Question: Before the last election we had the Women's Unit, now we have the Women's and Equality Unit - why the change?

Baroness Morgan: The change is to co-ordinate our work on equality better. Therefore we've started to bring some of the equality functions together into the centre of government. Allied with the change in the unit we've also for the first time got an equality cabinet sub-committee which is bringing ministers across all the departments together. It's about making a network across Whitehall work properly.

Question: So what are the priorities for the Women's and Equality unit?

Baroness Morgan: The top one is partly to demonstrate that we don't see equality as an add-on but we see it as core to what we're trying to do as a government. In terms of the specific priorities we've set for this year, the first one is the issue of women's representation and there's two bits to that really. There's obviously the Sex Discrimination (Election Candidates) Bill that I'm very pleased to say has been introduced - and the second is the wider issue of making sure that women get represented through the range of 33,000 public appointments.

We are also doing some work on public services . The government's top priority for the second term is investment and reform of the public services. But what we don't want to do is to continue the process of saying 'we just need more of the same' - it's important that the process of investment and reform meets the needs of the modern welfare state. It was set up in 1945 when all families had two parents and mum was at home and life isn't like that anymore. So I'm doing a project, which will report before Christmas, on practical changes we think we need to see in the public services to meet the needs of modern families.

Question: Like what?

Baroness Morgan: Very practical things, like can you see your GP out of the core office hours, can you perhaps email or fax your GP or practice nurse, how can you communicate with your children's school if you're also at work? Not on the issues of huge emergency when obviously people will want to go into the school, but on the much more mundane day-to-day issues when you want to have reasonable contact with your kid's school.

There's some very good practice around in the health service for example, but what we want to do is find the best practice and spread it.

Question: What can you practically do to tackle the issue of inequality in pay between men and women ?

Baroness Morgan: It is obviously an issue that remains of great concern. We are making slow but steady progress. The introduction of the minimum wage had a much bigger effect on women's pay than men's as women tend to be clustered in lower paid jobs. The minimum wage is going up again, therefore that will have an impact, but we also asked Denise Kingsmill to undertake a review for us of ways that we could try and push progress on equal pay and the issue of closing the gap. She is due to report in November and that will have a series of recommendations for the government to look at. We're very conscious that sometimes you need legislation to change things but that you also need a cultural change and peer pressure. So we've also appointed fair pay champions from a whole range of different backgrounds, unions and employers, to try and encourage voluntary pay reviews within companies and within the public sector.

Question: Do you detect that culture changing?

Baroness Morgan: Yes - I think it's changing both on the issue of equal pay but also on flexible working and work/life balance. I think there is change, that's partly driven by necessity, because the employment market has been tight there has been more pressure on employers, including in the public sector to think imaginatively about how to keep the skills that they have in the workplace. But I think there is also just a growing recognition that as our working day expands, you can use that creatively to offer more flexible working to people. It should be seen as a more positive challenge rather than a problem.

Question: The industrial society reported how businesswomen have less access to start up capital and are less welcome in informal business networks. What could you do to support businesswomen?

Baroness Morgan: I know Patricia Hewitt is talking to the small business service about whether we need to do more to help women with start-up businesses. But I think it is sometimes about encouraging those women themselves to have their own networks, you know I think a lot of progress has been made by people, you need mentors and you need support systems for people to make progress. I think they are developing and anything I can do to encourage that obviously I will.

Question: The previous women's unit looked at the issue of body image for women, is it something you'll be looking into?

Baroness Morgan: It's not a priority for me this year. I think the work was done in the last term to raise the issue. I mean eating disorders amongst girls, and also increasingly amongst boys are obviously, a big concern and so it put the issue on the agenda and it started the media talking about it, or at least helped encourage that process. The issue of how the media in the end handled that I think is for them to talk about themselves. The education and the health departments are both doing work in this area. In terms of things like healthy eating, the personal health and social education in the school curriculum is starting to look at this issue and therefore it becomes something that you talk about in the classroom, which I think is great.

Question: Looking at another area of inequality - age - what are the key areas to tackle on age inequality?

Baroness Morgan: We will be introducing legislation on age equality. We have tried a voluntary code of practice and we have made some progress but as in other areas what we like to try and do is not jump for legislation but see what we can achieve in a voluntary way and through other forms of change. I think that there's a growing recognition that again it's partly a skills issue -we're wasting a lot of skills in the workforce if we automatically write people off almost after the age of 50. There's particular concern about the 45-60 age group and so the government did sign up to article 13, the EU employment directive, which will introduce legislation on employment across a whole range of issues that haven't been covered before. It will include age discrimination and it will also include religion and sexuality and none of those have been dealt with before. Now we're doing that methodically. Although most people say action should be taken on age discrimination, it's actually a very complicated issue. So the legislation won't be introduced until 2006 to make sure that we introduce it in a way that's practical, but achieves what we want to do without extra burden on business. So there'll be a lot of consultation along the way in terms of making sure that works.

Question: Some people will talk about men's rights for instance on the health front the right to screening for male breast and testicular cancers - do we need to do more about it?

Baroness Morgan: The formal position, if you like, is the Sex Discrimination Act of 1975 isn't about women - it's about both sexes and it's about equality for men and women and that obviously is the situation across the services and I think it's really important. You raise health - I know Alan Milburn is particularly concerned for example about the issue of prostate cancer. We have to make sure that all our services deliver for men and women.

Question: You also said that you were looking to homosexual rights. What are the key areas you'll be covering here?

Baroness Morgan: Again under the EU employment directive, for the first time we'll have legislation on employment rights and sexual orientation in the workplace because there is a lot hidden discrimination. There's covert bullying, and other forms of discrimination, like suggestion at interview stage, that you're not fit for a job if you haven't got a partner to bring along with you. And it's something that we're working very closely with the CBI and others on. I'm confident that we'll be able to introduce it in a way that isn't heavy on regulation but actually will produce the real change that's needed. Employers are very positive about it. In the first term we made a lot of progress in the area and the most significant area I suppose was the age of consent. But there was also a change for example in immigration rules, to enable long-term stable partners to come to this country, which although we're not talking about huge numbers was nevertheless significant and fair.

Question: A number of homosexual groups would argue that there's more to be done in terms of pensions and tenancy for instance?

Baroness Morgan: There is an increasing public debate on rights for same sex partnerships and I think it's one that the government is watching with interest because there are clearly areas where most people would recognise that at the moment there is some unfairness. Any of those need to be examined in real detail before we move forward.

Question: The Lib Dem's back homosexual marriages, homosexual wedding ceremonies in the Netherlands are legal, Ken Livingstone's introduced a London civil ceremony for same sex couples - are these ideas that you're looking at as well?

Baroness Morgan: There's no suggestion whatsoever that the government would move on the issue of marriage, we are very clear that marriage remains as it is and there would be no change in that. We are watching the debate on the GLA registration scheme with interest and we are also looking at what's happening in other EU countries and I think there is space for a discussion on those issues.

Question: You're going to legislate on women shortlists but what about the culture of selection committees and constituency committees and unions. Hilary Armstrong recently talked about the invisible ceiling for prospective women candidates. How can you change attitudes to women candidates coming through? You can legislate but then there's a cultural battle too isn't there?

Baroness Morgan: Of course there's a cultural battle. It's the same in the Labour Party and I'm sure it's the same in all the parties. The Fawcett Society recently did a piece of research where they interviewed women who'd gone through selection from all the parties and there were pretty grim tales all round. Obviously the issue about changing the culture in a political party is not something the government can do, that is for political parties themselves. But certainly within the Labour party, we found before the 1997 election, you have to do a lot of detailed discussion on the ground with people - in terms of explaining why it is important and necessary and right to have more female candidates. In some ways it may be easier this time, because I think there's been a change of attitude, just the sheer number of women MPs -a third of our ministers are women, a third of the cabinet are women, there's just a change of view of what the face of politics is about now. But also because we can point to real change in terms of our legislation that I think wouldn't have happened without the number of women MPs. So I think we can appeal in a more sort of direct and practical way - we can prove that it has led to some change. That's not to say that it will be easier all over the place because it won't. We will have to give a lot of support to people going through the process.

Question: Have you detected that the Westminster environment can be overtly macho or laddish?

Baroness Morgan: I think it's less so than it used to be. The fact is that although we have nowhere near enough, we have a good block of women MPs and that's not the same as when they used to be in a small minority where I think life was much harder in some ways. There are a lot of male colleagues who actually are very committed to trying to get more women in parliament and believe, that - government is functioning better having women just naturally involved across the board. That actually the whole process of legislation, the whole process of government is better with men and women involved.

Question: In a recent ePolitix.com interview, Iain Duncan Smith described how female MPs that had come through on all women shortlists hadn't been performing as politicians for the Labour party. What did you make of his comments?

Baroness Morgan: I just don't agree with him. If you look at the MPs who came through in 1997, many of whom are now ministers, they would not have been appointed ministers if they hadn't been a) performing in the House and b) being very good constituency MPs. And it's not just ministers, -if you take one example, Debra Shipley, who's a backbench MP, introduced a private members bill which became the protection of children bill. It became a piece of government legislation that people are still learning from. So the idea that they are not playing a full part I just think is nonsense.

Question: How would you like to make parliament more family friendly?

Baroness Morgan: Well obviously that's an issue for parliament, not government.

Question: How do feel about the fact that parliament doesn't even have a crèche?

Baroness Morgan: I'm more sceptical about a crèche personally - I'm not sure how many people would necessarily want to take their children in on public transport, or drive in, or whatever into the centre of London. If that's what in the end the commission decides is a good way forward then of course. If there is the pressure for it and people want to go that way then that's fine. What's important is that we change the hours, because most childcare that exists is in broadly normal working hours and I'm sure that'd be the same for the crèche. You wouldn't want your children in the crèche at 11 o'clock at night. And therefore what we've got to do is make sure that parliament's modernised and that we keep expanding our child care provision throughout the country anyway because clearly MPs, peers, people who work in the House of Commons, people who work in the Houses of Parliament, they need to make sure they've got decent childcare for their children as well as everybody else.

Question: Before the election you were Tony Blair's political secretary, after the election he made you a peer and a minister. Some people argue that you are one of Tony's cronies. How do you respond to that criticism?

Baroness Morgan: I've worked for the Labour Party for a very, very many years - I worked for Neil Kinnock and for John Smith, I then worked for Tony Blair. I did a long time in all the years of opposition so everybody knows that I'm a long-standing Labour Party figure. I've been very committed to the party for many years so I don't take much notice of it.

Question: There is some confusion over the powers of people in the cabinet office. Many observers describe it as the Prime Minister's department. How would you respond to those kinds of criticisms?

Baroness Morgan: There've been some changes made to the cabinet office since the election to make sure that the huge importance that the Prime Minister and the government as a whole place on delivering on public services is carried through. But it remains the key co-ordinating centre of government and the new functions that have been added to the cabinet office are about making sure that departments are working together well in order to deliver priorities for the whole government.

Question: In the future would you see there being a role for a Prime Minister's department?

Baroness Morgan: I think there is always scope for changes in the way administrations works. The cabinet office has evolved and changed but it still remains the networking centre, the co-ordinating centre of government. As long as people are open to changing within that structure, which clearly they are, then I see nothing on the horizon that suggests that that would change.