Business of the House

Barbara Keeley Excerpts

Thursday 14th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mark Spencer]

My right hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the £37 billion of support. That is a huge amount of money that is going to support people in these challenging times. What Putin did in Ukraine has caused huge turbulence across food and energy markets around the world. That is why, as she said, we are making the £326 payments today to 8 million homes, but there also further payments coming. I think it is worth reiterating the £300 to 8 million pensioner households, the £150 to individuals receiving disability benefits, the doubling in value of the universal October energy bill discount to £400 and the scrapping of the requirement to pay that back. That is a huge amount of Government cash going out to support people in these challenging times.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

As the England women’s football team reach the quarter-finals of the Euros, I want to raise the lack of recognition for the women who played for England in the first official international women’s football match, against Scotland in November 1972. The women in that team have never been awarded a cap by the Football Association, while the Scottish FA has awarded caps to its women footballers for that match. Not only that, but when the England women footballers of the 1970s were invited by the FA to Wembley in 2019 as the “legends of women’s football”, they were only allowed to walk around the pitch and not on it, and yet the male football legends were paraded on the pitch just a few weeks later. I am calling on the FA to award an official cap to every woman who played for England in that match in 1972, and to give those first Lionesses the same status as legends of football that it gives to the male footballers. Will the Leader of the House join me in this call, and will he make time for a debate on the issue?

[Mark Spencer]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on raising this matter; I think she carries the support of the whole House. Of course I join her in making those representations to the FA. I will also write to the FA on her behalf making that very point. It is worth reflecting that we have moved a very long way and that now, in 2022, we are in a whole different world. We should celebrate all women’s sport and women’s football, and I wish the Lionesses all the best for their future matches.