International Women’s Day

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Thursday 11th March 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Rooker (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I watched the International Women’s Day address to the European Parliament by the New Zealand Prime Minister. She made some very clear points, including that

“Covid makes clear we are interdependent… no country is safe until all are safe…. the team is not five million New Zealanders but 7.8 billion worldwide… the pandemic has exacerbated structural inequalities between men and women”,

and that

“there is a ‘shadow pandemic’ of domestic violence”.

Here in the UK, before Covid, over 4 million children were living in poverty, which is 30%, or nine in a class of 30. The pandemic has caused jobs losses and insecurity. The poorest are suffering the most. Cardiff Women’s Centre reports that there is a clear relationship between gender and poverty, with women overrepresented in the poverty statistics. The Fawcett Society points out that 64% of the low-paid are women, that there are four times more women in part-time work than men, that women are more likely to receive lower rates of pay, that women are more likely to be single parents— that is nine out of 10—and that there are more child responsibilities and less chance of full-time employment. Department of Work and Pensions statistics reveal that 52% of children in single-parent families are poor, and, as the New Zealand Prime Minister stated, there is a shadow pandemic of domestic violence. We know from research by Refuge that an extra 1.6 million women in the UK suffered economic abuse during the pandemic.

During Covid, clearly women are suffering most. Household food insecurity was on the increase before the pandemic, according to the Food Foundation’s report, The Impact of Covid-19 on Household Food Security. Covid has left more struggling to afford or access a nutritious diet. The Food Foundation states:

“Households with children have been hit hard, with many children still falling through the cracks in support.”


The foundation also found evidence that:

“Covid-19 has dramatically widened inequalities in food security”.


The current picture is that 4.7 million adults—9%—experienced food insecurity in the past six months. There are 2.3 million children living in these households, which is 12% of households with children, and 41% of households with children on free school meals have experienced food insecurity in the past six months. From my earlier points it is clear that women are in more than a shadow pandemic of domestic violence; along with their children, they are also in one of food poverty.

The recent report Build Back Fairer: The Covid-19 Marmot Review made the point, in figure 2 on page 13, that the ratio of deaths of those limited due to longstanding health issues compared to those who were not meant that deaths were 2.4 times higher for females and 1.9 times higher for males from 2 March to 15 May 2020. That says an awful lot.

Before I finish, I have two international points regarding women. The Government pulling aid out of Afghanistan will lead to women being denied schooling and careers once the Taliban is back in charge. Is that what the British Armed Forces made sacrifices for? I was also very impressed to see the up-to-date briefing from MAG, the Mines Advisory Group. The effect of landmines on women and girls is catastrophic, be they directly affected or as a result of being widowed or carers. A growing number of MAG staff are women, over 1,000—more than 25%—across 25 countries. Will the Government commit to maintaining their investments in mine action?