General Election 2015: Harriet Harman launches Labour 'women's manifesto'

The party is pledging to increase the amount of free childcare available to working parents

Harriet Harman, Gloria de Piero and Yvette Cooper launch Labour’s Women’s Manifesto (PA)

For a party committed to gender equality, arranging to have three of your most senior female shadow cabinet ministers coo over babies before floating rubber ducks in a water trough might seem like an odd way to launch your Women’s Manifesto.

But on Wednesday Harriet Harman, Yvette Cooper and Gloria de Piero did just that as Labour’s pink battle bus arrived at a Stockwell playschool as part of Labour’s campaign to reach female voters.

The manifesto reiterated and outlined in greater detail pledges announced by Labour leader Ed Miliband at the party’s main manifesto launch on Monday. Chief policies include a commitment to doubling the amount of paid paternity leave which fathers can take, introducing a Violence Against Women and Girls bill and establishing more secure funding for rape crisis and domestic violence centres.

The party is also pledging to increase the amount of free childcare available to working parents from 15 hours to 25 hours per week- 5 hours less than the Conservatives committed to in their manifesto.

The campaign was launched by Harriet Harman along with Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper and Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities Gloria de Piero.

One new idea unveiled yesterday included a commitment to exploring whether grandparents should be able to shoulder some of the parental leave allocated for newborns.

Addressing nursery workers, toddlers and reporters at the launch, Ms Harman said, “The suffragettes gave women the right to vote, we’re giving them the reason to vote.”

“The Tories have chosen to hit women harder, with women bearing 85 per cent of the impact of tax and benefit changes… Labour has a better plan for equality for men and women from the shop floor to the boardroom.”

She added that the women’s manifesto was about “showing women that we are on their side and will stand up for them in government.”

Speaking on BBC’s Women’s Hour programme yesterday morning, Ed Miliband defended the decision to single out women for a specific manifesto, saying, “I think women are bearing the brunt of an economy that doesn’t work for them. I’m very pleased that we can highlight the difference we’re going to make for women.”

Having safely returned the babies in bonnets to nursery workers and parents, Harman, Cooper and de Piero boarded the bus again and left for the next stop in the campaign trail in a pink blur.