International Women’s Day

Baroness Barker Excerpts

Friday 10th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barker (LD)]

My Lords, I too wish to pay tribute to Baroness Boothroyd. Because of the proximity of our offices, we often used to bump into each other in the lift. One day I complimented her on one of her fabulous outfits—she was always beautifully turned out—and in that unmistakeable voice she said, “give it brass and go big.” I have always thought that I will for ever hold that as my phrase: give it brass, go big.

The theme of today’s International Women’s Day is “Embrace Equity”. It is a very good phrase, as the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, has just said, because it carries within it the implication that we are, as women, diverse—very diverse. Women have different life experiences, different economic circumstances and all sorts of differences between us, yet we have common aspirations for safety, health, autonomy and prosperity. It is important to bear that in mind as we have this debate, because it takes place against the background of a campaign originated and orchestrated by Christian nationalists in the United States, Europe and across Russia, which is very definitely about curbing the aspirations and autonomy of all women.

In the United States and places like Poland and Hungary the focus is on anti-abortion activities. In Africa, the focus is against equality and LGBT rights. In the US and UK, the key focus of this campaign is anti-gender. We are beginning as we go through, to see a greater emphasis on unpicking this campaign and understanding the motivations behind it. The Council of Europe, for example, in 2022 produced a thematic report on legal gender recognition in Europe, which began to show what this campaign is about. Ultimately, it is about the rolling back of human rights and the destruction of human rights legislation and the organisations which are there to protect and promote it. That is a key concern for all women because human right lies at the basis of our equality and equity.

In the UK we know that there is a daily campaign against trans women. We see it day after day in our media. It is a campaign that seeks to pit women against women. It portrays trans women as a significant and systemic threat to other women. I have to say that, after six years, it is a campaign that has yet to provide evidence of that, and it is yet to win significant approval. That is not to say that some politicians have not been taken in by this and have been ever ready to use it to their political advantage. I have to say today that some of us will always reject playing with human rights, because if you play with the human rights of some people, you play with the human rights of all, and if you jeopardise the rights of some women, you jeopardise the rights of all. I hope that politicians in this country will look again at some of the aspects of this campaign and will desist in the demonisation of a very small minority of people in this country. They are at the moment under attack and very frightened, and today, on International Women’s Day, it is important to give them some hope and solidarity.

I want to pick up on one particular point. It is inescapable that the cuts to the FCDO budget will have a tremendous, seriously deleterious impact on women around the world because of the leading role the United Kingdom has had for so long in international health. The FCDO cuts, swingeing as they were, not only jeopardised particular programmes, services, the availability of medical interventions, drugs and treatments; they also did something far more serious but less commented upon. They jeopardised the 40 years of research that has gone into work on infectious diseases such as HIV, and which has had such an important, transformational role in medicine, and not just in relation to HIV. Much of the response to Covid came about as quickly as it did because of the science and learning from those other pandemics. Therefore, I say to the Minister—she did an admirable job of talking up the Government’s record—that unless and until we restore not only the budget but the planning and strategy that went into the long-term programmes in the FCDO, we will be doing serious harm to women and girls across the world.

One particular piece of work we need to do in the HIV field is on PrEP. We know the importance of PrEP domestically and we know its importance for men. It has had a transformational effect on transmission of the virus. We now need to replicate that work across the world and understand what we can do for women, particularly in countries where they do not have a lot of power and autonomy over their own lives and in dealings with their partners, to ensure that they too can access it.

A second area that we need to look at domestically and internationally is the menopause and HIV. One of the great benefits of having had so much scientific success in the field of HIV and other diseases is that we now have, for the first time, a cohort of older people living with these diseases. We do not yet know what the interaction between long-term conditions and diseases such as HIV actually are. That is an area in which, yet again, the UK, because of the existence of the National Health Service and our involvement in health services abroad, can play a leading role in understanding.

Finally, I wish to draw attention to something we often gloss over on International Women’s Day: mental health. We know that women’s mental health is in many cases overlooked and underreported. Why? Because women are so busy coping with everything else that they put themselves last and others first. However, as we began to see in the Joint Committee that looked at the recent draft mental health Bill, there is an underreporting of incidences of women with mental health problems, particularly women with learning difficulties and autism, who are being misdiagnosed in the field of mental health. If that can happen in an advanced medical system such as ours, it must be much more pronounced across the world. In her reply, can the Minister say when we can expect the Government response to the Joint Committee report and whether, following the work of the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, over so many years on this particular minority group, we can look forward to some movement from the Government?

I welcome the appointment of Professor Lesley Regan as the government ambassador and adviser on women’s health—she has been a tremendous champion for women for many years. Taking a life-course approach to women’s health will be a significant step forward. She, like many others in the health service, has a particular fear about the fractured commissioning of contraception, because our contraceptive services are in such a state that we now have an alarmingly high rate—45%—of unplanned pregnancies in this country. Again, we are part of international studies on the efficacy of making contraception available, because, wherever you are in the world and whichever woman you are, having control of your body and reproductive health is absolutely fundamental to your well-being and prosperity. We have typically led in this area since the 1960s, and I sincerely hope that we will regain our eminence in it, because it is one area in which we can teach the rest of the world some news good for all women and girls.