International Women’s Day

Debate between Baroness Brinton and Lord Bates

Thursday 11th March 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a recent trustee of UNICEF. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin, I also made my maiden speech in this debate 10 years ago. She and I have had coffee a few times, discussing how to promote women into winnable seats within our parties, and I am personally delighted that a number of the women on the Lib Dem leadership programme now sit in the House of Commons.

Ten years ago, my disability was much less visible than it is today. I have been privileged to join the excellent Peers on the “mobility Bench”, as my noble friend Lady Thomas of Winchester describes the wheel- chair spaces. She and I have the privilege of sitting alongside two outstanding disabled women: the noble Baronesses, Lady Campbell of Surbiton and Lady Grey- Thompson. They are absolutely outstanding disability campaigners—and my personal heroines—giving a voice to disabled women across the country. Their example is significant and historic in a world where women’s voices, let alone disabled women’s voices, are sometimes drowned out.

I also want to mention a young disabled woman who is changing the way in which women with learning disabilities are supported and encouraged to take up the services that they are entitled to. Ciara Lawrence, an ambassador for Mencap, promotes having cervical smear tests to others like herself—but she has done so much more. She is teaching staff in the NHS how to work with learning disabled women like herself, and works closely with the Eve Appeal and Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust. She also has her own regular podcast, “Ciara’s Pink Sparkle Pod”.

We heard that, during the pandemic, too many people with learning difficulties had “do not attempt resuscitation” orders put on their files without their or their families’ consent. A very high number have died of Covid because of their underlying health conditions. Despite that, they had to fight to get vaccines along with other clinically vulnerable people; I delight that that has now happened.

I want Ciara’s voice to be heard by more non-learning disabled people, because she is such a brilliant advocate for what those with disabilities can achieve. I ask the Minister: how can the Government encourage more wonderful ambassadors like Ciara?

Other noble Lords have already mentioned access to women’s medical services, but disabled women say that access to family planning services can often be harder too. Will the Government’s review of health inequalities make sure that these issues for disabled women are addressed specifically? They are not “hard to reach” but, unfortunately, they are often at the back of the queue.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin, talked about some of the medical issues that women face, as highlighted in the women’s health inequality consultation, which launched on Monday. I was diagnosed with endometriosis well over 40 years ago, and I am pleased to say that treatment in hospitals has advanced considerably since those days. However, I agree with the noble Baroness that what seems not to have changed is diagnosis and referral, which is often too slow and dismissive. Can the Minister say what support there is to train all GPs, primary care nurses and even employers to recognise when women have these problems? They should not be dismissed as a bit of a bother because all women have a problem at that time of the month. Endometriosis is agonising.

This is not just an information issue about women themselves recognising it. We need professionals and the business community to understand that endometriosis is a very serious illness and, if not treated early enough, can lead to serious fertility problems. The noble Lord, Lord Winston, spoke movingly of repeated miscarriage; as someone with endometriosis, I also experienced this later on. However, I was extremely lucky 36 years ago to be referred to the wonderful Lesley Regan, who was then starting one of the first research studies into repeat miscarriage. She is now the secretary-general of the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics and is the immediate past president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. To my astonishment, she is only the second woman to hold that post, and the first in 64 years. I am afraid that the body that looks after women is still too often mainly run by men. I look forward to more women in that role.

My noble friend Lady Benjamin spoke about the importance of a Minister for children. I agree, especially in order to encourage girls to have ambition. My 90 year-old mother-in-law desperately wanted to be a doctor like her brother, but her father said no. I want there to be no cultural barriers for my granddaughters.

The noble Lord, Lord Addington, spoke movingly of girls and women with neurodiversity and how they are judged by society. I think we are slowly learning that there are differences and that we need to treat women with neurodiverse issues in a different way from men.

The noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, noted the worrying changes in access to abortion and family planning in Poland at the moment. I admire the many thousands of young women protesting in the streets about the changes in the law there.

My noble friend Lady Janke spoke of 82% of care staff being women and the Government’s catastrophic treatment of care homes during the beginning of the pandemic. The most important issue for our care homes is: where is the White Paper? Will it ensure that the care workforce is valued as much as the NHS one? That is vital. These are not just minor aides; my mother spent her last two years in a home, and I saw the professionalism with which she was looked after.

The health inequality consultation notes that 77% of the NHS workforce is also women. Earlier this week, I asked the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, to ensure that all hospital trusts and CCGs publish their staff gender ratios and pay gaps at each pay grade on an annual basis, as we ask large companies to do, because, despite women being an overwhelming part of the workforce, the ratios are not so good at the top.

More generally in the workforce, the pandemic seems to have acted as a cover for the furloughing of many more women than men and, worse, the appalling treatment of some pregnant women, including summary dismissal. The charity Pregnant Then Screwed has run an excellent advice hub, but the women who have turned to it are probably only a few of those affected. It was encouraging to hear the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Bybrook, say that this treatment of pregnant women is dreadful. What steps will the Government take to ensure that companies follow the rules for maternity and parental rights?

A number of noble Lords have spoken of issues around our LGBT community. This week, the focus has been on whether the Government will follow up their strong words condemning conversion therapy and now ban it. In the Commons, the Minister has refused to do so. On top of the concerns about the attacks on trans people, there is now a real concern that the equalities rights granted over many years are being rowed back on. Over the last two days, three government advisers have resigned over this issue, the Conservative LGBT+ organisation is demanding an investigation and many Back-Bench MPs are worried. All major counselling and psychotherapy bodies, as well as the NHS, say that conversion therapy is dangerous but government Ministers will not move to ban it. Will there be a firm statement that there is no place for conversion therapy in the UK? Being LGBT is not a mental illness that can be cured.

I was somewhat surprised by the assertion of the noble Lord, Lord Young, that women’s refuges were dangerous places because of the threat of trans women being there. I am not aware of any such cases, and for the Domestic Abuse Bill, a number of women’s refuges and other organisations made it plain that they are trans -inclusive. In fact, a 2017 survey showed that the reality is that one in six trans women experience domestic abuse themselves.

The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, commented on women in transport, particularly on the growth of the number of women in key roles on the railways. I could not get into the Lords when not shielding without the help of many brilliant women staff on trains and in stations.

My noble friend Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville spoke of the Women’s World Day of Prayer. Each year, I find it inspiring to hear of women of faith in another part of the world.

My noble friend Lord McNally spoke—

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Bates) (Con)]

We seem to have lost the sound of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton.

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

I am sorry, it muted itself. I have not quite finished.

My noble friend Lord McNally spoke of the Corston review and how progress is slow. Covid has raced through our prisons and work has been done to get prisoners home safely with electronic tags. I hope that this lesson will be used now to reduce the number of women in prison.

The noble Baroness, Lady Scott, also talked about the UK chairing the G7, and making gender equality and building back better from coronavirus an absolute priority. That is good to hear, but I echo the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg. How on earth will the cuts to the international development budget help women, given that much aid is targeted at girls and women? We know that women are much more affected by violence, and by domestic violence.

As the noble Lord, Lord Mann, said, politics is a particularly difficult place for women to be online at the moment. There is an enormous amount of targeting of women on social media at a very high level, but black and ethnic minority women face much higher levels of abuse. Black and ethnic minority MPs, in particular, are highly targeted. What has gone wrong in our society that people, often mainly men, feel it is acceptable to spew out the most hateful statements, day in and day out? I hope that the online harms Bill, when it is published, will address this.

My noble friend Lady Jolly referred to the women at Bletchley Park. I had the privilege of knowing Dr Lucy Slater who, in the early 1950s, having worked throughout the war teaching trigonometry to soldiers, helped devise the precursor to modern computing operating systems. Subsequently, she helped develop computer programmes for econometrics, working for much of the time with UK government officials. I remember her coming to talk to our primary school girls about how exciting maths was. She really challenged girls never to say that maths was not for them. She was a real inspiration.

As a young woman, my noble kinsman Mary Stocks—later Baroness Stocks—sat in the Public Gallery of your Lordships’ House to hear their Lordships attacking the very idea that women should have the vote. She was also one of the early women life Peers and someone who I admired greatly. She spent her life fighting for women’s access to education, family planning and other medical services. She would be horrified that my four year-old twin granddaughters are likely to be in their 80s before the House of Commons becomes 50% women. Today’s wonderful debate has been a chance to celebrate the role of women in our society, but much change is still needed to get the equality that most of us women still aspire to.

Domestic Violence

Debate between Baroness Brinton and Lord Bates

Tuesday 24th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

We have now introduced a system where we have independent domestic violence advisers. They have a critical role to play because, in a very chaotic, difficult and emotionally stressful situation, they can signpost people to the help that they need, particularly the families who are victims in this area.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, during the passage of the stalking law reforms in your Lordships’ House, there was considerable debate about how the CPS could be encouraged not to use the harassment law as an easy way to get a conviction. The Minister has outlined that he believes that more cases are being defined as stalking, but the opposite is true according to the press. How can the Government ensure that the CPS is held accountable to make sure that stalking cases are taken as such and not through the easy win of harassment?

[Lord Bates]

That is a very good point and comes back to the earlier point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Nye. A consultation is taking place between the CPS and the College of Policing, as well as with Paladin and the Suzy Lamplugh Trust, which do so much valuable work in this area, to see what further training could be provided. When you look at the figures and see that there are 9,180 prosecutions under harassment and 676 under stalking, clearly there is still further work to be done to make sure that people are being prosecuted in the right area.

Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill

Debate between Baroness Brinton and Lord Bates

Wednesday 4th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton]

Does my noble friend not agree that the difference between the UUK guidance and the Bill is that the Bill gives the Secretary of State powers to act against the university whereas at the moment the UUK guidance merely advises universities to think about something? I hope that the Minister will recognise that.

[Lord Bates]

I am grateful for both those interventions. However, I think they make my point: the fact that the guidance is there to put in place in universities for speakers but it is just brushed aside and ignored seems to give some veracity to the arguments put forward by the extremism task force, which reviewed our counterterrorism strategy and arrived at the conclusion that there is something to be said for having a more statutory footing.

Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill

Debate between Baroness Brinton and Lord Bates

Wednesday 28th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton]

If universities are already implementing much of what the Government rightly think needs to happen and even if some of us are not stepping fully up to the plate, where does that place the absolute need that the Government identify for a duty on universities, which is much harder on every single institution and every member of staff, not just in universities but in colleges and schools? Would it not be better to arrange for it to be one of the things that HEFCE or OFFA looked at as part of a universities contribution each year?

[Lord Bates]

The point that the noble Baroness makes about HEFCE is a very good one. Depending on the outcome of the consultation, it may well be the body which reviews this matter. It is important at this point that we get the terminology correct. It is a duty to have regard to the guidance available. That is quite distinct from being as prescriptive as some people have suggested we are being.

The noble Baroness, Lady Uddin, to whose work on the Prevent programme I pay tribute, and my noble friend Lady Hussein-Ece talked about the lack of work with local communities to target radicalisation. Challenging and tackling extremism is a shared effort. The Government have a role in leading this and ensuring that communities where extremists operate and organisations working against extremists have the capability to confront it themselves. Through Prevent, we are supporting community-based projects in 30 local authority priority areas where we fund a dedicated Prevent co-ordinator, alongside work with communities and partners in a further 14 supported areas where we support projects only. More than 180 projects have been approved since 2011, reaching more than 55,000 people. This year, we are supporting more than 80 projects. That is an example of what we are doing at the moment.

A number of noble Lords have referred to nurseries, which I acknowledge is an issue. My noble friend Lady Hussein-Ece and others were concerned about the message being sent. I understand that the Government have a job to do in getting the message across in a balanced way. Nurseries, schools, universities, FE colleges and prisons all have guidance in place to safeguard those in their care—that is a given. Such protection might be from child sexual exploitation; for example, in a nursery, something may give rise to a belief that some abuse is happening. Most people will have in place some system of guidance and say, “What do we actually do with that bit of information when it comes to our attention. Who do we pass it on to and how do we act upon it?”.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bates]

I accept that my noble friend had lead responsibility for that, and she has far more experience in this area in formulating and delivering policy than I have. However, I am simply responding to the question which addressed where this code of practice is going as regards higher education institutions. I was simply making the point that in a sense it relates to the organisation and preparedness of institutions to deal with the safeguarding of organisations, the security of students, and just being aware. I was asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, to give some examples of the relationship the inspectors who currently engage on the Prevent programme—the regional co-ordinators —have with higher education institutions. They are often contacted and asked about particular speakers. Most institutions found it very helpful to have someone they could go to and ask for guidance on whether special procedures needed to be put in place for a particular person.

[Baroness Brinton]

I was trying to make the point that it would be helpful to have an example of where the existing codes of practice guidance are failing, which requires the draft legislation we are looking at today.