Gavi: Covid-19

Baroness Bull Excerpts

Monday 18th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg]

I entirely agree with my noble friend that we must work together in a global pandemic; we cannot separate countries because diseases do not respect borders. Gavi supports vaccines in the world’s poorest countries to make sure that access and affordability are not barriers to future immunisation.

[Baroness Bull (CB)]

My Lords, experts have stressed the importance of nutrition as part of the pandemic response, likening good nutrition in infants to a vaccine against the secondary effects of the pandemic, as it is essential to building strong immune systems. Can the Minister expand on her previous Answers to the House and commit to ensuring that, whatever delays there are to the Nutrition for Growth Summit, there will be no cliff-edge in nutrition financing at the end of this year?

[Baroness Sugg]

The noble Baroness is right to point out the importance of malnutrition and making sure we provide children with a good-quality diet, so that they are not affected more in the long term. I am afraid I am still not able to announce any future funding for nutrition, but I acknowledge—as I did previously—that we must ensure there is no cliff edge to funding.

Visas

Baroness Bull Excerpts

Monday 21st October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

We are trying to achieve a fair immigration system for those who are visiting, those who are staying for a short time and those who are coming to work, from EU and non-EU countries. Looking forward, we are going to create a points-based system so that we can attract the brightest and the best to this country.

[Baroness Bull (CB)]

My Lords, like many noble Lords, I am sure, I welcome the intention within the Queen’s Speech for a more accessible visa system that attracts global scientific talent to tackle the greatest challenges facing our society, but does the Minister agree that science alone will not be enough to solve those challenges and that the perspective of the humanities and the social sciences will be essential if we are to take lessons from history, understand how people engage with technology and communicate the messages in a way that will drive changes in human behaviour?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I agree with the noble Baroness that science alone will not solve the problems that we face, but science is hugely important, particularly given that we have a shortage of scientists in this country and a shortage of specialist engineers. That is why I think noble Lords focus on this area.

Inequality

Baroness Bull Excerpts

Thursday 3rd October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I say to the right reverend Prelate that we are working with areas such as Newcastle that have food banks. We are also working with the food banks more closely to better support those people who, as she says, might initially have fallen into that pit, perhaps, of the ever-increasing sets of problems that arose from that initial problem with UC.

[Baroness Bull (CB)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree with the findings of the Social Mobility Commission that one of the great perpetrators of inequality in the UK is our twin-track education system, which sees 7% of young people benefit from an education resourced at three times the level of the other 93%? As we know, this 7% are more likely to go on and earn top salaries in top jobs. Can she tell the House when we can expect the further detailed recommendations promised in the commission’s last report on what can be done to spread more equitably the benefits that accrue from private education?

International Women’s Day

Baroness Bull Excerpts

Thursday 7th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bull (CB)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to speak among so many inspirational women—and men—as we mark International Women’s Day. It is always a privilege to rise in this Chamber, but never more so than in this debate today. Given the barriers women face to participation in both political and leadership roles, I am acutely aware of the privilege we hold as women Peers within your Lordships’ House.

Female representation in Parliament is just one of many advances for women over the last century. Educational attainment, workforce participation, control of reproduction, and anti-discrimination laws are all evidence of the scale of change, here in the UK and in countries around the globe. But all these gains have failed to translate into equality in terms of leadership. Across the world, women make up just a quarter of parliamentarians, news media leaders and judges. Just 15% of corporate board seats are occupied by women and only in healthcare, education and the non-profit sector does female corporate leadership exceed 40%. Change is happening, but it is at a snail’s pace. A lack of consistent data makes global progress hard to track, but analysis of LinkedIn data found that over the decade to 2017, the proportion of female leaders increased by just 2% across 12 industry sectors.

Therefore, despite all the advances in gender equality that we celebrate, it is clear that women still face significant barriers in progressing to leadership roles. Some of these are embedded in law: in at least 100 economies worldwide, women face gender-based job restrictions, and in 18 countries, husbands can still legally prevent wives working. Some 59% of countries have no law against workplace sexual harassment. More often, though, the barriers are embedded in culture and customs—those unstated norms that conspire to exclude women or prevent them accessing the influential networks that offer a leg up on the ladder to the top.

Alongside this, we read that women’s educational choices can leave them less prepared than men to prosper in the workplace. In a wide range of economies, women’s access to technology is limited, so they lack proficiency in what is becoming the critical skillset of the future. As we know, women are more likely to carry domestic and caring responsibilities, which leaves them more likely to seek part-time or flexible working.

As we have heard, when women rise to leadership, they continue to face challenge, marginalisation and hostility. We have seen horrific examples of this over recent months in the UK, but this is a worldwide concern. Of 55 female parliamentarians from 39 countries surveyed by the Inter-Parliamentary Union in 2016, almost half reported threats of death, rape or violence.

In parallel to this overt hostility is a more insidious form of assault. Blair Williams at the Australian National University wrote her PhD thesis on the ways in which media representation had reinforced gendered and sexist stereotypes in the three weeks following the elections to power of Margaret Thatcher in 1979 and Theresa May in 2016. Analysis of newspaper coverage revealed that, far from having moved on in the years between the UK’s two female Prime Ministers, references to appearance, clothing and gender had doubled in some areas of the press. Both women were repeatedly compared to head girls, a term that infantilises women and denigrates their skills and success. An over-emphasis on handbags and kitten heels is just one of the not-so-subtle ways in which the media undermine female political leaders at every turn and, in doing so, undermine women as a whole.

Perhaps it is not surprising that across the four areas on which the 2018 Global Gender Gap Index reports, the major disparity was in political empowerment. Just 17 of the 149 countries assessed have female heads of state; and on average, only 18% of Ministers and, as we have heard, 24% of parliamentarians across the world are women.

Why does this matter? I do not need to tell you, but I will: in short, because women’s political leadership results in better outcomes for women and girls, which means better outcomes for society more broadly. Research indicates that women work harder at communicating with their constituents, and there is a correlation between female representation and higher expenditure on social issues. A 2018 study found that when women are signatories to peace agreements, they are more likely to be implemented and to have longer-lasting effects.

There are plenty of quantifiable arguments for women’s political empowerment, but even without them, its justification is irrefutable. Women make up half the world’s population, yet their voices are still not equal in the places where decisions are made. The prediction is that it will be 107 years before this particular gender gap is closed. On the eve of International Women’s Day, does not the Minister agree with me that 107 years is far too long for us all to wait?

EU Settlement Scheme

Baroness Bull Excerpts

Thursday 14th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Lord hits on a point which I myself have raised—that we need to step up some of the public information campaigns to give EU citizens who want to apply for settled status the knowledge of how and where to apply. So he is correct on that point. However, on whether we are being complacent, the answer is no. The beta-testing phases have worked very well and I fully expect that, when the system is up and running properly on 30 March, it will continue to run well.

[Baroness Bull (CB)]

Can the Minister say a little more about the rights of British citizens who find themselves settled in the EU on 30 March? Will they enjoy onward movement that will allow them to continue to earn a living—if that is indeed the way in which they earn their living?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I certainly hope that that will be the case, and it will be at the forefront of the Prime Minister’s mind when she is negotiating with our colleagues in the EU.