International Women�s Day
Alison Griffiths Excerpts(3 days, 21 hours ago)
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Alison Griffiths (Bognor Regis and Littlehampton) (Con)
As the 649th woman to be elected to this House, it is an honour to contribute to this important debate. I thank the hon. Member for Brent East (Dawn Butler) for her contribution and for securing the debate.
I am struck that, with 650 Members of this House, we are only now in this Parliament reaching the threshold where the number of female MPs matches that. I am particularly proud to be one of only eight newly elected Conservative female MPs, standing alongside 18 distinguished incumbent Conservative female colleagues who have set the bar high. Their dedication, resilience and leadership continues to inspire me and countless women across the country.
My journey to this place has been a long one, and it began 15 years ago when I first joined the Conservative candidates list. However, like many, my journey actually started far earlier, as I spent far too many years thinking of running without ever putting my name forward or making it known that this was what I might want to do.
As Conservatives, we champion equal opportunities for everyone across the United Kingdom, ensuring that individuals, regardless of their sex, race or background, can achieve their full potential. We are the only political party to have elected a female Prime Minister, not once, not twice, but three times. We made history with Margaret Thatcher�s election in 1979, and we continue to make history today under the leadership of my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Essex (Mrs Badenoch), our fourth female leader.
In government, we took action to support women at work, ensuring that over 2 million more women entered paid employment between 2010 and 2023, boosting our economy and securing financial independence for many. We launched the women�s health strategy, ensuring better healthcare outcomes for women, and we restored sex-specific language to the NHS, to protect female-only medical care. We introduced 30 hours of free childcare per week for working parents, easing the burden on families and supporting mothers who want to return to work. However, there is still more work to do, and there always will be. As Conservatives, we will always fight to ensure that every woman, no matter her background, can reach her full potential.
Oral Answers to Questions
Alison Griffiths Excerpts(4 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Yvette Cooper
The hon. Member is right that off-road bikes are a total nightmare in some communities. I have talked to residents who have been driven mad by the scourge of dangerous off-road bikes that are used to harass and intimidate people. We are looking at ways to strengthen the law on off-road biking to give the police the powers they need to tackle that kind of damaging antisocial behaviour.
Alison Griffiths (Bognor Regis and Littlehampton) (Con)
Given the Home Secretary’s great concern about shoplifting and antisocial behaviour, will she make an assessment on the “Putting it Right” scheme for young offenders that has been successfully piloted in my constituency?
Yvette Cooper
I welcome the points the hon. Member makes. To tackle shoplifting, we need to ensure that strong enough laws and policing partnerships are in place, and that we do prevention and follow-up work with young people. As she may know, we are setting up a new Young Futures programme, which is all about the greater work we need to do to prevent young people being drawn into crime in the first place. I encourage her to tell us more details about her local work to tackle this issue.