International Women's Day

Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde Excerpts

Thursday 3rd March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde]

My Lords, as the last Back-Bench speaker in this debate, I too thank my noble friend Lady Gould not just for this debate today but for her dogged determination, year on year, to make sure that we have this debate. I well remember the first one, when we were tolerated in a supper-break debate lasting one hour and had to scurry round trying to get speakers, with not one man in the Chamber. We have come a long way and owe due credit to the noble Baroness, Lady Gould, for the work that she has done in that regard.

Perhaps the biggest compliment and thanks that she could be paid is to have six maiden speeches in the Chamber today—all feisty speeches—and we all look forward to the participation of those new Members in many debates across a very diverse area in this House. With 44 speakers on one topic, you would have thought there would have been repetition. However, I have sat through the whole debate and there has been no repetition, because we are not just talking about women but society as it is, both domestically and internationally. There is no area that covers women that does not trespass on society as a whole, whether it is children, men or whatever it may be.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hussein-Ece, mentioned that because this is the centenary year, we should commemorate the work that has been done for us by those women who had a much more difficult ride than we have had in getting the women’s case across. I agree with that very much. I have been looking around London as a non-Londoner this week, as I have been travelling to and fro, and I have been absolutely astonished at the lack of visual demonstration of the achievements of women in the streets. You can walk up Whitehall and see many statues and commemorations—one of my favourites is the one with the ladies’ coats and hats on the hooks, gone off to help in the Second World War but coming back into society—but there is a distinct lack of statues that commemorate the work of women.

We have our debates in this Chamber, but what happens outside also counts. A few years ago in this debate, I talked about a statue for Sylvia Pankhurst—an extremely controversial character—on which I do not think we will get unanimity. She did a lot for women, not just in fighting for the vote with her mother and her sister, but in the whole area of women’s emancipation, particularly in the East End of London in regard to education and women’s control over their own bodies. I am working with a group to reinvigorate that campaign for a statue for Sylvia and hope that this time next year, when we have our debate again, I will be able to report progress on that. I was extremely disappointed to hear that one of the remarks from within this House—although not from Members of this House, I do not think; at least I hope not—was, “Really, how could we have a statue out there to Sylvia Pankhurst so near the House, when she was never a Member and never had much to do with it?”. She arrived in what is now our car park at the front from Holloway prison, where she was on a starvation strike, to come and talk; she skipped in through the passages to the then Prime Minister to talk about how we could get the vote for women. The vote for women was an extremely powerful measure in this country and we want it for all women. I hope we have some success in that area.

The Speaker has inaugurated a series of schools outreach programmes. I have been into seven sixth-forms in October and November last year. I was uplifted by the approach of young girls and how they see their lives, but I was also very depressed in some of the schools. In all our talk about emancipation, we have to work hard to make sure that the next generations coming up are not forgotten. For some of them, their aspirations and their confidence in themselves have not moved on one iota from when I was a young woman, when I was scared stiff to stand up and speak for myself and think what I could have for the future. The outreach programme is very important; I have learned from it that perhaps things in some areas need a lot of work. We must continue to strive to lift the vision of young women to make sure that they have confidence in themselves to play a full part in society.