Thank you to the Committee for convening today.
As you rightly say, the work of the Government Equalities Office
has been very focused on Covid, making sure we’re dealing with
the immediate equalities issues during the crisis, but also
making sure that the recovery we’re planning benefits all across
our nation equally, which is a key part of the Government’s
levelling up agenda.
In terms of my work as Minister for Women and Equalities we have
three key priorities.
First of all reshaping the Government Equalities Office and
bringing it more closely together with the Cabinet Office units -
so the Racial Disparity Unity and the Disability Unit - to create
an equalities hub. My intention is to move the department
physically, so that all of those people are sitting together. And
also to bring the work more closely together. Because I think we
need to move away from the idea that we’re simply dealing with
groups that need to be catered for and instead make sure that
we’re looking at individuals across the country and really
identifying who are those most in need, where are the biggest
barriers to success, and where are the unequal delivery of public
services.
So I want the unit to become much more focused on analysing that
data, looking at it very closely, and then working to a hub and
spoke model with the rest of Government - so whether it’s the
Home Office on issues of crime, whether it’s the Department of
education on issues of education, implementing those policies, so
that is the change that I am making to the Government Equalities
Office, and indeed the whole equalities unit, and I am working
very closely with Theo Agnew in the Cabinet Office to do that,
because I want our policies to be focused around individual
dignity, individual opportunity, and we need to look really at
where the biggest barriers are.
And I would like to see us working more closely on issues like
geography, so where are communities being held back, and also on
issues on background, income, as well as issues of gender, race
and disability too. So we have a much more holistic picture. So
that’s the overall direction I want to take the Government
Equalities Office.
A particular focus is going to be women’s economic empowerment,
and I think this will be particularly important as we leave the
immediate issues of Covid and then to the recovery., Of course
we’ve had success in terms of getting more women employed ever
before in the UK, but it’s nevertheless the case that women are
significantly behind comparative countries in terms of setting up
businesses and entrepreneurship. We know that it would contribute
10% extra to GDP if women had the same levels of participation in
entrepreneurship as men and one of the things we’ve done so far
is we’ve hosted a major reception at Number 10 with women
entrepreneurs and leading women to move that agenda forward.
I’m very pleased to say that as a result of the recent reshuffle
we now have supporting me as Equalities
Minister, she’s based at the Treasury, which is obviously
extremely important in terms of that overall economic agenda, so
that has been a major focus.
The other area we’re focused on is our international work. We
were planning to hold an international LGBT conference in May,
regrettably that’s had to be postponed due to coronavirus. We do
want to hold that conference as soon as possible. We’d already
made significant plans, with
to chair the conference, the theme of Safe To Be Me, that is very
much about using the UK’s strong record in terms of LGBT rights
and human rights, to make that case across the globe, and make
sure that wherever people live, wherever LGBT people live,
they’re safe to go about their daily business without fear of
crime and harassment, and that is a very important priority. I’ve
already participated in events, in fact in Tokyo, launching the
Asian chapter of that initiative, and that’s something we want to
pursue further.
The final point I’d like to make, Madam Chairman, in this initial
part, is on the issue of the Gender Recognition Act. We’ve been
doing a lot of work internally, making sure we’re in a position
to respond to that consultation and launch what we propose to do
on the future of the Gender Recognition Act. We will be in a
position to do that by the summer, and there are three very
important principles that I will be putting place.
First of all, the protection of single-sex spaces, which is
extremely important.
Secondly making sure that transgender adults are free to live
their lives as they wish without fear of persecution, whilst
maintaining the proper checks and balances in the system.
Finally, which is not a direct issue concerning the Gender
Recognition Act, but is relevant, making sure that the under 18s
are protected from decisions that they could make, that are
irreversible in the future. I believe strongly that adults should
have the freedom to lead their lives as they see fit, but I think
it’s very important that while people are still developing their
decision-making capabilities that we protect them from making
those irreversible decisions. Of course some of these policies
have been delayed, Chair, by the specific issues around Covid but
I can assure you that alongside the Covid work, our officials
continue to do those things to make them happen.
