Lords Spiritual (Women) Act 2015 (Extension) Bill [Lords]

Debate between Abena Oppong-Asare and Marsha De Cordova

2nd reading
Thursday 14th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Ms Abena Oppong-Asare)]

I begin by congratulating the shadow Paymaster General on his appointment to his role. It is a pleasure to close the debate on this focused but most important piece of legislation. I have very much enjoyed listening to the thoughtful contributions made by colleagues from all parts of the House, and I will do my best to respond to them in the time available.

As the Paymaster General said in his opening speech, this is a straightforward but important Bill requested by the Church. It simply extends for a further five years the arrangements agreed by this House in 2015. Significant progress has been made since then in addressing the gender imbalance on the Benches of the Lords Spiritual, but I hope that hon. Members will appreciate that a short extension is reasonable and proportionate to ensure that progress continues.

Members have made important and interesting contributions to the debate. I put on record my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Anna Gelderd), who told an incredibly powerful story about her grandfather and her mother. Her personal story will have touched the lives of many today, and I share her ethos of breaking down barriers. She made some important points in her speech, and I believe her constituents appreciate their hard-working Member of Parliament. As a graduate of the women-only Murray Edwards College, Cambridge, she joins the ranks of the many notable and brilliant women making their mark on public life. She has spoken about the influence that Jo Cox and Harriet Harman—inspirational women—had on her.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Navendu Mishra) speaks with great passion and knowledge. His constituency has played an important role in our story, because the Right Rev. Libby Lane, who was made Bishop of Stockport in 2015, was the first ever female bishop. Her consecration reminds us of the need for pioneers and trailblazers.

My hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) has become the 43rd Second Church Estates Commissioner. I met her this week to discuss the Bill, and I know she will use all her political and personal skills to provide a bridge between Parliament and the established Church at a difficult time for the Anglican communion. She will be brilliant in that role. She spoke powerfully about female bishops, and particularly about the importance of diversity and under-represented groups. The Church is looking at that, and I know that she will be a champion of those issues. The shadow Paymaster General rightly asked why the five-year timeframe had been selected. We believe that five years is an appropriate time, and we will review the arrangements in collaboration with the Church of England closer to 2030.

The hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) has been a champion of diversity in the other place. She rightly asked whether we will be making wider progress. This Bill is narrow, and it is not part of the Government’s wider House of Lords reform agenda. It was requested by the Church of England, so that it can extend arrangements put in place by the 2015 Act. As she knows, that Act is due to expire in May next year, so it is important that we introduce the Bill now. As the first step in a wider reform, the Government have introduced the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill, which I know the hon. Lady has spoken favourably about. That focused Bill will deliver the Government’s manifesto commitment to bring about immediate reform by removing the right of the remaining hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords.

The Government are committed to other reforms of the House of Lords, as the hon. Lady rightly mentioned, including the introduction of a mandatory retirement age and a participation requirement, and changes to the appointments process, as well as a strengthening the circumstances in which disgraced Members can be removed. There is also a long-term commitment to replacing the other place with an alternative second Chamber that is more representative of the regions and nations. Given the nature and potential scale of these reforms, the Government will engage and consult on the proposals, seeking the input of the British public on how politics can best serve them.

As my right hon. Friend the Paymaster General noted when he opened the debate, this year marks the 10th anniversary of the ability to appoint women bishops in the Church of England. It is also another important anniversary: it is 30 years since the first women were ordained as Church of England priests; 32 women were ordained at Bristol cathedral in 1994. Over the past 30 years, the Church has made significant progress in valuing the leadership role that women can play in the life of the Church. This Bill simply extends existing provisions to ensure that progress can continue.

[Marsha De Cordova]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on her speech; she is setting out exactly why this small piece of legislation is so important. I also thank her for acknowledging that for 30 years, we have seen women being ordained. Does she agree that celebrating the progress that women have made, not only in this place but in the Church, is crucial? I am very grateful to the Government for bringing forward the Bill, so that we can get it through.

[Ms Oppong-Asare]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise the importance of female representation, particularly in the Church. The long history of women’s progress in this country teaches us one thing: it cannot be left to chance. That is why it is so important that we pass this Bill. Women must organise and keep up the pressure, and institutions must change. Our Parliament must also change; between 1918 and 2024, only 693 women have been elected as Members of this House. The hon. Member for Richmond Park mentioned female representation in Parliament. As of July 2024, there are 263 women in this House, the highest ever number. Female representation is at an all-time high of 40%, yet even now, we still need progress to be truly reflective of our society.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Oppong-Asare]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising that point. Racial diversity, as well as the wider representation of disabled people, are matters that I raised during a conversation with my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea in her new role, and with representatives of the Church of England. As my hon. Friend may know, it is for the Church to determine how bishops are appointed, and its representatives have mentioned that they are committed to increasing diversity among bishops. The Church is reviewing the pipeline for senior roles to encourage the greatest possible participation of under-represented groups.

[Marsha De Cordova]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech, and all the interventions in this debate have been incredible. As she says, representation is something that the Church of England is now taking seriously. It led the way in setting up its racial justice taskforce, and it now has its racial justice commission that is working on this area. Representation is important, not just at the top of the Church but all the way down to the parish and diocese levels. We need greater representation, not just of women but of those from black and ethnic minority communities, as well as disabled people. I am sure my hon. Friend agrees that the Church has got to get this right.

[Ms Oppong-Asare]

My hon. Friend is right to raise that point. That is why I am delighted that she is in the role that she now holds—I know that she will champion this issue really well. Representation at all levels is important, and I will be looking to see what the Church of England does to strengthen its diversity in that area.

This Bill is about the role of a number of Lords Spiritual. It simply aims to extend the provisions of the 2015 Act to ensure that more female bishops enter into the House of Lords.

Black History Month

Debate between Abena Oppong-Asare and Marsha De Cordova

Thursday 24th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Ms Oppong-Asare]

I completely agree. I mentioned how in the past different communities have come together alongside the African-Caribbean community, for example to fight the blackshirts, the National Front, and the British National party. These are the shoulders on which many of us stand. Alongside Bernie Grant and my fellow Ghanaian —and great friend—Lord Paul Boateng, they lit the path for so many of us to walk down.

I do not want the House to think I am only going to mention those of Ghanaian descent, even though we make the best jollof rice—do not let my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi) tell you any different. But there is one more Ghanaian person I must mention, as I always do in this month: Akyaaba Addai-Sebo, the co-ordinator of special projects for the Greater London Council, who organised the first recognition of this month in 1987. In the 1970s, he had seen the Americans celebrate black history and believed that Britain should do something similar.

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

First, I congratulate my hon. Friend on her speech. She is doing a fantastic job and she looks amazing. I am not getting into the jollof rice argument, because I am Jamaican. She mentioned one of the founders of Black History Month, who was a constituent of mine. Does she agree that it is no coincidence that in 1987, when Black History Month was first launched by the GLC, this place also made history with the election of the first three black MPs: the Mother of the House, my right hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), Lord Boateng, and the late and very great Bernie Grant?

[Ms Oppong-Asare]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising that, and I am glad she took the cautious path by not saying that Ghanaian jollof rice is not the best—she knows it is. I echo her points and I will be paying tribute to those MPs later in my speech.

The stories we will hear this afternoon are our stories. We have come a long way since the 1980s, when we first celebrated Black History Month. We celebrate the trail- blazers today. I have mentioned the first black Mother of the House, the first black Minister and Cabinet Minister, Paul Boateng, and Baroness Lawrence. I must also mention Baroness Amos in the other place, who became the first black woman to serve in Cabinet. She is from my area, the borough of Bexley, and inspires me every day. Of course, no one political party has a monopoly on trailblazers; I know that Opposition Members will want to mention the black trailblazers from their own parties and political traditions.

Since the general election in July, we can celebrate the most diverse Parliament in our history, making this House look and sound far closer to the diverse communities we represent. Such representation matters. If the nation’s children look at our Parliament and do not see women and men who look and sound like them, then they will assume that Parliament is not of them or for them; they will assume that the rulers are one thing and the ruled something else. I do not need to tell the House how damaging that is to democracy, or how populists thrive and democracies die. It is not about ticking boxes; it is about ballot boxes.

I said we have come a long way—and we have—but the path of progress does not run straight and true. Progress can be reversed and set back. Social media provides a new platform for old hatreds. The scourge of racism is given new life through social media—each one of us faces it every day online. In our communities too, racism is real, and the struggle against it is real. It is not just overt racism; it is also the damaging effect of racism in our institutions. It is the routine micro-aggressions that black MPs and black staff face every day, and the hateful language in parts of our media. It is when the successful black business executive is mistaken for the cleaner, when the qualified jobseeker is blocked because of their surname, or when the political candidate is told, “This seat is not for the likes of you.”

That is why this Government are committed to breaking down barriers to opportunity as part of our mission-led Government, and why we strive for opportunity for all in education, work, public life, and in every community and part of the UK. I believe that the Government’s wide-ranging legislative programme will start to address many of the injustices that scar our society. The Bill on equality in race and disability will introduce mandatory ethnicity and disability pay gap reporting for employers with over 250 employees. We will reform the Mental Health Act 1983. Currently, black people are 3.5 times more likely than white people to be detained under that Act, and over seven times more likely to be subject to a community treatment order. We must urgently address this issue.

We will also tackle the abhorrent maternal health gap. In England, the risk of maternal death is nearly three times as high for black women and twice as high for Asian women as it is for white women. It is a grave injustice that there are such stark inequalities in maternal outcomes, and this Government are committed to closing the maternal mortality gap.

In so many other areas, the Government are making changes that will improve lives. Earlier in my speech, I mentioned the Windrush generation; we have been calling for justice for those treated so terribly by previous Governments, including the full implementation of the recommendations of the Wendy Williams review. I have called for that in the House multiple times, and I am pleased that today, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has announced that the Government will fulfil their manifesto commitments in full. We will appoint a Windrush commissioner to oversee compensation and act as a trusted voice; we will establish a new Windrush unit in the Home Office to drive things forward; and we are injecting £1.5 million into a programme of grant funding for organisations to support people’s applications for compensation. This will speed up and clarify processes that have been shamefully slow and difficult. We will continue to listen to the voices of Windrush, honour their contribution to this country and seek redress for the scandal that has engulfed so many of them. At last —after too long—the Windrush generation will see some measure of justice.

I am proud to open this debate, but I am not satisfied with where we are. We have a long way to go. Yes, I am interested in black history, but I am also interested in black futures. That is why we need lasting change, real reform, solid progress, and a never-ending quest for justice.