Equality Bill [Lords]

That is what I was talking about. I was saying that in many cases now, some of the ethnic minority groupings are doing better than white working-class boys. When we investigate discrimination, we need to look across the piece and try to find reasons for that. That is why the equalities review is such a good move. It will be able to investigate all the social, cultural and economic factors that limit or deny people the opportunities to make the best of their abilities. It is important that we gain that understanding of the long-term cases of disadvantage that need to be addressed in public policy. When I was responsible for education in local government, I was never clear what specifically we could do for those white working-class boys to improve things for them. I want to touch on three aspects of the new commission. I want to talk briefly about women and then move on to carers and human rights. The new provisions to prohibit discrimination and to create a general duty to promote gender equality are welcome. The public sector is a major employer of women. Of public sector workers, 64 per cent. are women. In my constituency, the largest employers are the two local authorities, Salford and Wigan, and the NHS. We know that the gender gap has closed considerably over the past 30 years. As some of my hon. Friends mentioned earlier, women now earn 83p for every £1 earned by men, compared to only 70p 30 years ago. However, there is still more to be done. I want the pay gap between women and men to be closed even more. Apart from that being the right thing to do, it makes sense for the economy. My hon. Friend the Minister cited figures demonstrating that raising women’s skills to the level of men’s would add 3 per cent. to our gross domestic product. Although the gender pay gap is only 10 per cent. among full-time staff in the public sector, it is 21 per cent. in the private sector, so there is still much to be done. I believe that there are still too few women in senior management positions in the public sector, in which there is a concentration of women in such roles as teaching and social work. When I was a councillor, we appointed our first woman chief executive, but she was one of very few to attain that senior post in the north-west. One of my two local authorities, Wigan, has just appointed a woman chief executive, Joyce Redfearn. That constitutes a step forward in that part of the north-west, but it is still the case that only a fifth of local authorities employ women in such senior positions. The health service is doing a little better: 28 per cent. of its chief executives are women. I hope that the public-sector duty to promote gender equality will help authorities to take steps, in their role as employers, to improve the current position.