I beg to move,
That this House has considered the potential merits of appointing a Minister for Men and Boys.
This is about men and women, not men or women. It is about boys and girls, not boys or girls. It is crucial to set that out from the start. John Gray was clear in his book, “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus”. We all intrinsically know and feel that there are inherent differences in the way men and women deal with problems and have problems. Tony Blair spotted that women were struggling, and in May 1997 brought in a Minister for women to look across Government to try to sort out the problems facing women and girls.
From a Conservative perspective, this is ideologically difficult because we broadly do not like to segregate people by splitting them into groups, but one thing that unites us is the obvious fact that there cannot be one without the other. We currently have a Minister for women and girls; we do not have a Minister for men and boys. During my six years in Parliament, I have looked at these topics. I started with the position that I did not want to see such a Minister, but all the data and metrics coming forward show that boys and men are broadly falling behind. I have come to the conclusion that without a Minister for men and boys, working with a Minister for women and girls, they will continue to do so.
I will canter through some of the evidence. Let us start with health, my background. The most alarming stat is that suicide is the leading cause of death for men under the age of 50—three times more common in men than in women. Between the ages of 15 and 19, for every girl who takes her own life, three and a half boys do likewise. What about cancers? Prostate cancer is the commonest cancer in men, and more than two thirds of liver disease deaths are of men. That is a fourfold increase in death rates from liver disease over the past 40 years.
Some might say that the Government are covering these issues in the men’s health strategy, which is partly true, but let us take something more tricky. I have done a lot of work on steroid abuse and image and performance-enhancing drugs. According to the Priory Group’s research, 10 years ago about 50,000 people were using such drugs. Now, 500,000 to 1 million people are using them to improve their musculature and the way they look. That use is heavily male dominated—so much so that at injection sites where people go illegally to use drugs, about 80% of needle exchange usage is related to steroid abuse. One in 10 gym-goers suffers from bigorexia—wanting to get more muscular. Those are inherently men-related problems.
When I raise that with Government, I am first pointed to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport because it is sport-related, and UK Anti-Doping, but that covers elite sport, and not anything else. The Department of Health and Social Care says that it is a sport problem, an education problem, a Home Office problem or a justice problem. Therein lies the difficulty.
To widen this further, let us move on to education. The Centre for Social Justice’s “Lost Boys” research shows that at GCSE, boys achieve on average half a grade lower than girls in every subject. At A-level, girls outperform boys on average by over a grade and a half across their best three subjects. Female students outnumber male students by three to two for university admissions. House of Commons Library research shows that in spring term 2024, boys were more than 1.5 times more likely to be suspended than girls, and more than twice as likely to be excluded from school.
Let us translate that into employment, which falls under the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Business and Trade. Statistics this month from the Office for National Statistics show that there are one million working-age men, aged 16-64, without jobs—the highest since October 2014. The unemployment rate for men is at 5.8%. The last time it was that high was in June 2015. The UK unemployment rate for young males aged between 18 and 24 hit 17% in the three months to December 2025; that surpassed the covid peak that we had, and is the highest rate since 2014. According to the Library, when it comes to young people not in education, employment or training—very topical—historically, young women were more likely to be out of work and education. However, the gap narrowed from 2010 and, since 2016, it has swapped over, with generally more young men being NEET than young women.
What impact does that have on the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice? Some 96% of our prisoners are male; only 4% are female. The CSJ report shows that men make up 90% of hospital admissions for knife assaults. In 2022-23, boys accounted for 87% of homicide victims among people aged 16 to 24, and nine in 10 victims of teenage violence were male. Nine in 10 of our boys in custody said they had been excluded from school. I have not even mentioned the online world, which is covered by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. There are many stats that I could mention, but they all point to the fact that these are cross-departmental issues and, more importantly, cross-societal issues.
I want to touch on the culture for men and boys. Many, many people are starting to raise the alarm about what is happening to young boys and men, from celebrities such as Gareth Southgate and David Gandy to think-tanks like the Centre for Social Justice, Equimundo and the Centre for Policy Research on Men and Boys, and charities including Movember. Why is this happening? My analysis is that, over the past 20 or 30 years, we have been fantastic at championing what women should be, what positive role models should be and what they look like in society. That has been fantastic, and they have had great success from doing that. But, at the same time, we seem to have slightly diminished what it is to be a good man. It used to be a gentleman: someone who was polite, held doors and looked after their other half. Now, men are a little more unsure about that.
If we add in the term “toxic masculinity”, we really have a problem. We do not often hear about toxic femininity. On the one side, we have told women exactly where they should be, what they should do and what they can achieve; on the other, we have taken away the good role model for men, and then potentially demonised them by calling them toxic. No wonder men and boys are struggling to find their way in the world. I often ask the question, “What is a good man in the modern world?” I am yet to find a good answer. Research shows that, when young boys or young men are asked, “Who is your role model?”, they will not give an answer and, if they do, the role models are few and far between. How scary for society that we are not getting the role models for young men to look up to or aspire to be.
What evidence is there to back this up? The CSJ men in culture survey in 2025 was really helpful. It showed that 46%--almost half—agreed with the statement that modern dads are often treated as ineffectual or incompetent in popular culture. Some 76% agreed that today’s teenagers lack proper role models across popular culture. When Members are out and about, they can test that by asking, “Who do men look up to, and why?”, and see if they get an answer. It is actually a little worse than that. The “Lost Boys” report, also by the CSJ, cites Civitas polling that found that 41% of sixth form boys and girls have been taught, in school lessons, that boys are a problem for society. The Government are trying to deal with this, and they are well intended in what they are trying to do.