Tag: Jim McGovern

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim McGovern on 2015-02-09.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what steps his Department is taking to (a) encourage firms to pay a fair wage to workers in their overseas supply chains and (b) stop other forms of exploitation of those workers.

Jo Swinson

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) has introduced a requirement for large listed companies to include in their Strategic Report information on human rights issues. This requirement will be further enhanced by the Non-Financial Reporting Directive, due to come into force by 2017, which specifically includes human rights due diligence and supply chains.

In December last year, I announced support from BIS for the Corporate Human Rights Benchmark, which will assess and rank the human rights performance of 500 companies worldwide. The combination of enhanced disclosure and published assessments of company performance will provide a powerful incentive to businesses to ensure that workers in their overseas supply chains are free from exploitation and are paid fair wages.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim McGovern on 2015-02-09.

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps his Department is taking to (a) tackle the gender pay gap and (b) increase the number of women in the video games industry.

Mr Edward Vaizey

Changes to the national curriculum mean all children now have the opportunity to learn to code and initiatives such as the Your Life campaign, and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) Ambassadors help challenge gender stereotypes and encourage more girls to consider careers in the video games sector.

‪We are working with industry on developing new routes into video games development, including the Next Gen Skills Academy and Creative Skillset’s trainee placement scheme. Initiatives specifically designed to help address barriers to women working in the video games industry include the Next Gen Skills Academy’s Gender Balance Workforce programme. This is investigating career challenges faced by women in the games industry and offering practical workshops and knowledge sharing, for employees and employers, based on the evidence collected.

‪For women in the workforce the Government has extended the right to request flexible working to all employees, and is introducing a new system of shared parental leave from April 2015. To help women return to the sector Government will provide support for a dedicated platform to match STEM trained women graduates to return to jobs in industry following career breaks and to provide them with advice and information about support on offer.

The Government will make free software available to all UK companies later this year which will enable them to calculate their gender pay gap easily, and help them identify issues preventing women from progressing in their career

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim McGovern on 2014-06-12.

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what recent assessment her Department has made of the effect of illegal settlements on the economic development of Palestine.

Justine Greening

Denying Palestinians access to the resources of Area C, whether through expanding illegal settlements, declaring closed military zones and national parks, or restricting movement and access, is crippling the Palestinian economy. The World Bank estimates that easing these restrictions could increase Palestinian GDP by 35%.