Episode 17 The Big Questions

Today, 0-hour contracts, racism in the church, and shirking dads.

Yes, good morning, I'm Nicky Campbell. Today, we are live from

Goldsmiths University of London, welcome, to the big questions.

Zero-hour contracts are when you sign up to work for a company but

that employer has no obligation to offer you any hours. They are common

in retail, catering and tourism. Buckingham Palace uses them. Many

workers like the flexibility, especially students who work for a

little bit extra. Many cannot make ends meet when they have no idea how

much money they are going to earn each week. Refusing at zero-hour

contract could lose you state benefits. Are they ethical?

Christian May from the Institute of directors. Some say there are more

here than ever before, is this flexibility or is it exploitation?

It is definitely flexibility. The numbers involved have been up for

debate in the last couple of months. numbers involved have been up for

debate in the The Office for National Statistics, who have done

the most recent analysis of the Labour market, have said there are

1.4 million such contracts in use. That is not to be confused with 1.4

million people on these contracts because people will have more than

one, sometimes they might have won and they will be dormant. It is

important to keep in perspective, we are talking about 5% of the Labour

market, and within that, we know that 65% of people on such

arrangements say that they have high job satisfaction. 60% say they value

the flexibility to such an extent that they would rather not work in

different conditions. Both of those statistics are a little bit higher

when you ask the question of people in overall employment. The

flexibility, valuable to businesses and employers, but also not to

forget there are a lot of people whose lifestyle means these

contracts suit them. I think recognising that flexibility is

important, but so is clamping down on areas where they are not used

properly. Not making them exclusive. Would it not be better to have a

short-term contract? What about the situation where you're waiting for

the phone call, you cannot work, you are incredibly paranoid. You have

hit the nail on the head. It is the flexibility of saying you cannot

work tomorrow, you will work on Saturday. Will you get that call?

80% of people have said they have never been penalised if they have

not been able to take the work offered. That is important. One of

the issues about this is the way it has been hitched to the political

and social debate about the nature of recovery and employment. It is

often thrown out when people are talking about the economic recovery.

They will just chuck in 0-hour contracts as reason why it is going

wrong. Labour are not 1 million miles away from the government or

the Institute of directors. We are very active, we do not support

exclusivity contracts, we think they need to be flexible. If you are

saying you cannot work for other people at the same time, you have no

flexibility. When you get them right, they are incredibly valuable.

Owen Jones. S nobody is arguing against flexibility. The problem is

they give flexibility to the employer and in flexibility to the

employee. In other countries they have ways of providing flexibility.

S in the Netherlands and Belgium, employees can negotiate fewer

working hours. The problem is there is a return to Victorian ages, when

doctors would stick their hands up hoping to get work. These days, I

meet young people who get up at 6am waiting to get a text message if

they have any hours. Firstly, the large majority of people on

zero-hour contracts are below the living wage. The Office for National

Statistics show that those on temporary contracts have far lower

levels of well-being than those on permanent contracts. That is often

not the case. It is the case. The other point is you can be on call

all day, from 9am until last thing at night, when you only have 20 set

hours that week. You have an exclusivity clause, you cannot work

for other employers during that period. It is very hard to claim

work benefits. It has to be seen as part of a general trend of stripping

security from the workplace. We have seen the growth of self-employment,

it is often unemployment. It happened to my dad.

it is often unemployment. It people are on very low wages, they

do not have pension rights, leave rights, redundancy pay. So it

do not have pension rights, leave trampling on workers rights. S let

us have flexibility but not at the of this in Europe. Come back on

this. 80% of these people have never been sanctioned. We know this

because the report we are referring to says 60% of people value the

worklife balance whereas if you ask them across general employment that

slipped to 58%. If we are talking about this as if these are a symptom

of a Dickensian workplace, it is simply not the case. Demographics

mean the workforce is changing, so this example, I will say one

circumstance whether can be two scenarios. -- where there can be.

Older people, younger people going back into work, you could say that

is a symptom of people taking more ownership of their Labour and

responding to a change in the workforce and people having more

than one job, or you can say it is a symptom of an insecure environment.

The truth is it is somewhere between the two. Often you cannot get a job

because of exclusivity clauses. They are used in only very rare

circumstances and we are against them. You run a company, there you

are. How useful are these for you? We have about 200 engineers

travelling round London, and we use them for our engineers, and they

suit us and the engineers. Why do they suit the engineers? They make

plans around, looking after kids during the day, some of them will

want to work different schedules, so we will meet with them at the

beginning of the month and work out the times they want to work during

that month, then we will map that out and work it in with our

schedules, so it suits both sides. If you take it to an extreme and you

say there are exclusivity clauses and no protections, then yes,

certainly zero-hour contracts should not be handled that way. Do they

have a concern if they cannot do the work that day? You're not getting a

text message an hour before you're supposed to turn up. It just means

we have the flexibility at looking at whether cycles, I'm busy we might

be, so that we can plan the workforce. -- how busy we might be.

We do not have anyone getting less hours than they want. They are on

better rate than they would be if they were on full-time. The word

flexibility is being used a lot, but my question would be, flexibility

for who? These contracts have been around for many years and in some

circumstances, they work very well. The problem is when they become the

norm rather than the exception, and at the organisation I run, we work

with people on these contracts to help them organise to negotiate

better rates for themselves, especially at universities where

they are being used, because increasingly they are being relied

on as the norm, they do not provide security. They were originally

designed to be used as a stopgap, to retain employees when you were in

difficulty. For students, is it a good way to get extra money? If you

get the hours. That is the key point. If we look at this as an

ethical question, employment relationship is just that, a

relationship based on reciprocity. I give you my Labour and I am paid for

what I do. Zero-hour contracts, if used or abused, break down that

reciprocity. They leave people open and vulnerable to abuse and in

situations where they do not know where their income is coming from.

That is just making sure employers cannot abuse them. So it has a place

in the market and their need to be controls in place so that people

cannot abuse it. -- there must be. People talk about it as a great

social ill. We have members representing small and medium

businesses and we asked 1000 if they use zero-hour contracts, 10% of them

said they use 10% of their work on them. If it works, is there a danger

that employees will be worried that they may no longer be on the job

role and be moved to zero-hour contracts. It is the other way

round, people move from zero-hour contracts into the full-time role.

So it gives them experience. I think these are very useful for students

because the flexibility allows them to work around the exam schedule,

and also for working parents, because they can work around looking

after their kids. Nothing there that you have mentioned could not be

achieved by other forms of more traditional contracts that would

guarantee leave and pay. A lot of my friends would not have jobs without

zero-hour contracts. You can have flexible working arrangements

without that. On your point, nearly half of people on these contracts

have been on them for more than two years. They are not a stepping

stone. They can be. They are not necessarily a stepping stone. The

other point is this, the Confederation of British industry,

the voice of bosses in this country, a few years ago published a report

looking for a flexible workforce, depending on this transient

workforce. That means stripping people of pension rights, redundancy

pay, maternity leave, all of those things. They are just really useful.

Let us have a flexible debate. Good morning, how are you doing? It is

good we are talking about these contracts but what are we talking

about? Minimum wage or public sector? I am a nurse, we are always

short of staff, they come in with a list, I do not do this, I do not do

that, but at the end of the day, they get paid more than me. Double

than me. If you look at the other side of the minimum wage, the family

who depend on this sort of work might just think they do not have

work today but tomorrow they might work on minimum wage. That does not

support the family. We're talking about the public sector and the

private sector. A gentleman on the other side. Read Mac the main

problem is there is not a lot of security with the job, really. --

the main problem. Until that, the problem will be very big. You have

picked up the baton. The 80% statistics, I know a restaurant

owner who said they have slipped down the list because they could not

come in. I'm just saying, exactly, you don't know that. I would not

trust that 80%. I do, because that is the office of National

statistics. Cole Moreton has entered the fray. Your statistic tells us

that one in five people have been penalised for turning down work. I

don't think that is acceptable, do you? I do not, I am talking about

the fringe issues, that is the massive bulk. Your other statistics

said nearly one in ten are on exclusive contracts. I will tell you

why, they use exclusivity clauses because it might be someone of great

technical skill, they are used in professions, to protect intellectual

property, training purposes, it is not always used in low paid work.

They are also used by employers to avoid the obligations to help people

with families who need flexible working, legislation brought in

recently has made employers have to find a way around that. Well... We

do not support instances where they are used in place of full-time

employment. I assume you would be against exclusivity clauses. With

the exception of the instances I have referred to, we think there

should be a role for them when they can be justified for a very

particular reason. What I don't understand, I can understand will

having this -- you having this, getting outside, getting the

conservatory fixed, but what about the high street stores we have been

hearing about, chain restaurants, surely they know how many people

they will need? I would not defend bad practice, you would have to get

them in here to do so. -- I would not defend that practice. If you

take Hertz car hire, they say 20% of people they ploy on zero our

contracts, 20% move into full-time roles -- they employ. It is useful

not to reduce this to a pantomime villain. If an elderly worsen or a

person who is retired keeps one foot in the door, that is good for them

as elderly person -- elderly person. Do you need that flexible T?

It can't really be generalised, what about single-parent families and

people who rely on these hours, how are they going to feed their family

and support their families? It is not very generous. Do we need to

make sure there are four per regulations in place? Minimum hours

and certain rights? -- proper regulations. I think this habit

moves away from making it mutually satisfying. It allows companies to

move away from that. When I was growing up, we were saying there is

too much power in the workforce, unions are too powerful, it has gone

completely the other way. I think the point is a good one. It is the

government's role to set a standard for basic employment rights. Where

you have situations of zero our contracts that lapse for a period of

weeks, interrupts employment, they break peoples rights. According to

Vince Cable, we are competing in a global market with countries where

there are no rights whatsoever. Do we need to cut our cloth

accordingly? If we go down that way it is a race to the bottom. It is a

race to the bottom argument. At the moment we live in a country where

most people in poverty are in work, they get up in the morning and they

earn their poverty. That costs a taxpayer in huge amount of money

because we spend money on in work benefits. It sucks demand out of the

economy because people can't spend and depend on cheap credit. Wages

are far lower than most other workers. They don't have security

week after week if they are on zero our contracts. We are stripping

week after week if they are on zero the workforce pension rights, paid

leave, sick days, we should be the workforce pension rights, paid

arguing for a race to the top to improve and extend workers rights,

not to drag everyone to the bottom as we are at the moment. Thank you

very much. APPLAUSE

Your thoughts on that. You can react on Twitter. Follow the link on our

website to where you can join the discussion online. We are debating

live this morning from Goldsmiths University. Is the Church of England

is usually racist? Are the fathers doing their fair share?

Love your neighbour as yourself. given to us by Jesus. And possibly

the hardest to keep. Is it especially shocking when the Church

of England has to acknowledge there is still racism in its midst?

Something they first acknowledged in 1987. This week the house of Bishops

announced it is working on a plan to double the number of minority ethnic

clergy in senior positions over the next decade. There are currently

fewer than five. Is the Church of England institutionally racist? Lay

member of the sea not, Alison Ruoff, is a big problem? -- the General

Synod. No. Is that the debate over? I think it is blown out of all

proportion. I think every church... I correct that, not every church is

as welcoming as they should be but most churches are. But yours is the

state church, the established church. What has that got to do with

it? Is it properly reflecting modern society? There is a survey out that

by 2050, one third of this country not going to be white. You have to

do something about it, otherwise the Church of England will become

irrelevant. The Church of England would become irrelevant as far as I

can see. It might divide over various issues but it is not

relevant -- the Church of England won't become irrelevant as far as I

can see. Because it is the established church there is the

opportunity for the Christian message to go to every house in

every parish. Whether it does or not is another matter. I think we work

ourselves up into a frenzy about institutional racism. If you go to a

church in a village say in the depths of Devon or Norfolk, you

might not see any people then click minority because simply they don't

live there. -- of an ethnic minority. If you go to a church in

central London you will probably see a lot of people of all sorts of

ethnic minorities, worshipping together and getting on very well.

We could walk out of the door here and there would be five Pentecostal

churches that are full to the brim. And that is wonderful. But people

like to be with their own. We have to remember that. They do. For

example, if you come from France and you have French neighbours, will you

tend to be with your French neighbours? Absolutely ludicrous...

It is true. If you are in central London, Oxford Circus, everybody is

speaking their own language in their groups. They don't suddenly start

speaking English. Unless they have to. We need to make a strong

demarcation between the experience in churches that Alison is talking

about, what ever parish they may be come and the experience of the

church, the institution of the church. Alison will know full well,

in 1985, the faith in the city report came out and one of the

things that was hidden away in that apostolate clear message to the

Church of England, -- hidden away in that but was still a clear message,

people from Africa and Asia are Christians and believers and unless

you are opening unwelcome to them, you will not engage with them. The

Church of England has not engaged with them put up the Pentecostal

church is growing enormously, not just because people want to flock

together but because in many cases, when they came, they were not

welcome in their own church. I know that in my own experiences. My

parents were not welcomed in Anglican churches so they had to

splinter off and create their own churches. What did that not welcome

mean, how did that manifest itself? When we used to go to a church, it

was staid and dry and boring. The preacher would say something, people

like performing seals, they would clap every now and then, there was

no interaction. There was no joy, no spirit, you couldn't read the

emotive. My mother always says, if you go to church and the preacher

doesn't move you with the word, he is not doing his job. There is joy

and pleasure in the Anglican Church, you just got the wrong one.

Maybe as a child I was continually exposed to the wrong one. Maybe you

should go to one of the services, let your hair down. I haven't got

long enough hair! Alison says people like to be with their own. Is that

Christianity? The Christian faith has a powerful vision of people of

every tribe gathering together in worship. The failure of the Church

of England is that is not exhibited with sufficient enthusiasm, energy,

vigour, because plans are not made to make it that way. Institutional

racism means... There needs to be a conscious effort.

It is not true, we live in this hugely diverse city, London. In

Britain we have some of the highest levels of mixed race Thracian chips

on the face of the earth. People in this city and elsewhere, they lived

together, they work together, they even sleep together in some cases,

they are setting up families, they are living together. If the church

is going to die it will be because of people like you. One in seven

people are going to a religious service. Do you go to church? I

don't. How do you know? I will turn that on its head, why are so few

people going to churches? My daughter goes to a church that is

not an anger can church. She goes to Hill song from Australia -- not an

Anglican church. On Easter Sunday they had 10,000 young people going

to church. On Good Friday they had 450 young people baptised. You can't

tell me Christianity is dead. I didn't say it was dead. I said

people like you will ensure it won't be relevant. I believe young people

are most welcome in the Church of England. I want to establish

something. Everybody who goes to church can hear the good news of

Jesus Christ, that is what I care about. John Root, let's get back to

it, is the Church of England institutionally racist? Yeah,

because I think institutional racism isn't just an unkind and nasty to

people. It is much more subtle and it is the way the institution

chooses to operate. Institutions tend to operate in the way that

those who lead a comfortable... That is different from the way ordinary

white people, certainly ordinary black people feel. There is that

exclusion which Les was indicating when he said it was boring and so

on, it is not just that people who think that come why people think

that. It needs to be an intentional way to change the -- desire to

change the way we operate. -- it is not just black people who think

that, white people think that. How do we get a situation where there

are more black leaders in the Church of England? We have to have the

right conversation, every historical cause has a contemporary

consequence. We know that the Church of England, Anglican Church, what

ever, all of them were involved in slavery. I think only the Quakers

were not involved. It doesn't matter if it was a long time ago, think

about it in this way. If you are a black person in this congregation

and it is more or less all-white and you are in the, it could be

all-black with a white vicar, and you

all-black with a white vicar, and position because continuously

reinforced ruler images, God is white, Jesus is wide, you can never

aspired to be God or Jesus, you can walk in Jesus's footsteps but not be

like him. These things caused this and because you don't see yourself

represented in that picture. Would you be surprised that these people

don't put themselves forward for those higher positions? If they are

getting treated like that as members of the congregation, what will it be

like if they get to the higher echelons? The thing is, the majority

of Anglicans in the world are black. The majority are in Africa. And the

Church of England needs to learn from that and engage with that and

has a problem engaging with that, particularly over the issue of

same-sex marriage at the moment. I go to church, I go to lots of

churches and I see lots of churches where there are people of mixed race

and different colours and different backgrounds. And they are fantastic.

The issue of institutional racism, that is not reflected in the house

of Bishops and leadership of the church and it is an anomaly and a

disgrace. It is a very serious charge if people are saying there is

institutional racism. Part of the Christian

institutional racism. Part of the mentioned, it is for everybody.

institutional racism. Part of the is available for everyone, whatever

culture. Perhaps we need is available for everyone, whatever

there something in the culture of the Church of England, particularly

the leadership, it is not that people are deliberately excluding

other people, it is something in the culture which is not attractive. It

could be a self-perpetuating elite. It could be and that is true of a

lot of organisations, not just the church. You think the church of all

organisations would strive to be immune from it? As has already been

mentioned, there are churches which are packed with people of allsorts

of different races and the question is perhaps to ask them, especially

churches with black majorities, where people are praising the Lord,

confident in themselves and the gospel in their mission to their

particular community, ask them, what is it about the Church of England

that doesn't attract you? You are 30 years too late. It is not too late.

We were having a discussion upstairs. One of the things we said

was in 2007, great inroads were made. Maybe for the wrong reason,

because it was the so-called abolition of the slave trade, but I

was invited into more churches during that year than I ever have in

my life to have these kinds of conversations. At the time I had

just published a book, and I spoke about being raised as a

Judaeo-Christian child, and how that affected me when I started to look

at, on one hand we are encouraged to praise the Lord, everybody is

welcome in the house of the Lord, but the Lord did not look like us.

If you speak to black people and you say to a lot of them, if they are

honest, how do you feel about a white Jesus? How would you feel

about a black Jesus? They would invariably say, God has no colour.

Jesus was due in Palestine. The point is that is the image that has

been ingrained. -- Jesus was a Jew. Hands up on that point. The

gentleman at the back. I'm an atheist, and from an organisation

called the London Black Atheists. When you look at the character of

contemporary religion, more often than not, contained within today's

religion is misogyny, sexism, racism. Talking about the Church of

England, do you feel from your experience that those things are

part of attitudes within the church of England? Yes. They were

responsible for partaking in slavery. I am also from the same

organisation. People like to stick together.

All religions are basically institutionally racist because the

moment you have a religion, you have an in group and an outgroup, you

have your chosen people. Are you from the Black Atheists? I am not, I

was actually baptised in the Church of England but later I changed my

mind to not be with them. Where do you worship now? With the Catholic

Church. I know they have quite a lot of issues, but I would say the

Church of England is this connected from the African Fellowship. --

disconnected. Most of the issues that the Africans have in the church

are not listened to. Equal marriage and so forth? They do have some

strong views in their but they feel the church is unwilling to listen to

any of their views. The paradox of having a massive power of the

Orthodox Church, but on the matter of feeling excluded and historical

reasons, what is your response? I was not around in the middle of the

slave trade. Neither was I. We have moved a long way since the time when

your parents came to this country, and I think in the 60s, we did not

do well in welcoming people from the Caribbean nations, and I apologise

for that, but we have learned a lot. I go to a church in white,

middle-class area, and our congregation is composed of all

sorts of people, and we get on really well. Having said that, we

have only got one person of an ethnic minority on the PCC. We have

had Asian people on the PCC but they don't want to stand. They don't want

the responsibility, they want to do other things. It is not always easy

to get people to do these particular jobs. I would love more people to

come. Why don't they want more responsibility? I have no idea. This

is the kind of conversation you should have. We try to persuade them

to join us. If you can go to the default that they don't want to

accept the responsibility, that is like when they said the black youth

do not want to work because they smoke weed all the time and all this

kind of crazy stuff. At the end of the day, you need a clear

conversation. I run courses where we interrogate these things, and every

time I run this course, I have Christians in their, black, maybe

white, and they say they do not have this quality of debate or

discussion. People dismiss it because of responsibility. Our

famous sociologist said my position is my possession. Is that the

problem? Is the problem in the pews or the hierarchy? It is in the

nation, in a sense. We are terrified of the phrase institutional racism,

but it is endemic because it is a general attitude of superiority, not

expecting much from black people. If you listen closely to black people

in the Church of England, there is this sense of not being affirmed,

welcomed, not in a very overt way at all. It is a subtle way. People I

know, they would not say people are racist in the sense that they are

told to go away but there is a lack of interest, lack of enthusiasm,

lack of readiness to learn which inhibits people. It is ordinary

white people not having that zest to learn, to develop, to say, what do

these people bring? The lady there, you're married to a clergyman. I am

married to John Root. You said you did not want to speak earlier. What

has your experience the beans -- what has your experience been? Have

you experienced hostility? Yes, it did not come from everyone, but it

does exist and you actually need to get to the other person's side.

Alison said she does not know why they don't want to take

responsibility, that just shows that you don't really understand why. Why

did you get that impression? I think it is very important that we need to

listen and actually to affirm, and in order to affirm, we need to

recognise the gifts we have, we want to use them. It is a problem in

society. Look at this panel. We are in London and all of us except for

one are white. Look at the lack of black MPs, black journalists, it is

a very small minority. There are only two archbishops, one is black

and one is white. And after that, there are none. We have not actually

developed black British ministers. Look at the numbers of black people

compared with white people. There are not that many. It is not about

numbers, it is about institutional racism. A telling point is, I don't

know why they don't want to get involved. One thing is to talk to

people, but the other thing is we need to be open, whether it is in

sexist or racist context, we need to be prepared to change and move our

institutions to change the way they operate. It is not about saying, why

don't you want to take a role in my institution as it is? It is about

saying, what is it about this institution that we need to change.

This is a church whereby everybody is welcome, it does not matter who

they are, what colour. Last word, Andrew. There is a

they are, what colour. Last word, in society about participation,

volunteering, that is probably in society about participation,

case in many institutions, so I think there is a challenge to the

case in many institutions, so I a constant challenge in terms of

persuading people of all different a constant challenge in terms of

types, you could talk about white, working-class men or any other

group, in order to encourage people who look at the thing and say,

group, in order to encourage people is not me. There is a challenge for

that, encouraging participation, that is true of the church and all

other organisations. Thank you for that. You can join in the debates on

the website. Follow the link to the online discussion. You can tweet as

well. Tell us what you think about the last question. Ask others doing

their fair share? If you would like to be in the audience you can

e-mail. -- Are fathers. We are looking for audiences for Walsall

and Brighton. Next week we are back at Goldsmiths with a special edition

asking whether the First World War changed Britain for the better.

Jeremy Paxman, David Stevenson amongst those taking part. Do join

us. Finland, Norway, Sweden, Iceland and

Denmark are the best five countries in the world to be a mother,

according to a survey this week. The UK came the 26th, people with

Belarus -- equal. One factor is even though mothers are the main, they do

most of the cooking and housework. 26 equal with Belarus, that is even

worse than last night in the Eurovision Song Contest. I'm not

surprised at all because men are not pulling their weight. A large study

was done in 2012 that found 80% of married women did the majority of

the housework and over the last few decades we have not this change. One

of the three top reasons why people divorce is neglect, feeling

neglected, lack of respect, because it is not the big thing that break a

couple up like which city they live in, because people realise as a

couple they can see the point of view on a big issue, it is the

little things, when a man will not help lay the table, pick up after

the kids, do the washing, those are the things that erode the

relationships and damage them. Rebecca, you have written a book,

that is why you're here. Modern motherhood and the illusion of

equality. Perhaps there are some old attitudes that persist. A woman's

work is never done, honey, I am home. How much is that cultural? The

interesting thing is a lot of it is cultural, but it is linked to the

supporting structures and legislation in a country. It is no

accident that the countries that come out top in that research in

terms of having a good environment for mothers are the same countries

that encourage fathers to do as much as possible. These are countries

that lay down very firm cultural expectation, that others will take

their fair share in the household, countries that do as much as

possible to bring fathers in in the early days of childcare, so they

have shared parental leave. Hard habit to break. It takes focus and a

bit of a stick and carrot to get fathers involved. What those

countries have is a long length of ring fenced paternity leave for

fathers. It is use it or lose it, they either take it or it is

completely falls away. It forces fathers, in just the same way as

mothers, to come to terms with childcare. It is strange that that

is a stick. It is a carrot and a stick. Parenthood is learned on the

job. You take a deep breath, you get in there, it is really hard and

really rewarding. It is two sides of the same coin. I'm sure there are

mothers and fathers in this room who would agree. We are in 2014 and we

still do not have pay parity between men and women. Outside of the home

we are so lackadaisical. We still have this pervasive attitude within

the home that women are going to get along and do things. We do have pay

parity, this is how. In the 20s and 30s, men and women get paid the

same. We don't have a gender pay gap, we have it kicking in when we

start to force mothers-to-be the main carer and force fathers to be

the main earner. You only need to look at the countries at the top of

the list, where the roles are shared more equally, fathers have equal

rights. We have given women equal rights in the workplace, we have not

given fathers equal rights to take on the role of being the carer,

unless you get equal rights for fathers, as happens more in the

Scandinavian countries, nothing will change. What rights do you want?

There are three key rights. When I child is born mothers are given

parental rights but a father is not -- when a child is born. It is the

right to make decisions about health, religion and so on. It is

automatically given to all mothers. It is not given to all fathers.

There are only two ways a father can automatically get it, one is by

being granted it by the mother when she marries him, the other is from

the state. We are treated differently because of our sex. The

second thing is, all of this support the state puts in terms of child

benefit and other support goes directly to the mother, not the

father. That says basically, mother, you are the primary carer. The third

key thing is parental leave rights. The last Labour government

introduced the most unequal parental leave rights in the world. They made

them mother's rights, not parents rights. When a couple sits down and

makes the choice about taking on the responsibility, they are forced into

certain decisions unless there is a massive income disparity. My

daughter is 16, I was at home for the first three years of my life, it

was easier to make that decision in 1997 than it would be now. Parental

rights were a lot more equal in the 90s but they were less generous.

Even if a man has fewer rights, and quite rightly we need to look at

that, men can see beyond that. If both partners are working or if

mother is at home as a mother, men can come home and still help out.

-- and they do. It is not happening. past the fact... And they do.

It is also the case that women do two thirds of the house work. That

is right across the world. It is also the case that as women earn

more, once they start to earn more than the man, they take on more

house work. You can sort of do less as you earn more but as soon as you

overtake him you end up doing more house work and more childcare than

he does. It is an interesting anomaly. The other thing we need to

be really aware of is that men and women have different views about

what is there. Women tend to see fairness in terms of doing equal

amounts. There is a certain amount of work being done. Some of it is

paid work, some of it is work with the children. The women will see

hours put in in equal terms as fairness. Men tend to feel they can

buy themselves out of childcare by earning more. So they will come home

and they won't muck in necessarily, because they feel their fair

contribution comes from higher earnings. We have a lot of very

complex things going on about how we think about fairness which do not

match. They undervalued the mother, that she is not doing as much work.

Sometimes when men do a bit of housework and praised for it, they

are kind of canonised. The good men who are doing their share... Thank

you! They are not exceptional, that is what they should be doing. You

are worried about men becoming emasculated, what do you mean?

Sometimes we think that men are pushed aside

Sometimes we think that men are strong women, but in my own family I

see my son doing a huge amount of childcare. And all sorts of things.

If there is a nappy to be changed and he will go and do it. He never

gives a second thought to it. I didn't see my husband doing quite

that. I think over 20, 30, 40 years, we have moved a long way in more and

more men doing things. We mustn't go so far as to push men into feeling

that they are less important, less so far as to push men into feeling

valuable, of less worth than women. Why would the man changing his

child's nappy would Why would the man changing his

less of a man or less valuable to the project of raising that child?

Why is that a threat to masculinity? I think we are in danger of women

being so forceful today in saying, this is what you are going to do...

Where is this day? These fathers over here, they are asking to be

involved, they want to be involved, it is not women pushing them into

it, it is the men themselves. If I could just add, if there was shared

parental leave come which we have talked about a lot, if men and women

had their time at home, they could make up their own minds about

whether it was for them or not. At the moment they don't have the

chance. It is what works for each individual couple. In my own

household, my husband is a lot better at doing the yard work and I

am better at organising big birthday parties. You are so forceful!

Britain could do better at drawing men into parenthood. As a

grandfather and a father I have experience of trying this. There are

couple of obstacles. One is that women are far safer than men in

nearly all respects, safer drivers, commit less violent crime. It is

reflected in caring relationships. Men who care for children are much

more likely to abuse them sexually or physically. It doesn't mean all

men but it is true that men are more risky. Catherine, you made a face of

anguish and pain. My baby son is eight months old and when he was

four months old I went back to work full-time, and my husband took

additional parental leave for three months which he is just coming to

the end. Less than 1% of couples in the country do that. I think partly

it is about as ability, that being known about. But when he went to

make the request, and he works in a government department, a large

organisation, they had never heard of the request in the HR Department.

Then they grated it to -- granted it to him as though they were doing him

a favour. He was very much reassured by everybody that it wouldn't affect

his position and he would be able to come back in and they were not

looking firstly at it. -- at firstly at it.

The sort of culture that I view as being from the 70s. I think my

husband has a new-found appreciation for the workplace after three months

at home, it is rewarding but it is hard work. My baby son, bless him,

will come to me and love him but he will equally come to my husband and

love him and be with him, and we are stronger as a family. You have four

children including triplets? That is right. My goodness me. What a joy

they are. Hard work? Yes. I want to say very clearly that being a father

does not emasculate a man. It can be the making of a man, actually.

APPLAUSE There isn't a man in the country who

can stand up and say, I did enough, without getting attacked. Because

you can never do enough and I know full well that people will be

watching this programme and saying, yeah, because I didn't do enough. I

was caught up in a crisis, particularly when the three came.

That forced me to re-evaluate how I felt about it and how much I would

get involved. When our time comes, there is no man who sits there and

says, well, I am glad I didn't spend more time with my children. It is

the greatest thing. If there is anything to make, it has been the

making of me. They are fantastic and have taught me a great deal. It is a

terrible struggle sometimes. For both of us. It is interesting, what

it is to be a man isn't static. The changing role of the man has to do a

lot with the women's movement and the LGB Teemu Pukki. Men are more

likely to talk about their movement -- LGB tee movement.

Although they are not doing enough around the house, the number of

house husband has gone up to 10% to hit -- it has increased hugely.

Women as a movement have change what it means to be a man and that is a

good thing, it is something to be braced. My cousin and her husband

had their first child last night, a baby girl born last night.

Congratulations! The child was born in Norway where they have been

working for the last couple of years. Mother and farmer -- father

are sorting out huge periods of parental leave. I think it is a very

healthy arrangement. That kind of regulation and state involvement in

the laws is one thing. The other side of the argument is just being a

decent person, someone who was brought up well to do your fair

share, to be someone who is selfless, I don't think it requires

too many carrots and sticks. I just wanted to say, I think it is a bit

ludicrous to say it is a threat to masculinity, you chose to bring a

child into this world, if you are not willing to get hands-on and

involved as a woman does, why put yourself in that situation? I think

intentions are good for many people but behaviour takes time to catch

up. You may be point about the historical issue of slavery. It is

incredible, how behaviour takes a long time to catch up to the good

intentions that many men have. I was going to say that growing up in the

house I grew up in, we had to do everything. My parents at this

philosophy, when you can figure up a broom you learn to sweep, if you can

hold a scouring pad you scrub a pot and you have to learn to do

everything. That is how I have raised my children. Then it doesn't

become such an issue. Their -- there may be government things in the way

but culturally, you are prepared for it. So when it does come, it should

be a better society. I think that is spot on but I want to pick up one

point about the way we have framed this question. We said why are black

people not involved in the judge of indolent, it is a really good way to

frame it? What -- involved in the church of England. We have framed

this question, what is wrong with men? The conversation around gender

frames conversation by saying, men are problems and women have

problems. We have to change that mentality. Fathers are doing their

fair share, aren't they? You would not say, our mothers doing their

fair share? Fathers bring home two thirds of the income and do about

the third of their care. We don't say, are women not doing their fair

share in the workplace? We need to get beyond the debate. The language

we use is important, the phraseology is important.

We are out of time to thank you all very much for taking part. Give

yourselves a round of applause. APPLAUSE

The debate will continue online and on Twitter. Next week a special on

the First World War, did it change written for the better? Goodbye from

The Big Questions, have a great Sunday -- did it change written for

the better? -- Britain.