The Queen's Speech - what does it mean for women?

The Queen's Speech laid out the Government's legislative programme for the next year. So what does it mean for women? Here are the key areas we'll be focusing on in our campaigning work, the bits we welcome, and the bits we don't...

Lap dancing campaign success

A huge thank you to everyone who's been involved with our lap dancing campaign - as a result of the campaign, it was announced that licensing of lap dancing clubs will be toughened up, giving local communities greater powers to control them. Our campaign with Object to reform licensing laws has been incredibly popular, with a fantastic amount of public support - it is that support that helps us translate our goals into legislation. The campaign will continue to ensure the bill passes safely - so stay tuned.

Equality bill

There's been a spate of bad news around the gender pay gap recently - shortly after Women's No Pay Day on October 30th, it emerged that the gap actually increased last year. The equality bill was the perfect opportunity to introduce legislation to close the pay gap, but unfortunately this opportunity has been wasted. While new transparency rules will require public bodies to publish information about gender pay gaps, they won't apply to 70% of the private sector. Mandatory pay audits for ALL organisations are what's required to tackle this inequality: Fawcett will continue to lobby Government for legislation that puts an end to the pay gap.

Welfare reform bill

Worrying news around welfare reforms which will increase obligations on lone parents to look for employment and impose new sanctions (withdrawal of benefits) on those deemed as not taking active steps to find work. Fawcett has spoken to Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell to address the failings around the welfare reforms: click here to read the letter summarising Fawcett's concerns.

Flexible working

After Peter Mandelson's alarming suggestion that he was going to scrap improvements in parents' rights to flexible working in October - criticised by Fawcett in the national media - it's a relief to hear that all parents with children aged 16 and under will have the right to request flexible working from April 2009 (currently, only parents with children under six have this right). Not just good news for parents, but good news for business as well, as all evidence shows that flexible working has a positive impact on work performance and helps reduce stress levels.

Child poverty bill

We're delighted that the Government is being bold and making their target of eradicating child poverty by 2020 legally binding. We know that to meet it will require a similarly bold approach to tackling women's poverty - as seven out of ten children in poverty are in lone mother households or households where the mother is on low income or no income. We'll be lobbying Government to ensure they recognise that taking action to support mums is absolutely crucial to achieving this target.