International Women’s Day and Protecting the Equality of Women in the UK and Internationally

Baroness Gale Excerpts

Thursday 17th March 2022 Grand Committee

[Baroness Gale (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the Minister in today’s International Women’s Day debate. I congratulate her too on looking so cheerful after flying overnight to be here with us this afternoon. I know she will have attended a great conference; I have been myself and it is inspiring to be there. I thank her for at least turning up today after a stressful time.

I am very pleased to be taking part today but, as I raised with the Minister a week or two ago, why has it taken so long to have this debate? International Women’s Day was on 8 March and it is now 17 March, St Patrick’s Day. In future, I hope that we will have the debate either on the day or on one of the days either side of 8 March, and that we can have it in the Chamber not Grand Committee. Only 20 Peers have put their names down to speak today, which is the lowest I have ever seen for this debate. Nevertheless, I am sure we will have a good debate.

Although women have come a long way in the battle for equality, there is still a long way to go. If we look at women in politics in the UK, we see that since 1918 there have been only 559 women elected to the House of Commons but 4,500 men. It has taken us 104 years to get 559 women elected, which is not really a very good record. There is still a way to go before there is equality on numbers in the House of Commons, despite the Sex Discrimination (Election Candidates) Act 2002, which allowed political parties to have all-women shortlists of candidates for elections. The Act included a sunset clause; it would have expired at the end of 2015 but was extended by the Equality Act 2010, allowing all-women shortlists to be used until 2030.

Will the Minister agree to look at extending the sunset clause, which will expire in 2030 unless action is taken? It is vital to allow political parties to use all-women shortlists because the elected institutions should look a bit like the people they represent. It is interesting to note that the new devolved institutions do a lot better than old ones. For example, the Welsh Senedd has always had a good number of women elected, and in 2003 broke all records by having 30 men and 30 women elected. That was regarded as a world record; bear in mind that it was in Wales, so it was a really big achievement.

The Labour Party has always made good use of all-women shortlists, which is why we have more Labour women in the House of Commons and the Senedd than all the other parties have together, and other parties are now starting to use the shortlists. We use them not because women cannot achieve, but because in all political parties the local members do not seem too happy about selecting women. We have fantastic women in all the institutions now because of all-women shortlists.

One thing the Government could take action on is to enact Section 106 of the Equality Act 2010. This section says that political parties should keep an audit of candidates to show how many women candidates, BAME candidates and disabled candidates they have. By doing this, each party would have the data and know where it needs to improve. I cannot understand why the Government will not implement Section 106. Does the Minister agree that to solve a problem, one must have the data to identify it? That is the reason for Section 106.

Once political parties publish this data, if they are allowed to do it, it will show for the first time whether any action is required to improve the diversity of candidates. Parties can then take a number of measures that they feel necessary, which is what Labour did to increase the number of women candidates. Does the Minister agree that there is a need for all parties to improve the diversity of candidates, which would eventually lead to all our elected institutions beginning to look like the people they represent?

When the coalition Government was elected in 2010, one of the first things they did was to close down the Women’s National Commission. At that time, the commission had existed for 40 years. It had 650 women’s organisations as partners and communicated regularly with them, including holding an annual conference. The coalition Government said at the time that the work of the WNC would be brought in-house by the Government Equalities Office.

Can the Minister tell the Committee how the GEO communicates with these 650 women’s organisations in the UK, since the coalition Government closed down the Women’s National Commission? I have asked this question several times and the answers I get lead me to believe that the GEO does not, in any shape or form, do any of the work that that commission carried out. This is such a shame, and an indication that the Government have no interest in the work of these organisations, as they do not communicate with them and do not allow them a voice to government, as they had during the time of the Women’s National Commission. If we only had that body now, it could have been doing really valuable work during the pandemic, for instance. I am hoping that the Minister can give me a good answer on that.

I also want to ask when the Government are planning to ratify the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence, which is better known as the Istanbul convention. This Government signed the convention in 2012 but have yet to ratify it. The UK is way behind other countries, which have already ratified the convention. Can the Minister give an assurance that its ratification will take place in 2022?

I have highlighted several issues which relate to the theme of this debate and suggest three things to the Minister if she wants to see an improvement for women, as I know she does. First, the Minister could discuss implementing Section 106 of the Equality Act 2010 with the Prime Minister and her colleagues. Secondly, the Government should ratify the Istanbul convention in 2022. Thirdly, she could find out how the GEO communicates with the 650 women’s organisations—and all women’s organisations—and discuss with them how they are ensuring the work that the WNC carried out on behalf of women is being dealt with, as that was the commitment in 2010. Nothing I have seen or asked about leads me to believe that that is now happening now. If the Minister succeeds with this, it will go some way to improving the position of women nationally and internationally.