International Women’s Day: Progress on Global Gender Equality

Lord Addington Excerpts

Thursday 8th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I am another of the minority that is welcomed into this gathering. We talk about female leadership; I cannot help but reminisce that when I first got here, a huge chunk of that leadership was provided by one Baroness Seear. I did not mention her the last time we had the debate on women’s suffrage. There is a military saying: “Anybody who takes the first step and says, ‘Follow me’ is a more efficient leader than anybody who shouts, ‘Forward!’, no matter how loudly”. Baroness Seear not only took the first step but shouted “Follow me!” in a very commanding tone. That is more of an aside.

I was going to talk about women’s sport but I was beaten to it by the noble Lord, Lord Pendry. We all know that things are getting better there, but there is that old problem that there is still much more to do. Sport tends to think of its traditions, and the question is how you break out of those or adapt them to allow this new group in. The new group constitutes the slight majority of the population. We are addressing most of the institutions and structures, and we have an excellent example of how successful this approach can be if you give women in sport their moment in the sun: the winter Olympics.

The great success stories and great failures were female; they provided the drama. Elise Christie—a great champion who has not quite delivered at the highest level—crashed out three times. A defending champion came back, defying the odds and reasserting herself. There was the “nearly!” struggle of the curling. That provides the drama and the approach. Many people—at least one or two noble Lords in this Chamber—will say, “But does sport matter?” If you can think of a better way of expressing soft power and bringing nations together, I will be happy to listen. Is there something else that has such a mass appeal, bringing people together? I cannot think of anything. It is able to cut across, using an understandable language of activity and unity, and admiration for what somebody else does. Sport probably takes that all on. To come back to the noble Lord, Lord Pendry, I remember that trip to South Africa. The noble Lord may remember that it was a Parliamentary Rugby World Cup. I was playing, and the noble Lord was looking very elegant in a blazer. By the way, if anybody is interested, we are still turning out. I still have my jersey; I would like to say that it fits, but let us just say that I can still get into it.

If you look at the Olympics for examples of how women’s sport has taken off, you will find the perfect example in hockey. The women’s hockey gold medal has done more to lift that sport than just about anything else I can think of. Women’s football has done very well too. I was kept up very late watching England in a tournament the name of which I forget, taking on the world’s best in the USA. I was probably something of a jinx, because I decided that I could not stay up to watch the second half—and they lost. Then again, I support Scotland, so who cares? They have taken great steps. Rugby union has expanded its base and has made sure that it reaches out to schools. Those are traditionally male sports, which are moving on, but hockey has done it. It is true that for hockey, it is easier. I was chatting to somebody who said that one of the great problems in female sport is that the changing facilities seem to be too primitive for women. I do not see that at all in hockey; mind you, we built our clubs for women as well. An old rugby union player takes a bow on that one.

The fact is that you have to bring them in, but once you have done it, and if they are successful or at least competitive, you will build up the whole sport. The whole of hockey has expanded thanks to the shot in the arm that was provided by women. Everybody knows that sport is a social good, a medical good and an economic good. What’s not to like? If the women can do that, we must encourage them. All the sports I have spoken to are taking action in this area—for example, the government initiative whereby 30% of the board has to be female. However, the real challenges are coming not in recruitment but in establishing the underlying structures.

The difficult area is coaching—making sure that we get better female coaching, with more depth. You have really succeeded when, in football, there is no discussion about why you have not got a male coach. I was at a breakfast meeting here at which the FA basically said, “We wanted a coach who was good enough, and as we couldn’t get a woman coach we took a male coach, because of the need for quality at elite-level sport”. That is pretty unanswerable, unfortunately.

Unless you work on this and government encourages this, you will not get past the issue of who takes on the leadership role. Who is the person that will take this on? There is virtually no reason why females cannot take over in male sport. What attitude surveys have been done here? I have been coached by women in my time, such as the incredible and formidable Margot Wells, when I was in the second team at London Scottish. She was a person you did not mess with. I remember cowering in a corner when she shouted at a large group of men for not eating enough for her training programme—an experience that most people in this Chamber will not have been through.

Women have the capacity to get through if they are given the chance, knowledge and drive. What are the Government doing to encourage these sports to make sure that their coaching and development programmes reflect this? I know that work is going on and it is being looked at internally but what are we doing to help? If we do not do this, the hierarchical structure at the business end of a sport will dominate for a much longer period. How are we going to provide encouragement and make sure that the leadership—the person who makes the decisions and picks the team—is female, not only in female sport but male sport, and often enough to make a difference? Once that has been done, we will be close to achieving full equality.