Major Incident in Essex

Maria Miller Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his considered remarks, and I congratulate him on his election.

There are a number of points. As there is a live investigation, it is right that we focus on identifying the countries of origin of the victims of this horrendous crime. It is fair to say that all Members need to work together, and I am happy to assist any hon. Member who has family connections in their constituency. This is not just about case management. We have to consider the impact on those people, who may themselves also be part of the lines of inquiry on the routes through which the victims travelled.

We definitely need to consider the international routes but, right now, we have to give the police space to investigate. I will, of course, pick up with every single hon. Member should there be anything specific to their constituency.

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

Finding those responsible and bringing them to justice will be a priority for our police, our border agencies and, I am sure, the Home Secretary. May I urge her to ensure that the police and the Crown Prosecution Service use the full force of the law that this Government have put in place to tackle modern slavery, particularly by freezing, at an early stage, the assets of those who could be involved so that they are not able to squirrel away their criminal funds from such a murderous activity?

[Priti Patel]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely correct. There have been recent cases where that has taken place, and rightly so. Criminals must be pursued and prosecuted, and we must use every single lever of law enforcement to confiscate their funds and assets. I know that has recently happened in other cases.

My right hon. Friend is right that, as a country, we have levers in our own legislation that enable us to send out a very strong signal internationally. We must do more of that.

Public Services

Maria Miller Excerpts

Wednesday 16th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

As cyber-crime has developed, it has been necessary for the police to develop their approach, and that is absolutely right. Another thing that I was pleased to do as Home Secretary was to set up the College of Policing, which helps to provide the “what works best” advice to police forces in areas such as cyber-crime, which is, increasingly, the area that we have to look at, in addition to other areas of crime.

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is talking about the training of police officers. Does she welcome the approach taken by the Hampshire police force, which involves industry experts in cyber issues through the use of police specials, and will she applaud that approach of getting experts in cyber-crime involved in policing?

[Mrs May]

I am very happy to commend the Hampshire force for the work that it does in introducing specialist specials. It is extremely good. Hampshire has always been one of the forces at the forefront of the use of technology and at looking at these issues around cyber-crime. We want to be the safest place in the world to be online and the best place in the world to set up a digital business, so the proportionate approach set out in the online harms Bill is absolutely right.

I want to say just a word about the Environment Bill, because it will have an enormous impact on people’s quality of life. I was pleased that, when we launched the 25-year environment plan last year, we set out the aim to be the first generation to leave the environment in a better state than when we came into government. That is so important. The debate is often crystallised around climate change, but it is about so much more than that. If we are to deal with these issues, it is about the very small ways that, individually, each one of us can make a contribution. Within the Bill, I am particularly pleased about the work that is going to be done on biodiversity, on protecting natural habitats and, indeed, on waste crime, which afflicts too many of our constituencies.

There are many excellent Bills that will improve people’s quality of life, building on four years of good Conservative Government and nine years of Conservatives in government. None the less, I wish to press the Government on three areas. The first is on mental health. The work done by Sir Simon Wessely and his team in reviewing the Mental Health Act 1983 was incredibly important. Some of the findings of that work were truly shocking, particularly in relation to the way some people in mental health crisis were being treated. It is important that this Government not only consider the Government response to that review of the Mental Health Act as soon as possible, but commit to introducing new legislation—a new mental health Act—to deal with these issues. I sat and listened to the testimony of some service users, and it was truly shocking to hear how they had been treated as second-class citizens, or worse, in their treatment. We do need to address that.

Domestic Abuse

Maria Miller Excerpts

Tuesday 16th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I thank the hon. Lady for her response, and for the constructive and co-operative approach she has taken to this Bill and to many other matters. She is always a constructive critic of the Government, and rightly so, but I thank her and her colleagues for the spirit in which they are engaging in this. I must also pay tribute to and thank colleagues from across the House, on both sides, who have always been incredibly constrictive in their approach to this. I hope that that will continue, because I am sure we all want to see domestic violence stop.

The hon. Lady asked me about the domestic abuse commissioner. I am happy to confirm that we are appointing the commissioner, because we want the commissioner to hold national and local government to account. The commissioner will have the power to publish reports and make recommendations, and, crucially, statutory agencies will be required by law to respond to those recommendations publicly. We believe that will exert great pressure on local authorities to ensure that they are doing right by their local communities. Of course, in line with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government consultation, albeit that we are not prejudging its result, there will possibly be a further statutory duty through that route, to ensure that we have co-ordinated effort.

The hon. Lady raised the matter of family courts. We are reviewing practice direction 12J and the operation of the family courts more widely. I understand that we are aiming to report in September, and I know that the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar), has this very much at the forefront of his mind.

I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s comments on migrant women. She knows how complex these issues are, but we are very much entering into this with the right spirit and we look forward to help from across the House on what more we can do to protect migrant women.

I absolutely understand charities’ campaigns and the emphasis that they put on children, given the terrible impacts that domestic abuse has on them and their life chances. I often see that myself in the context of youth workers working with gang members; domestic abuse is a prevalent factor in the lives of some of those children. We will be ensuring that statutory guidance recognises the effect of domestic abuse on children, which is significant because it will have an impact on local commissioning. The domestic abuse commissioner will also be encouraging good practice in the identification of children, and we will consider whether we need to amend the definition of “harm” in the Children Act 1989 to explicitly include the impact of domestic abuse on children. The hon. Lady will know that we are investing £8 million to deal specifically with children who are the victims of domestic abuse, and of course, as I say, the MCHLG consultation plays an incredible part.

I am also delighted to confirm that this is not just a commitment of this Prime Minister, but a commitment of the Government. We have the extra confirmation of both leadership candidates’ teams having confirmed to me that not only do the candidates support this Bill, but they will progress with it in the autumn.

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

I welcome my hon. Friend’s statement. I thank the Government for introducing a groundbreaking piece of work, and I thank the Prime Minister personally for her incredible leadership in making this issue central to this Government’s programme of work. It was a great privilege to be able to chair the Joint Committee, and I thank members of that Committee, from both this place and the other place, for their commitment, hard work and tenacity. Above all, I thank our Clerks, who did an incredible piece of work in a very truncated time, producing a top-quality report. I am pleased to see that the Government have welcomed the majority of its recommendations and have either accepted or partially accepted them.

The Joint Committee’s most significant concern was the plight of migrant women with no recourse to public funds. In her statement, my hon. Friend underlined the Government’s support for action on this issue to make sure that the gap in support is closed. Is it her objective to ensure that migrant women can be treated in the same way as any other victim of domestic abuse in terms of support, particularly given the welcome announcements by the Government on the introduction of the statutory duty in respect of the provision of refuge places? Will she assure me that she will redouble her efforts to make sure that any new support that is in place cannot be open to abuse, as that would discredit that support and affect the women who need it in order to survive?

[Victoria Atkins]

I thank my right hon. Friend for her sterling work chairing the Committee. She has given so much time, effort and service to the House in doing so, and I am extremely grateful. It was a pleasure when she agreed to chair it, because I knew not only that it would be chaired well, but that the Committee would leave no stone unturned in its scrutiny of this Bill and of the Government’s action. Again, I place on record my thanks to members of that Committee.

I also thank my right hon. Friend for raising the issue of migrant women. She knows, as the Committee does from the evidence it has taken, just how complex this issue is. She has alighted on the point about possible abuse of the system. That is one of the many factors that the Government must consider as part of their review, and it is fair to say, from meetings and roundtables that I and other Ministers have held with hon. Members and stakeholders on this issue, that everyone recognises that we need to deal with it, but in a sensitive way that does not have the potential for unintended consequences. I am delighted to put on record the fact that women who are victims of domestic abuse are just that—victims of domestic abuse—regardless of their migration or other status.

Modern Slavery Act: Independent Review

Maria Miller Excerpts

Wednesday 19th June 2019 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Main. It is also a great pleasure to speak in this debate, after having the privilege of working with the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field) and Baroness Elizabeth Butler-Sloss from the other place. I am a newcomer to the issue of modern-day slavery and I have learned so much from the right hon. Gentleman. The report will add much to the work that needs to be done, which the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) has talked about.

Modern-day slavery is a human tragedy that is still happening in our communities today—we have to acknowledge that if we are going to move forward. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has done more than anybody in raising this issue in the last decade, in this place and outside, but there is still so much more to be done. She made a very powerful speech at the International Labour Organisation just a few days ago, reminding us of the progress that has been made. The UK has led on this issue over the last decade, and that work has led to 90 Governments endorsing the call to action on modern slavery, which the Prime Minister launched in 2017.

Although we have done more than almost any other country in the world, and have some of the best legislation, it is important that we recognise that more needs to be done. In her speech, the Prime Minister recognised that, and in my remarks, I want to pick up that theme of raising awareness. The Prime Minister said—this is very important—that “ordinary shoppers” can

“vote with their wallets, to shun those companies that do not make the ethical grade.”

I was delighted to see in her speech that the Prime Minister is committing to one of the things that our report called for—a new registry of modern-day slavery transparency statements, to make it easier for the people we represent to be aware of what companies are doing and how they are taking the need to stamp out this appalling abuse seriously.

We need to go further than that, and awareness is of paramount importance. The hon. Member for Gedling says that everyone knows this is a problem, and we do here, but I am not sure whether it is quite as salient out in the communities as he and I would want it to be. I urge the Minister to consider the work of individuals such as Dr Rosie Riley, who has set up VITA—Victim Identification and Trafficking Awareness—which works in the NHS to ensure that victims and survivors get the help they need at the frontline from people working in emergency departments. The Minister needs to go even further and make sure that we are doing everything we can to make our constituents aware of modern-day slavery. I pay tribute to the work of the Church, which has developed an amazing app on car washes.

We need to go further, and that has to be an important focus of the new commissioner. I will come to that in a moment. It is important that businesses will be under more pressure to publish statements of compliance, but we need to make sure that those statements are properly scrutinised. Our report recommends that that role is taken on by the commissioner, so that the statements do not just become lip service.

I believe that the commissioner’s role needs to have at its core raising awareness of the issue of modern-day slavery in our communities, up and down the country. We must also make sure that the role is independent from the Government. The Minister will be aware of the comments of the Joint Committee on the Draft Domestic Abuse Bill, which I chaired, about the slightly haphazard way in which commissioners are being set up. I hope the Minister will listen to the comments in this report and from that Committee, and make sure that we have some proper consistency in the way commissioner roles are dealt with in the future.

I want to raise one thing that is not in the report—I hope that is allowable, Mrs Main. One of the things we wanted to look at, but were not able to because of the terms of reference, was the issue of prostitution. There is strong evidence—much of which was brought forward by the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion)—of the very close relationship between modern-day slavery and prostitution. We in the UK need to look carefully at our laws, which are potentially acting as a magnet for those who want an easier place to operate as traffickers of people who they want to sexually exploit. I hope the Minister will be able to comment on that.

In the foreword to our report, we talked about setting up an implementation group to hold the Government to account. The Minister knows me and the right hon. Member for Birkenhead well enough to know that we will do exactly that, and that her feet will be firmly held to the fire—not only on implementing the things to which I know the Government are committed, but on ensuring they look very carefully at all the recommendations in the report. Modern-day slavery is a human tragedy, and we cannot allow it to continue or get worse on our watch.

--- Later in debate ---

[Carolyn Harris (Swansea East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Main, and I congratulate the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field) on securing this important debate. I thank all those who have spoken so eloquently today. I welcome the independent review of the Modern Slavery Act 2015, and its robust and detailed recommendations, and I congratulate all those involved in producing the report. Modern slavery is an abhorrent, vile, devastating practice, and we must do everything in our power to ensure it is stopped. Those who fall victim to it must be fully supported on their journey out of modern slavery, and given the dignified care they need.

During my time as an MP and a shadow Minister, I have spent many hours meeting victims of modern slavery, and hearing the tragic stories of how they were stripped of their rights, violated, and subjected to abuse and inhumane work and living conditions. The review highlighted the significant scale of modern slavery in the UK. In 2017, 5,143 potential victims were referred through the national referral mechanism, 41% of whom were children. The number of victims who sadly go unreported will obviously be much higher.

Along with CORE, the UK civil society coalition on corporate accountability, the review highlighted weaknesses in the introduction of section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act, “Transparency in supply chains etc”. An estimated 40% of eligible companies are not complying with the legislation at all, and there are currently no penalties for non-compliance. When statements are shared, they are often generalised and do not provide the detail required to be sure that modern slavery is not taking place. Consequently, if companies have victims of modern slavery in their supply chains, little has been done by organisations to eliminate it.

Much more needs to be done to strengthen the legislation, first by mandating companies to report on the six areas that the Act requests, and secondly by ensuring consequences if they do not report. That commitment from companies could also provide an opportunity for a co-ordinated approach to issues that arise in multiple supply chains. If the UK wishes to lead the way on this issue, it must ensure that such structures are in place, and enforced, so that companies report on their supply chain. A further problem that I have raised a number of times, which was also identified in the review, is the lack of information about victims once they leave the NRM. The fact that such information is not properly recorded leaves hugely vulnerable individuals at risk of being re-trafficked. No knowledge is kept of their whereabouts, which is simply not good enough.

I also wish to mention the gendered nature of modern slavery. I understand that the law on prostitution could not be addressed in the review as it fell outside its remit, but I am pleased that that work will now be carried out, together with colleagues in the all-party group on prostitution and the global sex trade, for which my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) has done such brilliant work. Although the issue was not addressed in the review, many who gave evidence stated that because—unlike other countries in Europe—England, Wales and Scotland do not having a sex buyer law, they could be more of a target for traffickers. The sex buyer law on prostitution decriminalises all those who are prostituted. During my time as an MP I have met countless women involved in prostitution, and I have heard their harrowing stories of exploitative relationships and the dangerous situations they have been put in. We must ensure that England, Wales and Scotland are not easy targets for traffickers because they do not have a sex buyer law.

The UK Government can say warm words, and repeat the same lines about what they are doing to help victims and protect them from modern slavery or being re-trafficked. However, unless our police force and support services are properly resourced to undertake that mammoth task, those desperately needed changes will not come about.

[Mrs Miller]

The hon. Lady set out the issues around the law on prostitution in the UK, and she made a clear case for why a sex buyers law has helped to reduce sexual exploitation in other nearby countries, leaving the UK with quite different laws. Will those on the Labour Front Bench support a change to the law in that area?

[Carolyn Harris]

I will answer by saying simply that it is a work in progress.

In 2015 there were 17,000 fewer police officers in England and Wales than there were in 2010, and regardless of the way that is spun, it will have an impact on helping victims of modern slavery. We can get closer to eradicating this heinous crime if there is a properly resourced, co-ordinated approach by companies, politicians and other supporting bodies, who commit to meeting the expectations of the Modern Slavery Act 2015. There is a huge opportunity to be world leaders in removing this horror from our society, but there must be more enforcement and it must be properly resourced. The consensus we have heard today should, and I hope will, motivate the Government to implement the recommendations as soon as possible. Again, I thank everyone who was involved with this remarkable and insightful piece of work.

International Women’s Day

Maria Miller Excerpts

Thursday 7th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered International Women’s Day.

It is a great pleasure to see you in the Chair for this debate, Madam Deputy Speaker, and a great pleasure to lead this debate. I was the 265th woman ever to be elected to this place—I think many of us memorise our number because it is important—and I am proud to be the first ever Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, which was made permanent by this Government. I pay tribute to the members of that Committee who are present here today, those who have been members in the past and those who have served on our Committee’s staff. We will continue to work to keep the issues that affect women right at the top of the political agenda. May I also, on behalf of the whole House, thank the Backbench Business Committee for allocating time on the Floor of the House, demonstrating the importance of this debate?

In this relatively short debate we have the opportunity to celebrate, reflect on and contemplate the lives of women under this year’s theme of forging a more gender-balanced world. There is much to celebrate and we should not be shy in doing so. One hundred years ago, Nancy Astor was the first woman to take her seat in this House of Commons. I am proud that she was, like me, a Conservative woman, and that she was not afraid to speak out. She very much serves as a reminder to us all of our obligations to speak truth to power, even if that sometimes does not make us very popular. One hundred years on, we have our second female Prime Minister, tackling the most difficult political issues that this country has seen in our political lifetime—again, following in that tradition of Conservative women speaking truth to powerful EU leaders on our behalf.

There are record numbers of women in work in this country, and that economic empowerment of women is the pathway to equality. The UK has some of the best anti-discrimination laws in the world and a gender pay gap that, for women under 30, has all but evaporated. This Government have shown that they understand the challenges faced by women who have children and want to return to work, with their returnships programme. The expansion of apprenticeships has also helped women positively to progress in their careers, and there are programmes that give women access to complete degree-level qualifications, including my constituent Karen Russell, who works for Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. After 14 years as a healthcare assistant, Karen has been supported to develop and complete her degree qualification while working part time and looking after her family, and she is now a staff nurse in our hospital emergency department. This is the support that women need so that they can be economically independent in the future.

[Eddie Hughes (Walsall North) (Con)]

I have a vested interest in making this intervention. My daughter is doing legal exams today, and 68% of women accepted as law undergraduates this year were women. That bodes very well for the future of the legal profession.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Miller]

I thank my hon. Friend and fellow member of the Select Committee for raising that point. I am married to a lawyer who works for the firm Kingsley Napley, where more than 50% of the partners are women. However, I urge my hon. Friend to look at some of the other law firms in the City of London that do not have the same proportion of women at the top, and to encourage his daughter to look for those good employers so that she, too, can progress right the way through to the top.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

Could the right hon. Lady tell us what progress has been made regarding the pay gap between women and men?

[Mrs Miller]

The hon. Gentleman raises a really important point. I think that the biggest amount of progress has been in the Government making companies publish their gender pay gap; for the first time ever, the pay gap has become an issue that is on the agenda of businesses throughout the country. However, in answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question, there has not been nearly enough progress. Although the gender pay gap has all but evaporated for women under 30, for older women it is alive and well, and we need to resolve it. I will come to that issue later in my speech.

Like my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North (Eddie Hughes), I believe in equality of opportunity. We need to continue to look for ways of ensuring equality of opportunity for women in our communities. As women we are resilient, but we are so resilient that we sometimes need to stop and appreciate the blatant discrimination that still pervades our lives every single day, and which still denies some women the level playing field of opportunity. Too many women’s confidence is sapped—their career even destroyed—by bullying and sexual harassment at work. Forty per cent. of women in this country, and millions more around the world, suffer sexual harassment.

That issue was well highlighted this week by the day of action that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) and I hosted, when women from across the country, supported by CARE International, came into Parliament to lobby Members of Parliament to support the new International Labour Organisation global convention, which will outlaw sexual harassment and abuse at work in every country in the world, if it gets the support of their Governments.

Discrimination is still blatant because so much of the enforcement of the laws that we have passed in the UK is not working as we would want it to. In the Government’s new good workplace report, they set out the importance of enforcement of workplace rights, and they are right to do so. However, I urge the Minister for Women also to look at the enforcement of anti-discrimination laws and the laws that pertain to health and safety, as well as others that are being looked at as part of the good workplace report. Legislation puts enforcement powers for those anti-discrimination laws into the hands of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, but if it is not exercising those powers, we should give them to somebody who does. No one should be prepared to stand by and watch more than 50,000 women a year leave their jobs simply because they are pregnant, even though we already have laws in place to prohibit that.

One in eight women in this country want to start their own business, often as a way to create their own business culture, yet they find that just 9% of funding for start-ups goes to women, despite women-led businesses delivering double the returns on investment for financial backers. When a woman looks to Parliament to fix the problem, she might see a very strong Prime Minister admired for her resilience, but on these green Benches—well, perhaps not today, but usually—she will see that just one in three MPs are women. As I have said, the most important way to build in a resilient equality between men and women is through women’s economic empowerment—women’s full participation in work, including here.

The truth is that many of the barriers in women’s workplaces, including those that remain here, are in need of reform. With regard to the laws that we are so proud of having passed in this place, the reality is that a lack of enforcement on the ground often makes them worse than useless for many women. Most women do not work in the City of London, in large accountancy or law firms or in City institutions that may have modernised their approaches. Our constituents face a very different workplace, often still stuck in the ’70s, with presenteeism, a long hours culture, a lack of flexible working, employers who routinely use non-disclosure agreements to cover up discrimination, and management who look down on dads who want to take parental leave to share in the care of the newest members of their family.

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

I know that the right hon. Lady’s Committee has been doing a lot of work on non-disclosure agreements and she has very much led the charge on that. It is a very complex legal issue, but does she agree that a starting point could well be to compel companies legislatively to publish the number of NDAs that they use, the reason that they use them, and how many they use each year?

[Mrs Miller]

The hon. Lady brings up a very important possible solution, which our Committee will certainly look at. We have been struck by how many companies and organisations do not use NDAs at all, particularly the Government. Some people have said that the reason the Government—or the civil service—do not use them any more is the oversight of Ministers and the media, so, as she says, transparency may well be a way forward.

We have to shake free from the notion that a modern workplace will cost too much to deliver and be too much of a burden on business, because the fact that millennial dads tell us that they would rather downgrade their jobs than take a promotion or a pay rise because they cannot balance their family and work commitments indicates that productivity is really under threat. With more than 1 million economically inactive mums not working because there are not the jobs that allow them to look after their kids and work as well, we have a real problem to tackle. As labour becomes in shorter supply after we leave the EU, it is a problem that we cannot afford to continue to sweep under the carpet. We need modernisation and reform.

That message of modernisation is for this place, too. One of the very first reports by the Women and Equalities Committee was on women in the House of Commons. I was struck by the plans that all political parties have in place to address the under- representation of women in Parliament. The proof of the pudding will obviously be at the next election as to how many get elected. There is no way of disguising the real appetite for change among the parties, but can we identify the same appetite for change with regard to Parliament itself? Can we be so sure, when the political parties are recruiting a new generation of female MPs, that they will be arriving in a place that they want to stay in, or will it still look as though it is in a time warp?

Very good work has been done by Professor Sarah Childs, thanks to Mr Speaker’s significant commitment to modernising this place. He put his money where his mouth is and commissioned her to produce a report in which she painted a picture of what a good Parliament looks like. Some of those measures have been taken up—in particular, proxy voting for parents with new children. I note that Madam Deputy Speaker was in the Chair when that change to Standing Orders went through; we thank her for her support. We do not now routinely sit through the night, and there are some rudimentary family facilities in Parliament. The crèche is important. However, what someone whose children are beyond crèche age needs as a parent is certainty about what they are doing day by day, so that they can plan what they might be doing on a particular day. That certainty is wholly lacking in this place, as evidenced by this debate, which should have started about two hours ago. We need to do more to make sure that parents, whether they are commuters or need to get back to their constituencies to look after their children, have certainty as to when we will be sitting here. I can see one or two hon. Members nodding vigorously at these comments.

[Hannah Bardell]

Does the right hon. Lady agree that implementing a process such as the Scottish Parliament’s set decision time, together with electronic voting, which would seriously reduce the amount of time that we waste in this place, would be two very positive steps forward?

[Mrs Miller]

The hon. Lady is probably pressing me a bit too far on electronic voting, but I definitely think that the Scottish Parliament has a very sensible way of organising its day. People know that voting will take place at a particular time, so they do not lose that opportunity to get together, to see each other and to have all the important conversations that they need to have as a body of people, but they do it at a regular time during the day. We can stay here until 1 o’clock in the morning debating all we like, but it should not be at the expense of people’s family life. One colleague has told me about the real problems of not being able to get home at night for her teenage children. We are neglecting this at our peril, because such good women will vote with their feet and not necessarily stand for re-election at the next election.

This is partly why the Women and Equalities Committee has decided to set up a Sub-Committee to scrutinise the implementation of a recent report, “UK Gender-Sensitive Parliament Audit 2018”, published by a group of MPs including my hon. Friends the Members for North East Hampshire (Mr Jayawardena) and for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford), the hon. Member for Luton South (Mr Shuker) and the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss), as well as Members in the other place. The report looks at how we could make the House of Commons a better place to be a female MP.

[Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is making some very powerful arguments on the way that this place could change to make it a better place for female MPs and mothers, but does she agree that such changes would be good for fathers as well? I have had quite a few conversations with dads with young children about how difficult they find some of Parliament’s practices and hours.

[Mrs Miller]

My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point. Many of our colleagues have young children and have partners who are working; they have the same pressures on them as their constituents.

A gender-sensitive Parliament would be good for everybody. We have lacked to date a process and procedure to take these really good ideas and make change in this place. Change is glacially slow, and we have to change that and make these things happen. The Sub-Committee has not yet formed and met, but it will look at the strong recommendations made by the “UK Gender-Sensitive Parliament Audit”, which include increasing the predictability of parliamentary business, reforming the sitting hours, eliminating bullying and harassment, and implementing the new behaviour code and grievance procedures—the list goes on. I hope that Members will agree with what I hope will be a change to the Standing Orders, so that our Committee can scrutinise what not only the Government but Parliament are doing on these issues.

As a House of Commons, we have not grasped this issue in the way we need to and in the way that most modern Parliaments have. I am immensely proud to be a Member of Parliament and to be the first ever woman to represent my constituency. Indeed, I am still the only woman to ever represent a constituency in north Hampshire, although we have quite a few incredibly powerful women elsewhere in Hampshire, one of whom was just sitting on the Front Bench. It is our responsibility to ensure that the women who follow us have more opportunity and economic empowerment and that our daughters—wherever they live, and whatever their race or religion—have the same opportunity as our sons.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Miller]

I thank all Members who have taken part in this excellent debate. It is right that we remember Nancy Astor—an extraordinary woman who had the courage to be the first woman to sit on these green Benches. The unacceptable abuse that too many women parliamentarians face today means that courage is a necessity for all of us who are elected to public life. To women around the country, whether they are councillors, mayors, police commissioners or Members of Parliament, I say, “Courage calls to courage everywhere”, and happy International Women’s Day tomorrow, which is also my youngest son’s 17th birthday.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered International Women’s Day.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I have to inform the House of corrections to the results of some of yesterday’s deferred Divisions. In each case, there was one power Aye vote than previously announced. On the motion relating to electricity, the Ayes were 301 and the Noes were 44; on the motion relating to gas, the Ayes were 299 and the Noes were 44; on the motion relating to food, the Ayes were 302 and the Noes were 44; on the motion relating to electronic communications, the Ayes were 300 and the Noes were 257; and on the motion relating to road traffic, the Ayes were 300 and the Noes were 251.

Oral Answers to Questions

Maria Miller Excerpts

Monday 21st January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes]

The EU settlement scheme is a really crucial part of making sure that the 3.4 million EU citizens living here can absolutely evidence their right to stay here through a digital status in line with 21st-century requirements. The hon. Lady will have heard my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary talk in positive terms about how important this scheme is. We have now opened the final phase of testing before the whole scheme goes live at the end of March.

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

The Government are right to be working hard to secure a Brexit deal, but if no deal is reached, can my right hon. Friend reassure EU citizens living in our county of Hampshire and elsewhere in the UK that their rights will still be guaranteed? This is important and it needs to be clear, not just to citizens but to businesses as well.

[Caroline Nokes]

Picking up on the final part of my right hon. Friend’s question, last summer we launched the employer toolkit to enable employers best to communicate to their employees the settled status scheme. She is right to point out the concerns that many may have about the event of no deal. I would like to reassure her that across Government we are working incredibly hard to avoid a no-deal outcome. However, the Department for Exiting the European Union was very clear about the protections afforded to EU citizens in the event of no deal, and we believe that our offer to them is generous. Deal or no deal, the scheme will open publicly at the end of March, and it is crucial that as many citizens as possible apply.

Oral Answers to Questions

Maria Miller Excerpts

Monday 29th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I thank the hon. Lady for chairing the Environmental Audit Committee’s inquiry into this important subject. It was a pleasure to appear before the inquiry some weeks ago. She is absolutely right: these criminals do not restrict themselves to exploiting human beings, but break every rule going. That is why we are leading a cross-governmental approach, having regard to environmental offences as well as offences of labour exploitation, such as failing to pay the minimum wage. We want the message to go out to these criminals loud and clear that we will not tolerate modern slavery, whatever form it takes.

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

Many businesses want to show more clearly how they are trying to tackle modern slavery in their supply chains, as some need to in law. Will the Minister’s modern slavery team talk to her equalities team and learn some lessons on how we are showing gender pay gap reporting, which is making that information more readily available?

[Victoria Atkins]

I thank my right hon. Friend for the important work that she is doing on the review of the Modern Slavery Act 2015, along with the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field) and Baroness Butler-Sloss. I hope that the review will help us to tackle the problem that some—although not all—businesses have with meeting their duty under the Act to report that their supply chains are slavery-free. We have started that work already: last week, in celebration of Anti-Slavery Day, we wrote to 17,000 businesses across the country setting out our expectation of their compliance with the law.

Gender Pay Gap

Maria Miller Excerpts

Wednesday 18th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I assure the right hon. and learned Lady that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is taking a very keen interest in this urgent question and the issue. I welcome her ingenuity of thought. Watch this space.

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

The Government’s action means that large companies cannot hide their gender pay gap any more. We should commend the Government on that. That action means that we have transparency of information, and I believe that that transparency will create a momentum for change. If we are to make that momentum as fast as it can be, will my hon. Friend the Minister outline for the House the work that the Government will do to review some of the causes of the gender pay gap, particularly the discrimination that pregnant women still endure in the workplace? What work will the Government do to make sure that pregnancy discrimination is outlawed in this country in the same way that the Minister is trying to outlaw the gender pay gap?

[Victoria Atkins]

I am extremely grateful to my right hon. Friend for that question; I am always grateful for her thoughts and suggestions on this issue and the other subjects that her Select Committee examines. I completely endorse what she said about pregnancy discrimination: discrimination on the grounds of pregnancy is unlawful and wrong. Anyone who suffers from that form of discrimination has the support of the law. My right hon. Friend and other colleagues have raised the issue of the three-month time limit. Tribunals have the power to extend that time limit if they feel it is just and equitable to do so, but I am very conscious of the issues that colleagues have raised in relation to the time limit and am looking into it.

UK Passport Contract

Maria Miller Excerpts

Monday 26th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes]

Seeking to protect British jobs in the way in which the hon. Lady outlines would be protectionist. I want British companies to be able to bid on a global stage for all sorts of contracts, and to be able to compete fairly throughout the world.

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is right to call for a fair and open competition on a level playing field, but is she confident that there will be a level playing field, given that 26% of Gemalto is owned by the French Government? Is she confident that Gemalto’s bid, which was significantly lower than others, is sustainable in the long term?

[Caroline Nokes]

As my right hon. Friend might expect, there has been close scrutiny of all the bids received—that has included a significant amount of financial due diligence—to ensure that the bidders can deliver on this contract, and deliver in a way that provides a British passport with the most up-to-date and important security features to be found in any travel document anywhere in the world.

Vote 100 and International Women’s Day

Maria Miller Excerpts

Thursday 8th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. It is bad not just for the economics of the individual woman and the individual family, but for the country as a whole. As she says, if we can raise pay in a fair way, it would be good for the economy of the country. That is why we have introduced world leading legislation requiring organisations with more than 250 employees to publish their gender pay gap by the end of the tax year. I want businesses to have their pay gap laid bare and then do something about it.

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

On that point, my right hon. Friend will have read in the press some speculation that organisations may be flouting the gender pay gap reporting regulations that the Government have rightly brought in. Can she outline to the House what action the Government will take to ensure that businesses take this requirement very seriously indeed?

[Amber Rudd]

I thank my right hon. Friend, who has done such important work in this area. She will know that it was a manifesto commitment to bring this requirement forward. It is the law, and we will make sure that companies stick to it, abide by it, deliver on it and then, hopefully, make changes on it.

Equality is not just about getting women the same pay as men, but about getting women the same jobs as men. I have lost track of the number of meetings that I have sat in where I am the only woman at the table— I expect that I am not the only one to have found that. Women are still under-represented in a whole range of fields from politics to business, and we are particularly under-represented at the top.

We have made good progress since 2010, and have eliminated all-male boards in the FTSE 100, but only a quarter of directors in the FTSE 350 and only 4% of FTSE 350 chief executive officers are women. That is simply not good enough, and it is bad economics, too. We know that organisations with the highest levels of gender diversity in their leadership teams are 15% more likely to outperform their industry rivals, so we must think long and hard about what we need to do to improve those statistics.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

This is the first time in many years that the International Women’s Day debate has been held in Government time. I thank those on the Front Bench who made that happen—we know who they are—and hope that this is a trend for the future as well.

Today is a very special day indeed: International Women’s Day in the year that we celebrate 100 years since women first won not only the right to vote, but the right to stand for election to this place. It has also been, for a long time, a day of celebration in my household, because today is my youngest son James’s 16th birthday. I think there might be other Members on the Front Bench who also have children who were born on International Women’s Day. This is a day when men and women can and should come together to celebrate, whether it is for their children or for other reasons.

Equality affects us all, and persistent inequality disadvantages us all. That is why, in the work of the Women and Equalities Committee, we look at all strands of equality. We have a particular interest in women’s equality, but we are not frightened to look at the issues that face men too. Our latest inquiry has been into dads in the workplace. I thank all my colleagues who are here today—the hon. Members for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) and for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips), and others who serve on the Committee—for their dedication to the work of the inquiry. We will be publishing the final report in the next two weeks.

The Government have, as outlined by the Minister, shown their huge commitment to gender equality in this country, but also abroad. Today’s announcement on the proposed tough new laws on domestic abuse indicates that that commitment is showing no sign of diminishing. The Government’s record needs to be put on record, because it is so striking: the criminalisation of forced marriage, two new stalking laws, the roll-out of domestic violence protection orders, new offences on domestic abuse relating to coercive control, shared parental leave, equal marriage, making revenge pornography a crime, and making sex and relationship education compulsory for all children. All those things show that this Government understand the very wide nature of the policies that they need to put in place to address equality issues for women.

Today’s theme is about pressing for change. The role of the Women and Equalities Committee, which I chair, is to make sure that we continue to hold the Government’s feet to the fire, not just on their existing legislative work but on that for the future. I will talk about three areas of our work in the Committee that I gently suggest require further work in future. Maternity discrimination, despite some of the strongest laws and a clear determination by the Government to outlaw it, continues to blight the lives of too many women. The use of non-disclosure agreements in many of the arrangements that are put forward to encourage women to leave the workplace means that it is difficult for us to see the full scale of the problem. That is why the Committee will be looking carefully at how we should reform non-disclosure agreements for issues not just like sexual harassment, but maternity discrimination as well.

Another area that I am sure the Committee will want to continue to scrutinise is the role of women in this place. We produced a very important report shortly before the last general election calling for the implementation of aspects of the Equality Act to make it transparent how many women are standing for election at various points in the parliamentary calendar. It was disappointing that the Government did not agree to go forward with the part of the Act that would require all political parties to be transparent about the data on their gender split of candidates at that time. I hope that I can encourage those on the Front Bench to continue to look at how we might be able to use that legislation to throw transparency on to this issue.

As our previous leader David Cameron said, sunlight is the best disinfectant, and that is still the case today, particularly when it comes to the work of parties in the selection of their candidates. While there may be more women sitting on the Labour Benches today than on the Conservative Benches, I am sure they would agree that the selection procedure can stand in the way of women coming into this place. We need to ensure there is transparency of the data.

[Dame Cheryl Gillan]

I praise the work that my right hon. Friend does as Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee. I loved the list she gave of what we have done in government; that is an important message, because both parties have something to contribute. Does she agree that we must put forward a very positive view of women’s role in this House? The most important thing is to encourage young women to look at being an MP as a potential career. If we are always complaining and pointing out the downsides of this job, that will not be very encouraging. I encourage her Committee to look at those positives, so that young women know that this could be a job for them, and that it is one of the most fantastic jobs they could ever do.

[Mrs Miller]

My right hon. Friend makes an excellent point. The best thing that we are doing at the moment to encourage young women to be interested in politics is having a female Prime Minister. It was when I saw Margaret Thatcher become leader of the party and then Prime Minister of our country that politics became relevant for me. It turned politics from, frankly, a lot of old men in grey raincoats to something technicolour and relevant to me as a 14-year-old girl living in south Wales, where there were not too many Tories around. I could see an amazing role model on the television who was not only a fantastic female politician but was turning our country round from the crisis of the ’70s, when we were—

[Dame Cheryl Gillan]

The sick man of Europe.

[Mrs Miller]

Indeed.

[Seema Malhotra]

Does the right hon. Lady agree with me about the value of teachers and the role they can play in encouraging young girls to come forward? I want to tell a slightly different story that I have not often shared. One of the reasons I got involved in politics was that, for our homework one day at school, we were asked to go and work ourselves up about something, and I managed to work myself up about Margaret Thatcher. I can honestly say that the rest is history.

I want to acknowledge the work done by teachers in my schools, such as Cranford school, which has started Cranford Parliament and will be holding International Women’s Day events today and tomorrow. Those initiatives have an impact by making people feel involved in political debate and are important in connecting Parliament with education.

[Mrs Miller]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. Inspiring people to get involved in politics is such an important part of our job.

I want to talk about inspiring women. I might have been the first woman to be elected to Parliament in North Hampshire, but I am now joined by five other female Conservative Members of Parliament in Hampshire, including my hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh (Mims Davies). Where one woman treads, others will follow. I am very proud indeed that 60% of my borough councillors in Basingstoke are female, led by the incredibly impressive Councillor Terri Reid. It is important to recognise that as Members of Parliament, we can inspire others to become involved in politics through our work.

[Luke Graham (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Con)]

On that point about inspiring women, does my right hon. Friend agree that it is important that as Members of Parliament, we get into our schools to speak to young women and show them that being an MP is exactly the sort of job they should be aspiring to do, as is being the leader of a company? As a male MP with two female bosses, I know that women are at least as good at this job and probably better. Does she agree that a woman’s place is not, as some old-fashioned people might say, in the kitchen, but on the Front Bench?

[Mrs Miller]

What we are trying to say is that a woman’s place is in the House, which is a similar thing. I thank my hon. Friend for his contribution. He is absolutely right that we need to recognise the importance of encouraging more young women into politics.

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

It is important that we in this House take responsibility for inspiring other women, including our daughters, but we should also remember on this day that many of us owe our inspiration to our mothers, our grandmothers and important women in our lives. My own grandmother did not have the right to vote when she was born. I wear her wedding ring to this Chamber every day, and occasionally it serves as a reminder of what we owe to generations past.

[Mrs Miller]

The hon. Lady makes such a poignant point, and I am sure all of us will reflect on the role of women in our own families in getting us here today.

There are other women in our communities whom we need to celebrate. We are incredibly privileged in Hampshire to have one of only four female chief constables in the country, Olivia Pinkney, who is doing an incredible job of running one of the largest police forces in the country. The chief executive of my local hospital in Basingstoke, Alex Whitfield, succeeded another female chief executive, to make sure we have some of the best health services in the area.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

The right hon. Lady is right to point out the need to have more women in senior policing positions and to encourage more women police officers to rise up through the ranks. Will she join me in paying tribute to the woman Met Commissioner, the woman head of the National Police Chiefs’ Council and the woman head of the National Crime Agency? To have Cressida Dick, Sara Thornton and Lynne Owens all in those top positions is a huge tribute to them and the work they have done to rise through the profession.

[Mrs Miller]

Coupled with a female Home Secretary, they make a formidable team.

I also want to point out the role of women in business. I represent one of the top 10 centres of business in the south-east, and it is local businesswomen in smaller businesses who I find incredibly inspiring—people like Beryl Huntingdon in my constituency, who runs a business to support other businesses. When I look at my local charities, I see it is often women who are not just helping to run existing charities—people like Evelyn Vincent, who was a founder member of Headway Basingstoke—but setting up new charities. I think of women like Charlie Porter, who set up the Muffin’s Dream Foundation to support families with disabled children, Catherine Waters-Clark, who founded Inspero to help children understand where their food comes from and how they can cook it, and Mary Swan, who is the artistic director of my local producing theatre company.

It does not stop there. If it was not for the women, I do not know what the Church of England would be doing. It is people like Jo Stoker of St Michael’s Church who keep our churches running. We were talking earlier about football teams. Basingstoke Town ladies football team plays in the FA women’s premier league south-west division, and I am hugely proud of the fact that they are doing extremely well—in fact, better than the men’s team.

[Dame Cheryl Gillan]

May I add to my right hon. Friend’s list someone I am going to see tomorrow in my own constituency? Sally Preston runs a company called Kiddylicious, which she has started from scratch. It is producing fantastically healthy children’s food and is now a multimillion-pound international business.

[Mrs Miller]

By recognising women who are doing things in other roles and walks of life, we can help to ensure that young women in our schools realise that the only thing that limits them in this world is their imagination and the support they get from their families and their schools to realise their ambitions.

In talking about women in my constituency, I could not fail to refer to the most famous daughter of Basingstoke, Jane Austen. Until very recently, almost nobody in Basingstoke knew that she was born and bred in our borough—the most famous novelist in the world, and we had failed to recognise her. I do not know whether that was because she was a woman, or maybe it was just that people did not like reading her books—I love them, but some people do not; it is an acquired taste. When we commemorated the 200th anniversary of her death, I was immensely proud to be part of a programme to make sure she was better remembered, which culminated in the first ever sculpture of her being put in place in the centre of my town. I would like to put on record my immense thanks to the sculptor, Adam Roud, and Amanda Aldous MBE, who made that project possible. I want to celebrate women now, but also the women who have made my town a great place to live.

Women in Basingstoke are no different from those in the rest of the country—there is prodigious talent—so why are women still paid less than men? In my constituency, women are paid 25% less than men, and we are in the bottom 4% in the UK. Despite the fact that there is no difference in the levels of education of men and women in my constituency, women are consistently being paid 25% less than men, because they cannot find the sorts of jobs they need to use their experience and talent.

Organisations are working hard to try to reverse this worrying trend of our not using the skills of our people in the way we should. The local borough council has focused on this, and it now has a positive gender pay gap of 2.16%. Of local employers, AWE has a programme to increase female apprentices and clear targets for increasing female management, and Fujitsu has a programme to attract female apprentices. Companies are waking up and realising that they are not using female talent in the way they should.

I very much support the Government’s work on gender pay gap reporting. Such reporting provides the sort of transparency that companies in my constituency need if they are to focus more on this problem. There are about 900 businesses in Basingstoke with more than 250 employees, and I will be looking very closely at gender pay gap reporting to ensure that we capitalise on the skills and talents of women that are otherwise lost to the economy.

I particularly want Ministers to reflect on the availability of flexible working. I was very pleased that the Prime Minister has pointed out the need for flexible working right at the start of somebody’s time in employment. Research by Timewise has shown that at the moment just 6% of job vacancies pay the annualised equivalent of £20,000 a year or more, leaving many women with no option but to take low-paid jobs—often poorly paid jobs with little progression—if they need the flexibility that many require to balance work and family life. I hope that the Prime Minister’s announcement on flexible working last year will be just the start of a much broader set of work that the Government will do to make flexible working a reality from day one for everybody in this country.

As was asked earlier, is this a turning point and a landmark year? I am sure that people at the time of the first and second world wars and in the 1960s and 1970s, when so much of the legislation we enjoy today was put in place, felt that those were landmark years. The reason why we may do better in calling this a landmark year, following all the revelations of sexual harassment in Hollywood and Westminster, is that we have record numbers of women in work, and economic empowerment is such an important part of cementing the changed attitudes that we are all looking for in the debate today.

I hope that the establishment of the Women and Equalities Committee has helped to keep equality issues, particularly those that relate to women, at the top of the agenda, and that it has added to the momentum for change. We started our series of sexual harassment reports in 2016 with one on the sexual harassment of schoolgirls. At the time, I was told that we were expecting children to accept something that had been outlawed in the workplace, but how wrong we were about that. Sexual harassment blights the lives of 50% of women in this country, and we must tackle it. I am pleased that the Select Committee is doing two reports on it at the moment: on sexual harassment in the public realm, and on sexual harassment at work.

There really is more that unites us than divides us when it comes to issues of women. I think that the women—and the men—sitting in the House and taking part in this debate today can make sure that if we work together, this turning point does create the lasting change we want.

--- Later in debate ---

[Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)]

It is a huge privilege to follow the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips), whom I served with on the Women and Equalities Committee. People say, “Do we still need an International Women’s Day?”, and I think that her speech sets out exactly the reasons why we do.

It is a huge honour to speak on International Women’s Day, which is a huge opportunity for us all to share in the achievements, particularly in this anniversary year of suffrage. One hundred years ago, some women were first given the vote, but this is also an opportunity to set out our ambitions for the next 10 years, as we come to celebrate the centenary of all women getting the vote, and for the next 100 years, so that the women who will be sitting in this place then can look back and list what our generation has achieved for women. I take the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Justine Greening): it is important to get on with that, so that they have a long list of achievements to read out in the years to come.

There is still so much to do in this country. We have heard many hon. and right hon. Members set out the issues that women in this country still face around equal pay and the gender pay gap. We just heard the list of names of women who have died by domestic violence. We still have to get 50:50 representation in Parliament, and we also have the ongoing issue of sexual harassment.

Women across the world still face burning injustices. Women in this world are still living in absolute poverty. Women experience rape as a weapon of war on a daily basis. Women still cannot access education, even just to learn to read and write, and as a result, it is not just them but their families who suffer. Women are still being used as sex slaves and trafficked across the world. There is also the issue of female feticide—female babies are valued less than male babies and are often dumped, abandoned or even murdered in some parts of the world because men and male children are valued so much more. We have a huge amount of work to do.

In this anniversary year, to tackle the issue of getting more women into this place, Conservative Members of Parliament have set up a series of “Her Stories,” where we highlight our personal history and how we got into this place. In my new role, when I ask women, “Why don’t you stand for Parliament, for local government, for your local assembly or as a police and crime commissioner?” one of the most common comments I hear is that they do not think that they have what it takes to make a difference. Highlighting our individual stories shows that we have such a diverse mix of people in this place from all parties—people have done different jobs, come from different backgrounds and are of different classes or faiths—and we all have a right to be here.

Listening to the individual personal stories of how women got into this place will hopefully encourage other women out there to think, “Yes, I can do that.” I say this to women: “If you are coming here because you want to be the third female Prime Minister of this country, you are probably coming here for the wrong reason. If you are coming here because you care passionately about an issue and you will not stop until you have achieved your aim, you are exactly the right person to come here, regardless of your background or experience.”

[Mrs Miller]

I want put on record the extraordinary work that my hon. Friend does, the experience as a former nurse that she brought to the Women and Equalities Committee, and the experience that she brings to the House as a whole, which provides an example for us all. She is absolutely right to highlight the importance of those stories in inspiring other women to come here.

[Maria Caulfield]

I thank my right hon. Friend for her kind comments. She herself is an absolute inspiration to women throughout the House as a result of the work that she has done as the first Chairwoman of that Select Committee in not only highlighting issues that are important to women, but pushing those issues.

I want to reflect on my personal and family story. The hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine) mentioned her grandmother. A hundred years ago, my own grandmother did not have the right to vote. My family were Irish Catholics, and it was not until 1922 that women in southern Ireland—and men—were given the vote. In Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom, many Catholic women and men could not vote in local elections until the Electoral Law Amendment Act 1968 came into force, mainly because the Irish Catholic community were neither home owners nor ratepayers and were therefore disqualified. I welcome our celebration of what happened 100 years ago, and I shall welcome our celebration in 10 years’ time, but I think it was a travesty that there were women in the United Kingdom who could not vote simply because of the community from which they came.

In the next generation of the family is my aunt, who came over from Ireland to work in this country. She actually worked in this place—in the dining rooms, serving Members of both this House and the other place. She has many a tale to tell about her time working here, although you will pleased to know, Madam Deputy Speaker, that I will not reveal any of them today. One of her abiding memories is of being able to pay tribute to Winston Churchill when he was lying in state. I am honoured to follow in her footsteps by also working in this place, although in a different role.

We all have family stories to tell that would make a difference, and we should be loud and proud about our history. It concerns me, however, that although we are achieving equality for women, we are not achieving it for all women, in this country or in the world. It is important that when we fight for equality for women, we do so for all women, and those in the most vulnerable communities often need our help the most.

I am also slightly nervous about the discord in this country that makes some women more equal than others, and gives some a greater right than others to speak out on women’s issues. We are a broad church of women in this place, and within our own political parties there is a broad church of women who have come here with different experiences and values, and different issues on which they want to campaign. My message is that there is no right or wrong issue on which to campaign. We all have different views about the NHS, education and the economy, and we all have a right to express those views. It is important for us, as a group of sisters, to respect each other’s views: we may debate them and, perhaps, argue against them, but we must respect the fact that we all have the right to express them.

Let me pursue that point by highlighting the person from whom I take inspiration on the political scene. You would of course, Madam Deputy Speaker, expect Margaret Thatcher to be one of my political heroines. I grew up in a working-class area of south London where there was little or no aspiration for a working-class kid like me, but on television I saw a woman who—although she had a posh accent, often wore a string of pearls, and carried a handbag at all times—told me from that television screen that it did not matter where I came from; it was what I wanted to do and how hard I was prepared to work for it that was going to make the difference.

You would expect Florence Nightingale to be high on my heroine list, Madam Deputy Speaker. As a nurse I worked at St Thomas’ hospital, and did courses at the Nightingale training school. She transformed not just nursing but healthcare in this country. You would also expect Marie Curie to be high on the list, Madam Deputy Speaker. As someone who worked in cancer care, I know that she put her life on the line to increase scientific advances and make a difference to cancer treatment. My greatest respect, however, goes to someone in a political sphere very different from mine. She sat on the Opposition Benches, but she is my absolute political heroine. She has, I believe, been underrated and underestimated in the history of women in politics.

We often talk about Northern Ireland nowadays. We talk about issues related to Brexit and a frictionless border; about the lack of an Executive and the lack of an Assembly; and about the Good Friday agreement. We highlight the work of John Major, Tony Blair and George Mitchell, but we have airbrushed the work of Mo Mowlam. I think that if she were still here, we would completely disagree on issues of health, education and economics, but I hold her absolutely in respect for the work that she did in bringing the nationalist and Protestant communities together in one room. At a time when there was not a female leader of the Democratic Unionist party or a female leader of Sinn Féin, she was in a room full of men and had to knock heads together. She was a straight-talking woman, she was a feisty and funny woman, and she got things done that other people could not do. She was the first female Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, and I think that her efforts should be recognised.

I absolutely take on board the advice that we should never meet our heroes in life because we will only be disappointed, but I had an opportunity to meet Mo Mowlam when I was working as a nurse in Brighton and she was giving a talk at Sussex University. I had never been to the university before, and I did not really “do” political talks. I was not into politics; I just voted in elections. I went to see Mo Mowlam and hear her talk because I was so inspired by the work that she was doing for the Irish Catholic community in Northern Ireland and, indeed, for all communities by bringing them together. Her talk was funny and witty, and she was everything that I had expected her to be. I went up to her and asked her to sign a copy of her autobiography for my other half, who was working overseas at the time. She refused to do it. She said, “I am not going to sign a book and dedicate it to him if he could not make the effort to be here. I will sign it to you, as a woman—and you must keep up the good work of being interested in becoming politically aware.”

I think that Mo Mowlam was one of the great politicians of our time. She was a fantastic woman, and we must remember her and all the work that she did. She was a woman you could do business with, whichever side of the political divide you came from.

This is a an opportunity and a time for us to recognise that equality is not about everyone being the same. We can have differences and still strive together for equality for all. Calling someone less of a sister because she is on a different side of the argument does not really promote our cause of achieving equality for all women. We have fought so hard to get freedom for women, and we have fought so hard to get freedom of speech and freedom to vote, but we still have so much more to do. So let us celebrate our differences and embrace them. One of my favourite sayings from Mo Mowlam was, “You are never terrified when you say what you mean,” which is something to which I still aspire. With that in mind, let us celebrate today. Let us remember the women who have made this country great, and let us work together to tackle the issues that still exist.