Hi everyone, and welcome to Maria Miller, who'll try to answer as many of your questions as possible over the next hour. While Maria gets settled in and we grab our sandwiches, here are Maria's answers to some of the questions you've already posted.
How does she balance supporting her children at school (I'm presuming at least one of them must be there), for example, reading with them every day, with working as an MP? Does she help out at school (by listening to readers, for example, or by actively participating in the PTA)? Lalaa
Lalaa, good question. It isn?t easy. The hours can be very long, especially when the house is sitting very late into the night. I think Parliament could be reformed so the hours are more family-friendly. This I think would actually help encourage more women to come into Parliament. At the moment, the number of women in Parliament is embarrassingly low, particularly if you look at other countries in Europe where the number of men and women is nearly equal. In my only party, only 17 MPs are women. Shocking. But it is changing - the number of women candidates we have in place for the next election is very high. That?s great because we need more working mothers here in parliament.
We have holidays once in a while when the house is not sitting. They?re very similar to school holidays, happening at Christmas, Easter and Summer. They are called recess. So I try and spend as much time with my children as possible during recess. When the house is sitting, I try and ring all of my children at the end of their school day. My husband is a city lawyer so he works very long hours too. Luckily, we have live-in grandparents who are the best form of childcare, and an au pair. I know that a lot of parents can?t afford such help and that is why I think it is important we make childcare as affordable as possible.
What concrete proposals do the Conservatives have to tackle work- life balance if they get into power? Artichokes
Artichokes, thanks for your question. Getting the right work-life balance is a real concern for most families in Britain today. Many parents want to and have to juggle having a job with looking after a family. That is why I really want to encourage businesses to adopt family-friendly practices. Those businesses that allow their employees to work flexibly know how beneficial it is for their workers, but also for their company. They retain the best people and have a happier, more productive workforce. 94% of employers agree that those employees who have a good work-life balance are more productive.
I believe more companies should be giving their employees flexible working arrangements. We?ve called for the right to request flexible working to be extended to all parents with children under the age of 18.
Do you think MPs should lead by example? Someone I know works in govt and the ministers seem to think nothing of calling early morning meetings, late evening meetings etc. I think we need a change of long hours culture in the workplace and it should start from the top Katisha
Katisha, absolutely. As long as my staff do the work and do their hours, I am reasonably flexible with their starting and finishing times so they get the work-life balance they need. Other people have been asking questions about our long hours culture compared to the rest of Europe. The statistics certainly substantiate this. We work on average just over an hour longer a week than the EU-27 average. Over a year, an average British employee will work 8% longer than a French employee. Some jobs probably require long hours. But I think we need to be careful of presenteeism - the phenomenon whereby employees just stick around without having work to do. That?s unhealthy.
How soon after you had your children did you return to work and did your finances have a bearing on your decision? I ask because responses from my MP seem to suggest that the fact that women get SMP means that they can take the full year to which they are entitled off work, when in my experience and that of most of my friends, that's cloud cuckoo land. This in turn means all the Government recommendations regarding eg breastfeeding exclusively for the first six months become unnecessarily difficult. Hunkermumker
Hunkermumker, yes, with all of my three children I returned to work months after giving birth, largely because of financial necessity. I?m sure this is the case with most women out there. There isn?t a choice about being a careerist or a stay-at-home mum; you have to do both, full stop. Nearly half of all mothers return to the workplace within 6 months of having a child. I am very sympathetic to the fact that Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP) may not provide the level of income required to meet the cost of living. That is why it is so important that women have the option of flexible jobs so women can juggle home life with earning a decent wage.
