Gender, pay, empathy: why the Tories are still as out of touch as ever

By Alexandra Kemp

Anyone can make a mistake. We can all say things we later regret in an unguarded moment. And, after all, Tory MP Alan Duncan quickly apologised for his extraordinary recent assertion that MPs, on a salary of £64,000 plus expenses, now live on “rations”. So perhaps we should let the matter rest there, with the recommendation that he might attend an equal opportunities awareness course during the summer recess.

Except that this is clear evidence that, despite Cameron’s claims to have changed his party, many influential Tories may not only still be living in a different world – but are still failing to empathise with the rest of the nation. This is also the week in which Tory MEP Daniel Hannan told the USA that Britain would be better off without the NHS. Has he never spoken to older people who remember when families had to “ration” visits to the doctor as there was no money for everyone to go?

Ah, the Empathy Gap. Alive and well in the Tory Party. Does Alan Duncan really not appreciate that £64,000 – plus expenses – is a lot of money? Average earnings are £24,000 a year. Most women earn much less. 52% of women earn under £15,000 a year.

The Shadow Leader of the House of Commons then went on to say that no one who has ever done anything in the outside world, or is capable of doing anything, will want to come in here, i.e. become an MP.

All this was expressed with the ring of unadorned, brass-tacks, this-is-what-I-really-believe honesty, to an undercover reporter. One can only wish it were not so. This is about the values and privately held beliefs of a senior member of a party which imagines it is on course to take the reins of power.

If we deconstruct the message we see he assumes that:

1. Parliament is the natural habitat of the higher earner

2. High pay is proof that you have contributed something worthwhile to society

3. People’s contributions to society are reflected in their pay ( so he clearly doesn’t understand the Gender Pay Gap)

4. There is no concept of placing public service before one’s own financial interests

Does he really believe that the ability to make money should be the prime qualification for being an MP?

No wonder the Tories are misled with notions like “Broken Britain” if they are not aware of the idea of public service which runs through society, and about the sacrifices in time and income that millions of people make, as carers, as volunteers, and in countless civic roles and in the Third Sector.

Whereas our own Leader of the House, Harriet Harman, is a striking example of dedication to equal opportunities, Alan Duncan’s comments betray the outdated values around worth and pay which are responsible for sustaining the Gender Pay Gap in the workplace. It was Gordon’s Tax Credits and increases in Child Benefit which rescued families – and pensioners – from deep financial inequalities which Labour inherited from the Tories in 1997.

It was Harriet who pressed for the National Minimum Wage, helping over a million women, for affordable childcare and for family-friendly working.

It was James Purnell who fought for the new settlement to help women and carers build up state pensions, with the ground-breaking new aim of crediting social contributions into national insurance, as well as for a company pension for everyone at work.

Real values. About people. About the many and not the few.

But the role of the state in taking the lead on equality must now be matched by a real change of attitude by employers.

The Women and Work Commission recently reported that women still earn 22.6% less than men, rising to nearly 40% less when they work part-time. 41% of women work part-time because they shoulder the responsibility of social and family responsibilities which fall below the economic radar.

Too many women still work in jobs that are below their true skills level, denying the economy the benefit of their full potential and crippling their earning capacity. Ending the Gender Pay Gap would go a long way to ending child poverty.

Social responsibility also means responsibility for high-earners such as MPs and bankers. It means ending the policy of age discrimination against older women as newsreaders and presenters in the BBC.

Ever-widening pay gaps, with the ratio of pay of the lowest-paid to the highest-paid rising from 40 to 100 over the past decade or so, do not happen by accident. However, they set us behind the rest of Europe and undermine social cohesion and well-being.

I think the public, disgusted by the recent scandals of MPs’ expenses and of bankers’ bonuses will run with us on this. They will not turn back the clock with the Tories.