22 Jan 2001
The Government’s determination to continue the fight for gender equality and to build on the achievements made over the last 25 years were outlined today by, Advocate General, Lynda Clark.
Opening the "Celebrating 25 Years of the Sex Discrimination Act" legal conference in Edinburgh today Lynda Clark said:
"As the UK’s first female law officer I am determined to continue the fight to ensure that all women have the same rights, opportunities and incentives as men.
"I remember well the passage of the Sex Discrimination Act in 1975, and of the Equal Pay Act, and how they have helped to change attitudes and aspirations. Since the introduction of the Equal Pay Act, women’s earnings in real terms have risen by 27% and the pay gap between men and women has halved from 37% to 18%.
"Women now play a more active role in public life. In education for example, in 1970/71 a third of higher education students in the UK were women whilst by 1997/98 this figure had risen to 50%. There is now a clear recognition across society that discrimination is wrong, both morally and economically, and cannot be sustained. Thirty years ago that was not the case.
"Despite progress some inequalities still remain and this Government is taking, and will continue to take, action to fight against them. The consultation paper "Towards Equal Pay for Women" puts forward proposals for improving equal pay hearings in tribunal cases. We have also issued a Green Paper on "Work and Parents: Competitiveness and Choice" which seeks views on how to give more help to working parents and greater support to their employers. This is a vital issue, given that there are 668,000 employed parents with dependent children under 16 in Scotland, comprising 33% of jobs.
"We have taken direct action to help women through initiatives such as the National Minimum Wage, the Working Families Tax Credit and the New Deal. We have also improved rights for Scotland’s 520,000 part-time workers, around 80 per cent of whom are women.
"The Government will continue to fight for equality. I hope that in a few years time we will be able to look back, and celebrate, further changes which will have eliminated inequalities which still exist."
NOTE FOR NEWS EDITORS
The Advocate General was opening a legal conference on "Celebrating 25 Years of the Sex Discrimination Act", being organised by the Equal Opportunities Commission and the Scottish Discrimination Law Association. This was one of three linked conferences being organised by the Equal Opportunities Commission to celebrate their 25thAnniversary.