Helen Dando is a woman who needs 25 hours to her day. She gave up a career in banking six years ago when her first child was born, to concentrate on raising a family, and to lend support to her husband.

Together they own a hill farm near Bridgend in south Wales. But they found it impossible to manage on the income from the farm.

"I don't like to moan, because people think that farmers are always moaning, " she says, "but with agriculture on the decline, all farmers' wives of my generation have to work, we have to have a second form of income."

With her children still small, she started her own business, selling smart maternity wear for work, and she says she has become the only maternity wear specialist in the whole of Wales.

Baroness Jay: Led the Listening to Women exercise

While money has become less of a problem, time remains precious, she says: "It's very difficult for me and others like me to go out to work.

"We can't take on nine to five jobs because farming is a 24-hour job."

She had wanted to get planning permission to continue running her business as she started it - from home - but was refused.

"I don't think there's enough help for women returning to work there are a whole lot of farmers' wives like me who could do with extra help."

Recommendations in autumn

Government ministers are not promising anything as concrete as extra help, but they have been lending a listening ear to Helen and others.

The last meeting of a six-month tour, entitled Listening to Women, was held, on Friday in Cardiff.

The BBC's Reeta Chakrabarti: "Common complaints have been about low pay, lack of childcare and inflexible working hours"

The roadshow, attended by the Minister for Women, Baroness Jay, and her counterpart in the Commons Tessa Jowell, was a face-to-face consultation exercise, designed to find out what women think should be done to improve their lives.

Ministers have been keen to reach women they would not ordinarily reach, so they've tried to go beyond campaigning groups to women who aren't politically active.

Helen Dando got invited because she belongs to a local network of women running small businesses.

The full findings of the roadshows, along with recommendations for action, will be published in the autumn.

But a preliminary look at the findings has shown that the broad areas of concern are:

• High pressures on women trying to balance work and family life
• The desire for women to be better valued for their traditional caring role
• The effect of career breaks on income over a lifetime
• The reality of obtaining good, affordable childcare.

Labour MPs question tour's value

What is striking is how many times these complaints have been heard before. It has led some on the Labour backbenches to question the whole value of the roadshow.

"We know what women's preoccupations are," said one "because we did a similar roadshow while still in opposition.

"There is no real need to do this, ministers could have better devoted their time to driving action through. I think the political and intellectual justification for it is a bit dodgy."

Ministers counter this by saying there is always a danger of politicians losing touch with their electorate, and that consultation can never fail to be a good thing.

They point to changes already achieved as an indication that there is action as well as talk: extending access to childcare through the National Childcare Strategy (launched under the previous Women's Minister Harriet Harman), promoting flexibility at work for parents, and more controversially, introducing the New Deal for lone parents.

Others welcome the consultation but question the way in which it's being done. Teresa Rees, who's the member of the Equal Opportunities Commission for Wales, says: "Listening to women like this without listening to men is strange.

"The problem is about gender inequalities, not women. If you just talk to women, you're only dealing with the symptoms, not the problem."

Helen Dando is reserving judgement. For her it is not about how the consultation is done, but what results from it.

"I_m waiting to see what their report says, and then what they do about it," she says.