Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Maria Miller and Penny Mordaunt

Thursday 11th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

3. What steps she is taking to tackle inequalities through the new Equalities Hub.

[The Minister for Women and Equalities (Penny Mordaunt)]

The new Equalities Hub includes the Government Equalities Office, the race disparity unit and the new disability unit. Not only does it bring together the parts of Government that lead on gender, race, disability and sexual orientation, but it will use the convening power of the Cabinet Office better to leverage work across Whitehall.

[Mrs Miller]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply and for putting together for the first time ever an Equalities Hub. How will she make sure that Government Departments still see it as their responsibility to work together to deliver better equalities policies in future? In our inquiries, the Women and Equalities Committee often highlights that as a real problem.

[Penny Mordaunt]

The hub will hold those Departments to account. It will have some new tools to do that: better data and the ability to look at the multiple disadvantages that individuals face. There are also single departmental plans and other methods that the Cabinet Office has. We will make further announcements this week that will provide other means by which we can hold everyone across Government to account.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Maria Miller and Penny Mordaunt

Thursday 25th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

Department of Health guidance in Northern Ireland says that Northern Ireland doctors referring women to GEO-funded free abortions in England could be breaking the criminal law. Will the Minister publish her legal advice to enable the Department of Health to change that guidance, which surely is erroneous? Will she update the House on what she is doing to help women in Northern Ireland, such as Sarah Ewart and others, who are being required by law to continue pregnancies where doctors have already told them that their babies will die before they are born or shortly after?

[Penny Mordaunt]

May I start by thanking my right hon. Friend and the Women and Equalities Committee for an incredibly important piece of work? It not only looked at the legal and human rights issues, but got on record public opinion and the opinion of healthcare and legal professionals in Northern Ireland and showed the complete paucity of care being endured by women in Northern Ireland. With specific regard to the legal advice, I clarified in my evidence to her Committee via a letter that the legal advice that we received when the scheme was set up meant that it would not be a crime to refer to those services and that the issue that she raised in her question does not stand.

I have also met with the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price), who looks at health inequalities. She believes that she already has the powers to provide guidance to ensure that no one is deterred from referring someone to a healthcare service that they need, and where their life may be in danger if they do not receive it, because of fear that doing so might be a crime. That is completely bogus, and she has undertaken to do that immediately. However, there is obviously more to do to put right this issue—with apologies for adding to my answer, Mr Speaker—so that every citizen of the United Kingdom can have the healthcare services that they need.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Maria Miller and Penny Mordaunt

Thursday 14th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

I think the hon. Gentleman for the opportunity to discuss this issue again. He is right, and this is an issue on which Members across the House will agree. Progress has been made, including a clear increase in girls choosing those subjects, which shows that effort does pay off, but there are still too few such cases, and we must not let up in our work to encourage women to have such choices and to go forward in those professions.

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

Women who enter high-paid professions face blatant discrimination—40% experience sexual harassment, 50,000 women a year feel forced to leave their jobs because they are pregnant, and organisations such as the BBC feel that it is okay for them to break the law by paying men and women differently for the same job. Why is there no mention of enforcing antidiscrimination law in the Government’s “Good Work Plan”, which is their employment strategy? Surely that should be at the heart of what they are doing.

[Penny Mordaunt]

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy is consulting on that matter. My right hon. Friend mentioned a list of issues, and it is important to track the impact that policies are having on women and their choices. We will produce measures and metrics to sit alongside the strategy that the Government Equalities Office will produce on women’s economic empowerment, so that we can all see how we are doing.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

I know that Ministers on the Treasury Bench wish to examine in great detail the work of the Women and Equalities Committee when we issue our reports, but could the Secretary of State perhaps explain to me why it has taken five months for the Government to respond to our very important report on sexual harassment in public places? This issue needs urgent action, not more deliberation.

[Penny Mordaunt]

I am sorry that we have taken a long time over responding to the work of the Select Committee. I would rather publish a response that will actually take the right action than put out something swiftly that is not going to do the job. I hope that my right hon. Friend will understand that we want to be doing things that ensure we address the issues she has raised.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Maria Miller and Penny Mordaunt

Thursday 20th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct. We should be doing that, and I encourage all political parties to do so. People who support various political parties are looking at replicating organisations such as Women2Win, which we have in the Conservative party, and at what further support and schemes can be put in place to encourage people from a whole range of backgrounds and situations to be able to run for office. We need to make the Chamber a much more diverse place.

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

We do not just want disabled people to stand for election; we want them to be elected to this place, yet this workplace here takes so little account of disabled people’s needs. Would it not be better to have more predictable working hours and voting patterns, similar to practices in other Parliaments, to encourage more disabled people to stand for election and to help all Members with caring responsibilities?

[Penny Mordaunt]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. I remember previous conversations I have had with you, Mr Speaker, in a former role I held. It is not just the practice here; it is actually the fabric of the building. With the refurbishments, we have an opportunity to ensure that anyone who has the talents to come and work here is able to do so. I know that hon. Members, including some who are sitting on the Government Front Bench today, have disabled people working in their constituency offices very successfully, but when they have tried to allow people to work in this building, it has proved impossible.

--- Later in debate ---

[Penny Mordaunt]

I take a different view and welcome the announcement to which the hon. Gentleman refers, and others that this Government have made on supporting women, whatever stage they are at in their lives and careers. However, I think that we need to do more. That is why I am broadening the remit of the Government Equalities Office and creating an equalities hub in the Cabinet Office, at the heart of Government. We are already working with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, but we do that with every Government Department, because only when we do that will we be able to move at the speed necessary to meet the ambition of women in this country.

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

T3. This is the season of good will, and some minds will be turning to the new year’s honours list. Those who receive honours are rightly recognised for their outstanding public service, regardless of their gender, sexuality or beliefs, but the same is not true of the treatment of their spouses. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the honours system should treat all spouses with similar courtesy, whether they are men or women, gay or straight?

[Penny Mordaunt]

My right hon. Friend makes an incredibly important point. The Cabinet Office is doing great work to create more diversity in the honours list, but inequality is baked into the system, including in the use of courtesy titles. It is quite wrong that people are treated differently in this way, so I have written to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to ask that it is remedied.

LGBT Action Plan

Debate between Maria Miller and Penny Mordaunt

Tuesday 3rd July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

I also pay tribute to the individual and the organisation that the hon. Lady referred to. She is absolutely right. In my remarks this morning at the launch of the action plan, I spoke about equality in all four nations of the United Kingdom. Clearly, some of the services that we are talking about, such as healthcare, are devolved, and rightly so. The Secretary of State for Scotland was present at the launch with me, and one of the strengths of having a four-nation healthcare system is that we learn from each other and share good ideas while providing the service that is best tailored for people in their particular locality. And of course I am always happy to meet the hon. Lady.

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

I thank the Minister for informing me of her intention to publish the plan today, and for the consultation on the Gender Recognition Act 2004. I join her in paying tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Justine Greening), who did so much to commission the research relating to the launch today and who has put these building blocks in place. The Women and Equalities Committee looks forward to working with the Minister to ensure that these plans really do address the issues that LGBT people face in the UK, and to receiving the annual reports that she has described. Education has a pivotal role to play in dealing with the cultural issues and the cultural change that we need to see if we are to deliver her plan. Will she update the House on the progress that the Government have made on delivering statutory sex and relationships education, which is now in law? She also talked about the Prime Minister’s plan to launch the Gender Recognition Act consultation this afternoon. Will she say a bit more about how she intends to deal with the unacceptable anti-trans hostility that has filled the vacuum of policy, which, I have to say, has come about over the past two years as a result of a great deal of change in the people holding her role?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I thank my right hon. Friend for her comments. I also thank her in her role as the Chair of the Select Committee for the work that the Committee has done on a range of issues to help to move this forward. It is absolutely right that the starting point for all this needs to be in our schools. We have made commitments to relationships education at primary school level and to sex and relationships education at secondary school level. The work in the action plan will be funded by the Government Equalities Office, and we are in discussions regarding the spending review in relation to future work, but the Departments responsible for these commitments are committed to them. We will be able to be held to account for that, and I am sure that her Committee will do that as well.

My right hon. Friend also made a point about the bigotry and abuse that has been directed towards the trans community. It is vital, with the launch of the Gender Recognition Act consultation, that we put some of the myths to bed, because there has been a huge amount of misinformation. I believe that once people understand our proposals and the conversation we are having about how we can best support individuals and enable the process to best support them, how we can educate services and communities to best support them and how we can reassure others, we will then have a sensible, quality consultation and national conversation. Where we see bigotry—and some of the practices that have been taking place on social media and elsewhere—we must all call it out for what it is.

Aid Sector: Safeguarding

Debate between Maria Miller and Penny Mordaunt

Tuesday 20th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. I thank him for the hearing this morning and for the inquiry that he is going to undertake, which will help the situation dramatically. He is right: we can get our own house in order and take a lead on this, but, ultimately, the component parts of the UN and other organisations in the international community must also follow suit. We also have to tackle the other enormous issues on the fringe of what we are discussing—in particular, UN peacekeeping troops. These are not easy things to crack, but we have to crack them.

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

Many thousands of incredible people work in the aid sector, helping some of the most vulnerable people on the planet, and it is the betrayal of trust in organisations such as Oxfam that I think has caused the current outcry. Not only has Oxfam tried to cover up sex crimes by its workers, but in doing so it has shown a flagrant disregard for the criminal justice system in Haiti. Should the UK Government ever be working with an organisation that thinks it is above the law in one of the poorest countries in the world, such as Haiti?

[Penny Mordaunt]

This case is truly shocking and it may be that prosecutions result from what has gone on. We need to take stock of the sector, which is why I commissioned the review of what our partners are doing. It is also absolutely vital that we are very clear with any organisation we work with about what we expect from them. We often say “zero tolerance”, but we have to live that and mean that, and there have to be consequences when people breach the requirements we have of them. I said last week in Stockholm at the End Violence against Children conference that there is no organisation too big, or our work with them too complex, that we will not withhold funding from them if they do not meet those standards.