Former cabinet minister Patricia Hewitt MP has called on the Government to learn from previous recessions and steer Britain out of the downturn with an economy that retains its talent not loses it, in an essay published on the day of the Fabian New Year conference.

Read the full essay below.

Writing in a new Fabian essay, Hewitt argues that the country must learn from past recessions, when firms swiftly moved to axe jobs in the downturn before having to bear the cost of replacing vital human resources in the upturn.    

To ensure there is no repeat of this, she points to how Labour’s introduction of the right for parents and carers to request flexible working hours "could be vital" for employers and employees alike, helping stave-off redundancies within firms and organisations coming under pressure.

The Government should lead the way on this agenda, argues Hewitt, with offers of voluntary working-time reductions to all public-sector staff and swift help to the private sector to fuse shorter hours with new training opportunities.

Writing to coincide with the 2009 Fabian New Year Conference, Fairness Doesn’t Happen by Chance, Hewitt argues that the current economic situation throws feminist issues "into even starker relief". Read her essay below.

"Feminism may be a dirty word – though not, I’m glad to say, for Fabians – but feminist issues haven’t gone away. Instead, the downturn is throwing them into even starker relief.

Take the relationship between paid and unpaid work – work/family balance. My generation of feminists demanded paid maternity leave and proper childcare, and have made big gains on both. But we also set out to challenge male working norms that left no time for families. There too, we have had some success. Although too much part-time work remains a low-paid, low-status female ghetto, Labour’s adoption of the European principle of full-time rights for part-time workers, along with the minimum wage and tax credits, has improved the lives of millions of women. And part-time work is moving up the occupational scale as a growing number of women – and a smaller minority of men – have proved that part-time working and career breaks can be part of a successful career.

These days, no self-respecting employer – public, private or not-for-profit – would be without a diversity and equality policy. Two decades of the ‘war for talent’, and the pre-dominance of women amongst newly-qualified doctors, accountants and lawyers have forced employers, reluctantly or otherwise, to confront the need for more family-friendly working. But workaholic cultures are hard to crack and the reality still is that for far too many women – and a growing number of men who would wish it otherwise – have to choose between career and family.

Will the downturn destroy the gains we have made? Not if we are smart. Of course the priority for every government must be to get the banking system banking again, restore credit lines to business, prevent downturn turning into depression and protect the most vulnerable. But in the spirit of Barack Obama’s new chief of staff – ‘never let a crisis go to waste’ – we should also be responding to the downturn in ways that will advance the cause of equality.

In previous recessions, companies have quickly resorted to wholesale redundancies – only to find in the upturn that they have lost vital experience and that the initial cost of redundancies is compounded by the cost of subsequent replacement. This time, more companies are looking to short-time working, voluntary working time reductions and a pay freeze or even pay cuts to avoid redundancies. Where demand for products has collapsed, or banks cut off credit lines, redundancies are inevitable. But many other organisations could act differently – including the public sector, which has led the way on flexible working in the past and will have to achieve a step-change in productivity now.

The ‘right to request’ shorter working hours could be vital here, for employees and employers alike. Introduced when I was both Cabinet Minister for Women and Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, the right to request has proved one of Labour’s most successful changes. Over a million parents – mainly mothers, but some fathers too – have changed their working hours (with few requests completely refused and even fewer ending up in tribunal disputes.) Already extended to those caring for disabled or elderly relatives, the right to request will soon be given to every parent with a child up to 16 (initial wobbles amongst Ministers seem to have been dispelled.) And even today, there are many others who would welcome the chance to work shorter hours – particularly those with grown-up children and mortgages paid off who, nonetheless, are not ready for full-time retirement.

The government’s response to the downturn must be strategic as well as tactical, designed to bring Britain out of recession with an economy that is more highly skilled, more balanced between financial services and high-value manufacturing, but also more balanced between work and the rest of people’s lives.

So government should lead the way as an employer, ensuring that the public sector not only promotes the right to request, but also offers voluntary working-time reductions to all staff. It should quickly come forward with help to the private sector to combine shorter working hours with new training opportunities. And as well as public investment in childcare places, government needs to go on making it easier for parents – crucially, fathers as well as mothers – to look after their children themselves without paying the price, in pay, promotion and pensions, that women have traditionally paid."