longer justified – either now or over the 2 year lifetime of the Act.

“The Government must demonstrate its commitment to equality by ensuring that any proposals which potentially restrict disabled people’s hard won rights are properly considered, and separately from the statutory vote.”

Care Act Easement Provisions

If the pandemic had been more clearly under control, the Committee would have recommended repeal of these. But given the precarious stage of the pandemic, and the fragility of the social care sector it accepts that they might need to remain over the winter. The report recommends that these should be kept under constant review, and if the pandemic stabilises or improves they should be repealed at the second six monthly review in spring 2021 – or sooner.

Detailed information about the number and groups of disabled people affected, and the impact on services, proved impossible to find. Together with a lack of published data, this left the Committee unable to scrutinise the impacts properly.

The report calls on the Government to demonstrate that it is keeping local authorities’ use of Care Act easements under thorough review and allow for proper scrutiny of data, and to publish Think Local Act Personal’s report and accompanying data on the effects of the pandemic on social care provision to inform the debate in the House of Commons on Weds 30 September.

Finally, it recommends that Government guidance to local authorities must make it clear that any pre-emptive triggering of easements would be a misuse of the provisions and could leave local authorities open to legal challenge.

The report also notes that the pandemic has brought a range of pre-existing systemic problems in the social care sector into sharper focus. There is an urgent need for a more sustainable funding solution; resolution of workforce issues including high staff turnover and low pay, and closer integration with health services, as well as a need to value this sector more highly. These issues will be covered in the main report.

Mental Health Act

The temporary provisions have not been needed in England so far, and evidence suggests that future need is unlikely. These also go against the grain of long awaited MHA reforms intended to address inequalities in the system.

The Committee recommends that the Government should either repeal these, or suspend them – leaving the option of reinstating them if they become needed; if the pandemic stabilises or improves they should be repealed at the second six monthly review in spring 2021 – or sooner.

Local authorities: Education Health and Care Plan duties to children and young people with SEND

Was it really necessary to leave many children and young people with SEND with little or no support for three months? The Committee accepts that local authorities needed some flexibility with these duties at the peak of the pandemic, but calls on the Department of Education to review its processes with a view to making faster decisions to return to full duties.

It also calls for: clearer Government guidance on fulfilling the ‘reasonable endeavours’ duty, including minimum standards and a range of examples of good practice; a clear national strategy for managing the backlog of assessments; and for any future relaxation of duties to be local, in direct response to local effects of the pandemic, rather than national.

The Committee heard evidence that the pandemic had exacerbated pre-existing and widely acknowledged systemic issues in the wider SEND system including: funding, inconsistencies in provision, poor integration of services and a lack of accountability in the system. These will be considered in detail in the main report later in the autumn.

There’s more to come

While the temporary measures discussed here are an important part of many disabled people’s concerns about the unequal impact of the pandemic, this interim report does not provided a full picture of their lived experience.

The Committee has heard a much wider range of evidence and will publish a main report later in the autumn. This will scrutinise the clarity and accessibility of the Government’s consultation and communications, and disabled people’s wider experience of accessing health and social care.