International Women’s Day

I beg to move,

That this House has considered International Women’s Day.

It is a great pleasure to see you in the Chair for this debate, Madam Deputy Speaker, and a great pleasure to lead this debate. I was the 265th woman ever to be elected to this place—I think many of us memorise our number because it is important—and I am proud to be the first ever Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, which was made permanent by this Government. I pay tribute to the members of that Committee who are present here today, those who have been members in the past and those who have served on our Committee’s staff. We will continue to work to keep the issues that affect women right at the top of the political agenda. May I also, on behalf of the whole House, thank the Backbench Business Committee for allocating time on the Floor of the House, demonstrating the importance of this debate?

In this relatively short debate we have the opportunity to celebrate, reflect on and contemplate the lives of women under this year’s theme of forging a more gender-balanced world. There is much to celebrate and we should not be shy in doing so. One hundred years ago, Nancy Astor was the first woman to take her seat in this House of Commons. I am proud that she was, like me, a Conservative woman, and that she was not afraid to speak out. She very much serves as a reminder to us all of our obligations to speak truth to power, even if that sometimes does not make us very popular. One hundred years on, we have our second female Prime Minister, tackling the most difficult political issues that this country has seen in our political lifetime—again, following in that tradition of Conservative women speaking truth to powerful EU leaders on our behalf.

There are record numbers of women in work in this country, and that economic empowerment of women is the pathway to equality. The UK has some of the best anti-discrimination laws in the world and a gender pay gap that, for women under 30, has all but evaporated. This Government have shown that they understand the challenges faced by women who have children and want to return to work, with their returnships programme. The expansion of apprenticeships has also helped women positively to progress in their careers, and there are programmes that give women access to complete degree-level qualifications, including my constituent Karen Russell, who works for Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. After 14 years as a healthcare assistant, Karen has been supported to develop and complete her degree qualification while working part time and looking after her family, and she is now a staff nurse in our hospital emergency department. This is the support that women need so that they can be economically independent in the future.

I have a vested interest in making this intervention. My daughter is doing legal exams today, and 68% of women accepted as law undergraduates this year were women. That bodes very well for the future of the legal profession.

I thank my hon. Friend and fellow member of the Select Committee for raising that point. I am married to a lawyer who works for the firm Kingsley Napley, where more than 50% of the partners are women. However, I urge my hon. Friend to look at some of the other law firms in the City of London that do not have the same proportion of women at the top, and to encourage his daughter to look for those good employers so that she, too, can progress right the way through to the top.

Could the right hon. Lady tell us what progress has been made regarding the pay gap between women and men?

The hon. Gentleman raises a really important point. I think that the biggest amount of progress has been in the Government making companies publish their gender pay gap; for the first time ever, the pay gap has become an issue that is on the agenda of businesses throughout the country. However, in answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question, there has not been nearly enough progress. Although the gender pay gap has all but evaporated for women under 30, for older women it is alive and well, and we need to resolve it. I will come to that issue later in my speech.

Like my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North (Eddie Hughes), I believe in equality of opportunity. We need to continue to look for ways of ensuring equality of opportunity for women in our communities. As women we are resilient, but we are so resilient that we sometimes need to stop and appreciate the blatant discrimination that still pervades our lives every single day, and which still denies some women the level playing field of opportunity. Too many women’s confidence is sapped—their career even destroyed—by bullying and sexual harassment at work. Forty per cent. of women in this country, and millions more around the world, suffer sexual harassment.

That issue was well highlighted this week by the day of action that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) and I hosted, when women from across the country, supported by CARE International, came into Parliament to lobby Members of Parliament to support the new International Labour Organisation global convention, which will outlaw sexual harassment and abuse at work in every country in the world, if it gets the support of their Governments.

Discrimination is still blatant because so much of the enforcement of the laws that we have passed in the UK is not working as we would want it to. In the Government’s new good workplace report, they set out the importance of enforcement of workplace rights, and they are right to do so. However, I urge the Minister for Women also to look at the enforcement of anti-discrimination laws and the laws that pertain to health and safety, as well as others that are being looked at as part of the good workplace report. Legislation puts enforcement powers for those anti-discrimination laws into the hands of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, but if it is not exercising those powers, we should give them to somebody who does. No one should be prepared to stand by and watch more than 50,000 women a year leave their jobs simply because they are pregnant, even though we already have laws in place to prohibit that.

I know that the right hon. Lady’s Committee has been doing a lot of work on non-disclosure agreements and she has very much led the charge on that. It is a very complex legal issue, but does she agree that a starting point could well be to compel companies legislatively to publish the number of NDAs that they use, the reason that they use them, and how many they use each year?

The hon. Lady brings up a very important possible solution, which our Committee will certainly look at. We have been struck by how many companies and organisations do not use NDAs at all, particularly the Government. Some people have said that the reason the Government—or the civil service—do not use them any more is the oversight of Ministers and the media, so, as she says, transparency may well be a way forward.

We have to shake free from the notion that a modern workplace will cost too much to deliver and be too much of a burden on business, because the fact that millennial dads tell us that they would rather downgrade their jobs than take a promotion or a pay rise because they cannot balance their family and work commitments indicates that productivity is really under threat. With more than 1 million economically inactive mums not working because there are not the jobs that allow them to look after their kids and work as well, we have a real problem to tackle. As labour becomes in shorter supply after we leave the EU, it is a problem that we cannot afford to continue to sweep under the carpet. We need modernisation and reform.

That message of modernisation is for this place, too. One of the very first reports by the Women and Equalities Committee was on women in the House of Commons. I was struck by the plans that all political parties have in place to address the under- representation of women in Parliament. The proof of the pudding will obviously be at the next election as to how many get elected. There is no way of disguising the real appetite for change among the parties, but can we identify the same appetite for change with regard to Parliament itself? Can we be so sure, when the political parties are recruiting a new generation of female MPs, that they will be arriving in a place that they want to stay in, or will it still look as though it is in a time warp?

Very good work has been done by Professor Sarah Childs, thanks to Mr Speaker’s significant commitment to modernising this place. He put his money where his mouth is and commissioned her to produce a report in which she painted a picture of what a good Parliament looks like. Some of those measures have been taken up—in particular, proxy voting for parents with new children. I note that Madam Deputy Speaker was in the Chair when that change to Standing Orders went through; we thank her for her support. We do not now routinely sit through the night, and there are some rudimentary family facilities in Parliament. The crèche is important. However, what someone whose children are beyond crèche age needs as a parent is certainty about what they are doing day by day, so that they can plan what they might be doing on a particular day. That certainty is wholly lacking in this place, as evidenced by this debate, which should have started about two hours ago. We need to do more to make sure that parents, whether they are commuters or need to get back to their constituencies to look after their children, have certainty as to when we will be sitting here. I can see one or two hon. Members nodding vigorously at these comments.

Does the right hon. Lady agree that implementing a process such as the Scottish Parliament’s set decision time, together with electronic voting, which would seriously reduce the amount of time that we waste in this place, would be two very positive steps forward?

The hon. Lady is probably pressing me a bit too far on electronic voting, but I definitely think that the Scottish Parliament has a very sensible way of organising its day. People know that voting will take place at a particular time, so they do not lose that opportunity to get together, to see each other and to have all the important conversations that they need to have as a body of people, but they do it at a regular time during the day. We can stay here until 1 o’clock in the morning debating all we like, but it should not be at the expense of people’s family life. One colleague has told me about the real problems of not being able to get home at night for her teenage children. We are neglecting this at our peril, because such good women will vote with their feet and not necessarily stand for re-election at the next election.

This is partly why the Women and Equalities Committee has decided to set up a Sub-Committee to scrutinise the implementation of a recent report, “UK Gender-Sensitive Parliament Audit 2018”, published by a group of MPs including my hon. Friends the Members for North East Hampshire (Mr Jayawardena) and for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford), the hon. Member for Luton South (Mr Shuker) and the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss), as well as Members in the other place. The report looks at how we could make the House of Commons a better place to be a female MP.

My right hon. Friend is making some very powerful arguments on the way that this place could change to make it a better place for female MPs and mothers, but does she agree that such changes would be good for fathers as well? I have had quite a few conversations with dads with young children about how difficult they find some of Parliament’s practices and hours.

My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point. Many of our colleagues have young children and have partners who are working; they have the same pressures on them as their constituents.

A gender-sensitive Parliament would be good for everybody. We have lacked to date a process and procedure to take these really good ideas and make change in this place. Change is glacially slow, and we have to change that and make these things happen. The Sub-Committee has not yet formed and met, but it will look at the strong recommendations made by the “UK Gender-Sensitive Parliament Audit”, which include increasing the predictability of parliamentary business, reforming the sitting hours, eliminating bullying and harassment, and implementing the new behaviour code and grievance procedures—the list goes on. I hope that Members will agree with what I hope will be a change to the Standing Orders, so that our Committee can scrutinise what not only the Government but Parliament are doing on these issues.

As a House of Commons, we have not grasped this issue in the way we need to and in the way that most modern Parliaments have. I am immensely proud to be a Member of Parliament and to be the first ever woman to represent my constituency. Indeed, I am still the only woman to ever represent a constituency in north Hampshire, although we have quite a few incredibly powerful women elsewhere in Hampshire, one of whom was just sitting on the Front Bench. It is our responsibility to ensure that the women who follow us have more opportunity and economic empowerment and that our daughters—wherever they live, and whatever their race or religion—have the same opportunity as our sons.

Order. Before we proceed, I am afraid that I will have to introduce an initial time limit of seven minutes, to ensure that everybody gets an equal chance to make all the important points that have to be made. I would also like to welcome to the Gallery of the Chamber Stacey Abrams from the USA. It is good to have an international input to our proceedings. Ms Abrams was the Democratic candidate for Governor of Georgia and the House of Representatives minority leader, and we are delighted to be observed by her this afternoon.

In the first International Women’s Day debate I attended, I promised to read out the names of the women killed by men since the last International Women’s Day. Today I will honour that promise. Over the years, I have had the pleasure of meeting the families of these women, who were grateful that their loved ones were being remembered. I read these names not only to continue to highlight how male violence can terrorise ordinary women’s lives, but to pay tribute to these women and those who did not survive and give them the opportunity to be heard. The reason that these women are no longer with us is that they are hard to see, hard to hear and hard to believe. I could not do this without the brilliant work of the Counting Dead Women project and Karen Ingala Smith, who tirelessly records the lives of these women. The first name I will read out is that of a woman who was murdered just days after I rose to my feet here in this Chamber a year ago.

Their names are: Jennifer Rogers; Heather Whitbread; Michelle Savage; Diane Jones; Jenny Cronin; Leyla Mtumwa; Ourania Lambrou; Tanesha Melbourne; Tracy Stonehouse; Alexis Flynn; Lesley Potter; Viktorija Sokolova; Margaret Howlett; Maryna Kavaliauskas; Angela Craddock; Samantha Clarke; Jennifer Morgan; Julie Hunt; Hollie Kerrell; Elizabeth Lacey; Fiona Fisher; Faye Caliman; Nicola Roberts; Onees Khatoon; Jessica Patel; Rosina Coleman; Bernadette Green; Sophie Cavanagh; Angela Conoby; Christina Abbotts; Laura Mortimer; Denise Rosser; Joanne Bishop; Jill Hibberd; Andra Hilitanu; Molly Frank; Sofija Kaczan; Tina Cantello; Marie Gibson; Gitana Matukeviciene; Tracy Patsalides; Gita Suri; Klarissa-Charlene Faith; Shuren Ma; Samantha Toms; Lorna Myers; Stela Domador-Kuzma; Patricia Franks; Dawn Sturgess; Gina Ingles and her son; Riasat Bi; Katerina Makunova; Lesley Davies; Sheila Thomas; Lucy McHugh; Sam Eastwood; Karen Peter; Kelly Franklin; Katherine Kemp; Tracey Evans; Marie Walker; Simonne Kerr; Barbara Davison; Kaltoun Saleh; Carole Harrison; Sharon Perrett; Raneem Oudeh; Khaola Saleem; Celia Levitt; Julie Owens; Joan Hoggett; Memunatu Warne; Kylie Dembrey; Susan Gyde; Kay Martin; Cristina Magda-Calancea; Frances Hubbard; Sandra Zmijan; Margaret Harris; Sharon Harris; Jeanna Maher; Glenda Jackson; Avan Najmadeen; Natalie Saunders; Sarah Wellgreen; Nazia Ali; Teresa Garner; Lynn Forde; Mavis Bran; Sheena Jackson; Fiona McDonald; Natalie Smith; Tanseen Sheikh; Sana Muhammad; Pauline Kilkenny; Katarzyna Paszek; Maureen Watkins; Jacqueline Allen; Samantha Gosney; Karen Cleary-Brown; Barbara Findley; Grace Millane; Maureen Whale; Sally Cavender; June Knight; Keely McGrath; Poppy Devey-Waterhouse; Lana Owen; Marissa Aldrich; Parwin Quriashi; Angela Mittal; June Jones; Joy Morgan; Lisa Jane McArity; Charlotte Huggins; Jay Edmunds; Simbiso Aretha Moula; Sarah Ashraf; Asma Begum; Luz Isaza Villegas; Leanne Unsworth; Christy Walshe; Alison Hunt; Mary Annie Sowerby; Regina Marilyn Paul; Margaret Smythe; Mary Page; Rosie Darbyshire; Aliny Mendes; and Sarah Henshaw.

I would like to praise my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) for a fantastic opening speech and the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) for her hugely powerful speech.

Gender equality is a crucial agenda for the whole planet. The reality is that we simply will not fix the many challenges that the world faces today with half the world’s population locked out of being able to contribute to any of the solutions. It is five years since we held the Girl Summit in 2014, while I was Secretary of State for International Development. It was an international summit to use the UK’s role as a major aid investor to step up to the plate on gender equality. In doing so, we wanted to highlight two key issues that I felt did not get anywhere close to the level of attention domestically and internationally that they needed for the many women they affected: female genital mutilation, and early and forced marriage. It was all too easy for many people in Britain to think that those two issues were other countries’ problems. In fact, it turned out that they were actually ours as well. The Girl summit in 2014 was our attempt to try to provide some momentum not only to an international agenda that needed it, but, as I and the then Home Secretary—now the Prime Minister—felt, to a domestic agenda that needed it, too.

I am proud of what we have been able to do since. I wanted to say in this debate that I very much hope it will not be the last Girl summit this country hosts. I very much hope that, as UK aid steadily shifts, we can make sure it keeps at its heart the issue of tackling gender inequality. In the end, countries that are not able to use all their human capital simply will not be successful, whatever broader development programmes they have under way. It is now crucial that the UK plays its role in delivering the sustainable development goals, particularly goal 5 on gender equality. This country worked so hard to make sure that that goal had a list of issues to tackle that could transform the lives of women wherever they were in the world, which included the issues we campaigned on at the Girl summit.