Tories 'challenging Labour' over women

The Conservatives are posing a serious challenge to Labour on equality, a prominent women's rights group said today.

Welcoming the Conservatives' new policies for women, the Fawcett Society said it was encouraged that the party recognised women's concerns are central to political debate and have to be a "keystone of electoral strategy".

Katherine Rake, director of the society, said: "Today’s announcement, combined with earlier announcements made by David Cameron on rape and on equal pay, are presenting a serious challenge to the Labour government, which has long dominated the equality debate."

But looking at the actual policies proposed, Fawcett said the Conservatives were "not sufficiently ambitious" and called on today's document to be a first-step.

The document says the Conservative party itself must be a "beacon of best practice," pushing equal pay and flexible hours at CCHQ.

Launching the document this morning 90 years after women won the vote, shadow minister for women Theresa May said: "Since then women's position in society and the workplace has improved beyond what anyone 90 years ago would have thought possible.

"As a party, we want to do everything we can to help this progression continue. Labour has a flawed approach to women's issues which has stalled progress.

"Labour has failed to recognise the diversity and complexity of the issues that confront women in the world today and mistakenly believes that the best way to solve these issues is by throwing legislation at them."

Rather than a "single monolithic bloc" policy makers should treat women as 30 million individuals, Ms May continued.

She added: "As well as legislation, deeper cultural change is needed to get the momentum going again on women's issues. The first step is to recognise what the opportunities and challenges are that face women in the world today and where we can act to help."

Concerns highlighted by the Conservatives include domestic violence – of which one in four women suffer over their lifetime and 750,000 children witness a year – and a continued gender pay gap of 17.2 per cent.

However, the document fails to explore conventional women's issues such as reproductive rights.