SPEECH BY SALLY MORGAN

EUROPEAN FEDERATION OF BLACK WOMEN

BUSINESS OWNERS

9 NOVEMBER 2001

INTRODUCTION

Very pleased to be here to give the opening speech.

Particularly so – given our shared objectives.

As a Government we recognise how important organisations such as the European Federation of Black Women Business Owners are in providing support and encouragement to women – to help break down the barriers that prevent them reaching their potential.

Our vision of equality is not an optional extra but central to helping deliver core objectives across the whole range of our policies – in public services, in tackling social exclusion and in developing a thriving economy.
We firmly believe that women, both as employees and entrepreneurs, are vital to ensuring the success of the country and that if they do not achieve their full potential, then both business and society suffer the consequences.

And we are committed to diversity. We want people in positions of power and influence in business or in public life to more accurately reflect the society they serve – that means more women, and particularly more black women.

HOW THINGS USED TO BE

Of course, it is important to recognise that we have made progress over the last 20 years or so - whether we are talking about women in parliament, women in public life, or women in business.
Back in 1975 there was a pay gap of 37%. Now, 25 years later it is still too high but half that, at 18%.

LONG WAY TO GO

There’s a long way to go. And great diversity in the experience of black and ethnic minority women in the labour market.

Whilst 72% Black Caribbean women are working only 21% of Bangladeshi and 22% of Pakistani women are.

Yet members of ethnic minority communities make up a significant part of the small firm sector. A recent Bank of England report notes that while ethnic minorities represent 5% of the UK population, around 9% of new business start ups in 1997 involved entrepreneurs from ethnic minority backgrounds.

REMOVING BARRIERS

We know that the most important issue for many women is how to balance work and home life.

Improving and encouraging flexible work practices is a top priority for myself and Patricia Hewitt

ENTREPRENEURS

That is one of the reasons why we are very interested in and value the work of your organisation.

Because one way of achieving greater flexibility is to encourage self-employment.

Earlier this year we did some work looking at the needs of women entrepreneurs and barriers to success.

Our study showed that women start up about 35% of small businesses in the UK. But in the US, the comparable figure is 50%. If we had the same numbers of women entrepreneurs here, the overall level of entrepreneurial activity would double.

We know that women entrepreneurs can face a number of difficulties in setting up and running a business - issues around accessing finance, training and advice. So we are taking action to help.

Initiatives such as the Small Business Service’s network of 45 Business Links, the Phoenix fund with its £100 million programme to help support underrepresented groups, the Small Firms Loan Guarantee Scheme and the Women’s Online Business Centre will help address these difficulties.
We must continue to look at ways of ensuring that business support is accessible and appropriate to the needs of different sections of the community.

For example guidance to Business Link operators makes clear that their services must be accessible to the community they serve and reflect the ethnic diversity.

We must build on this by continuing to find out more about the needs of ethnic minority businesses and the entrepreneurs who run them.

Organisations such as the DTI Ethnic Minority Business Forum chaired by your President Yvonne Thompson, and your own organisation play an invaluable role in this.

In this way we will continue to encourage women such as Verna Wilkins – founder and managing director of Tamarind - a successful children’s book publishing company set up in 1989. Verna became aware that there were no black children represented in any of the books that her two sons were reading. So she decided to fill the gap and to overcome problems getting her books onto the market place she became a publisher herself.

And Amina Khatib, editor of ww.selfhelper.co.uk – which she set up to help people help themselves by providing information, advice and access to books and services related to self-help. Amina now gets business advice from a local enterprise agency, part-funded by the Government and has also had help from a local minority ethnic business programme run by the local enterprise agency. Selfhelper now gets 90,000 hits a month and about 3,000 visitors.

WORK:LIFE BALANCE

But for most women, as for most men, their working lives will be as an employee and my role in Government is very much about developing a package of legislation and cultural change to promote diversity and overcome discrimination in the labour market.

WORK AND PARENTS TASKFORCE

So what are we doing to help?

We set up the Work and Parents Taskforce earlier this year, to look at how flexible working practices can be introduced in a business friendly way.

They will be reporting later this year with proposals on how the right to allow parents with young children to ask to work flexible hours - and to have their requests taken seriously by their employers - should be implemented.

We are also giving employers the chance to bid for challenge fund money to set up work-life balance programmes, which are as much for the benefit of business as their employees.

WOMEN GETTING TO THE TOP

But we also want women to get to the top in whatever job they choose.

Women are vital to ensuring the success of our country.

The more women we see in positions of power, the more will be inspired and encouraged to emulate those women. And the more Black women we see in positions of power, the more their voices will be heard and the diversity of our society will be properly reflected.

MORE WOMEN IN PUBLIC LIFE

One of my key priorities as Minister for Women is to ensure that women play a more prominent role in public life

WOMEN’S REPRESENTATION BILL

As a Government we want to encourage women to have an equal chance to play their part in the institutions that govern our country.

But women still only account for 18% of MPs, so we are introducing legislation that will let political parties choose whether to take positive measures to increase the number of women standing for election.

PUBLIC APPOINTMENTS

And we are taking action to increase the numbers of women appointed to prominent public bodies, including those from minority groups.

There are at least 1,000 public bodies in the UK offering literally thousands (30,000) of public appointments. That’s a lot of appointments – but only just over a third held by women and 1.6% by black and ethnic women. We are committed to ensuring that women fill 50% of them and that the percentage of black and ethnic appointments more accurately reflects the society they serve.

That is why in the New Year we will be running a series of seminars to encourage women to put themselves forward for these posts. Attracting minority groups will be a particular focus of this campaign. We want women like you to seriously consider putting themselves forward.

CONCLUSION

I have outlined today just some of the measures the Government is taking to break down barriers and give women real opportunities. There are still too few women in business, especially black women, who can act as an inspiration and motivational force for women to enter and succeed in new ventures.

Today’s conference is a great opportunity to move the agenda forward. Working together we can ensure barriers are broken down for the next generation of successful young black women.