International Women’s Day

Anthony Mangnall Excerpts

Thursday 11th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Anthony Mangnall (Totnes) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) on securing this debate. It has been a pleasure to follow her work in the Westminster Hall debates when they were taking place and her continued action on this issue.

I rise to speak in this House as chair of the all-party group on preventing sexual violence in conflict, an initiative that I worked on with the former Foreign Secretary, William Hague, and have continued to work on since I was elected.

Before I undertake to describe what we can do, I would like to pay tribute to where we have got to with the Domestic Abuse Bill. It has been remarkable achievement for the Government, working across the parties, to get it to a place in which we can make a real and meaningful difference. Communities in my constituency are grateful to see the progress that has been made. Organisations such as SASHA, based in Totnes, are hoping that we will be able to pass this into legislation in due course.

I would like to speak about the international approach. Each year, the United Kingdom stands up on International Women’s Day and reaffirms its commitment to the millennium development goals for gender equality, reaffirms its commitment to women’s education, and reaffirms its commitment to seeing through the preventing sexual violence in conflict initiative. Unfortunately, this year, I can only think that these are hollow words, because the impact of the forthcoming cut in international development aid from 0.7% to 0.5% will place a significant burden on the way in which we tackle women’s rights. The way in which people in Syria, Libya and Somalia are able to be helped by the projects that we put forward is now cast into doubt. The reason we have pushed forward these policies is not that there is a legal obligation to do so, not that Parliaments and Governments of yesteryear decided to put forward an agreement that would hold and lock in Parliament, but because there was a moral duty for us to stand up for those who were most endangered around the world. There was a moral duty for us to be able to help those in some of the most difficult scenarios and circumstances in the world.

In the time that the Government have before there is a vote on this issue—and there must be a vote on the 0.7%—I hope that they will rethink their approach, maintain the 0.7%, and maintain our commitment to tackling women’s rights and eradicating gender-based violence. Make no mistake—gender-based violence is a pandemic. It is a pandemic that was here before covid and it will be here long after. If we have the strength and ability to push this, we can garner international co-operation, create new institutions, ring-fence spending and ensure that the United Kingdom is seen as a country that stands up for women’s rights across the globe and that is not shirking its duties.