The Women and Work All Party Parliamentary Group

While in recent years we have seen a change in the way that UK businesses work to increase the number of women recruited into the workforce, women still face financial hardship and barriers when it comes to employment. The issue is not just about getting women into work but ensuring retention of female employees by rapidly improving workplace systems and infrastructures to enable women to thrive. We aim to take an intersectional approach to women in the workplace, enabling all women to succeed and be valued in their chosen area of work.

This year we will look at a variety of issues that impact women’s earning potential, including maternity costs, pension inequality, post-maternity pay freeze and the need for better gender pay reporting and pay transparency to assess and quantify, where possible, what “the cost of being a woman at work” is.

So let’s take a glance at the current situation:

In only April 2021, the gender pay gap was still high at 15.4%, moreover a report by the 50Plus Choices Employer Taskforce found that a quarter of women consider leaving work due to symptoms experienced from the menopause, that consequently will decrease their pensions, further adding to the issue of pension inequality. New studies by London’s South Bank University highlighted that half the women surveyed explained that maternity leave had negatively effected their carer. Additionally, research suggests that the percentage of women employed in tech in the UK has barely moved from 15.7% in 2009 to 17% in 2021, highlighting the serious need of the government and employers to take levelling up for women as a high priority. This is because women, especially black and ethnically minoritised women, were hit extremely hard by the ongoing pandemic.

These statistics highlight the need to act now, showing the ever more important work of this APPG.

Ultimately, only by addressing the challenges and costs faced can we help ensure women don’t get penalised financially further and can pave the way for women in the workplace to be treated as valued employees.

We welcome all to our discussions to advocate for this positive change.

Group chair

Chair
Jess Phillips MP, Birmingham Yardley, Labour

jessphillips.net
@jessphillips

Jess Phillips has been the Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley since 2015. She has committed her life to improve the lives of others, especially the most vulnerable, and spent five years working for Women’s Aid supporting and defending women. Jess became a councillor in 2012 through the Labour Future Candidates Programme. In this role she worked tirelessly to support residents, with her work being recognised when she became Birmingham’s first-ever Victims Champion.

Chair
Flick Drummond MP, Meon Valley, Conservative 

Flick Drummond is a British Conservative Party politician. She has been the Member of Parliament for Meon Valley since 2019, having previously represented Portsmouth South from 2015 to 2017. She was a member of the Women and Equalities Select Committee and set up the Women and Work APPG. She also established the Cybersecurity APPG. In 2019 she stood down as the Conservative candidate to become the Hampshire Police and crime commissioner in the 2020 England and Wales police and crime commissioner elections. In 2020 she was the Parliamentary Private Secretary to Anne-Marie Trevelyan as Secretary of State for International Development.

Information on all the group’s officers can be found here.