Women and the Vote

Debate between Alison McGovern and Jim McMahon

Wednesday 8th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Alison McGovern]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his kind intervention. It is certainly true that there is progress to be made for women across the whole United Kingdom, definitely including Northern Ireland.

I believe that the reading by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) of the names of the women killed by men this year will be a significant moment for this House that few who heard it will forget. As Women’s Aid has highlighted, however, women who have fled to refuges to escape domestic violence remain disfranchised because they are unable to register anonymously. Thousands of women, whose voices are crying out to be heard, are silenced because of arcane regulations.

Mr Speaker, you were present last night at the lighting of “New Dawn”, a work of art which was commissioned to mark the anniversary of the 1866 petition. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes), my colleague on and Chair of the Speaker’s Advisory Committee on Works of Art, who led the project brilliantly. The artist, Mary Branson, has created a beautiful installation, lit in the colours of the votes for women movement. It is a special work of art, representing not just an individual, but an idea, and not just an idea, but a force of change. Any number of worthy people could have been represented—any number of the signatories to the petition, the anniversary of which I am marking this evening—but I am unsure that that would have been right, because political change is never down to an individual. Political change happens because all of us change our minds. It happens when we stand up for that terribly simple idea, one which we know in our heart to be true but which is often forgotten, that every one of us is equal. The many discs, lit up by the tide of the Thames, represent the sweeping power of change and the light of hope.

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for agreeing to give way when I approached her earlier today, because the anniversary is important from an Oldham perspective. I am leading the fundraising campaign for a statue of Annie Kenney, who was a working-class suffragette leader and an inspiration to many. I also want to reflect on the fact that although there is no doubt that men can be part of the problem, that does not mean that men cannot be part of the solution. It is important that we work together to remind people of the sacrifices that were made by so many.

[Alison McGovern]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I commend his efforts to remember a working-class member of the fight for women’s votes.

The new work that we lit up last night is bold, daring, and imaginative. It is a tribute, yes, but it will also serve, just as the archway leading from Members’ Lobby to the Chamber does, as a reminder.

You may know, Mr Speaker, that there were protests outside this building last night, in part against the violence that I mentioned that too many women still face. I say to those who protested last night outside St Stephen’s entrance and shouted with furious anger, “Dead women can’t vote,” that they are right to be angry. They are right be angry with violent men, but all of us must choose how we use that anger: whether to hold our placard and do no more or whether to take up the right that our sisters fought for not just to vote, but to hold office and seek the real power to take decisions on behalf of women and men.

In 1866, women hammered on the door of this place because they had no other choice. Hammering on the door was the only way to make their voices heard, to stand proud and to say, “Here we are. These are our numbers. We have the right to be valued and we count.” This is the real point about 1866: it was never about equal votes for women; it was always about equal worth for women. A new dawn, Mr Speaker, but a very old fight —a fight that is as alive in 2016 as it was 150 years ago.