Having children shouldn’t be barrier to well-paid job, says shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves

Rachel Reeves
PA Wire
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Having children should not be “a barrier” to women getting well-paid jobs, the shadow chancellor has said.

Rachel Reeves told the Standard she was worried about the impact the pandemic had on women and said it was time for industrial strategies to consider them.

The senior Labour MP made the comments ahead of a visit to meet female train drivers working on the Elizabeth Line at Woolwich Station.

She told the Standard: “Having kids shouldn’t be a barrier to having a well-paid job.

“Yes, it does change things when you have kids and for a period of time you do need to have a bit more flexibility and you do need to be at home for those certain times of the day.

“But it’s brilliant to see employers finding ways to ensure that jobs suit the needs of women and particularly in this case of mums.”

It comes after a recent study by Aviva found 24 per cent of women said the pandemic had a negative impact on their work-life balance. That compares to 16 per cent of men.

The shadow chancellor also said there was “very little focus” in Government on how to improve the quality and the pay of jobs predominantly done by women.

She added: “This Government’s now scrapped their industrial strategy, but when they do come up with these plans for growth and industrial strategies, it tends to be for sectors of the economy that are already very innovative and have got high skills and high productivity.

“When has there ever been an industrial strategy, or a plan to improve wages and job security, in social care, or in retail, or hospitality, the sectors where the jobs are predominantly done by women?

“There’s very little focus on how to improve the quality and the pay in those jobs.”

Ms Reeves, a mother-of-two, previously worked as an economist for the Bank of England as well as the British Embassy in Washington and HBOS.

Asked if it was time for a female leader of the Labour Party, she replied: “We’ve never had a woman Chancellor so maybe in a couple of years’ time I could break that barrier. It’d be fantastic to have a woman at Number 11 Downing Street.

“In politics there are still barriers that we need to break and the one that I want to break is to be the first woman Chancellor of the Exchequer.”

It comes as Transport for London [TfL] and union Aslef devised a new form of management contract to recruit train drivers from diverse backgrounds for the new Elizabeth Line.

Shadow women and equalities secretary Marsha de Cordova attending the visit said the pandemic had “supercharged” some of the worst inequalities in the country.

Claire Metcalfe, deputy people and culture director at the Elizabeth Line, said from the outset they recruited using an “inclusivity mind-set” and added: “We have been proud to champion diversity from an early stage, with our initial operations seeing double the amount of female drivers compared with the industry average.”

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