Role of Women in Public Life

Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts

Monday 5th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baronesses, Lady Vere and Lady Gale, this afternoon.

For me, the story of women’s growing role in politics and other aspects of public life is a story of numbers, because what we do not measure, we cannot manage. So my first number is, of course, 100. It is 100 years since women over 30, with certain property qualifications, got the right to vote. But it would be another 10 years before women got equal voting rights with men, then set at 21, and a further 30 years before non-hereditary women were eligible to enter your Lordships’ House with the Life Peerages Act 1958, when the first four female life Peers took their seats, as the noble Baroness, Lady Vere, has already said. Today, women still comprise only 26% of this place—a poor comparison to the Commons, where we have reached the dizzy heights of 32%.

This improvement in representation was made possible, at least in part, by the Sex Discrimination (Election Candidates) Act 2002, which for the first time enabled all-women shortlists to become a reality. This was conceived and introduced by the Labour Party, which does so much better than other parties, with 45% of women in the Commons, as opposed to Liberal Democrats on 33% and Conservatives on 32%. Others, like my own party, have struggled with the concept of all-women shortlists, but the figures clearly speak for themselves. The notion that it must be the quality of the individual candidate which determines selection has dogged us, and I would that it were not so. The guilt engendered in so many women at the thought that they might be advantaged over men and, Lord forbid, be a token woman, causes them to hold back. If I thought that deliberately choosing a quotient of women would result in any deterioration of quality of representation, I might agree. But when you look at some of the men who represent us, who have no doubts about their entitlement to rule—well, I rest my case. Noble Lords in this House this afternoon are of course exempted—not wishing to get lynched.

Anyway, moving on—my next figure is 1979, which, of course, was the date when we got our first female Prime Minister. Personally, I would feel more inclined to celebrate this milestone if she had encouraged other women to come forward, to use some of the talented women that she had at her disposal. But, sadly, she got to the top and pulled the ladder up behind her, which is a great shame, because the whole point of having representation from all parts of society is to make for better government. We know for a fact that companies with diverse boards thrive and prosper more than boards comprising all men, of the same ethnicity and the same class, from the same school and even belonging to the same club. It is obvious that you get better decisions when you take more views into account, but when you look at one of our ruling political groups today, you see that pattern. I am not saying that men would deliberately discriminate against women, different ethnic groups, disabled people, people from different backgrounds, and so on. They just do not think about us. Out of sight, out of mind. That is why we need to be there, around the table, where the real decisions are made—and role models for us are few and far between.

So my next number is 90%. That represents the percentage of statues in London depicting men. That is clearly unfair to all the female talent that we have to inspire us, and I have my own suggestion for who the next candidate for a plinth should be. I am sure many of us have been approached by Bee Rowlatt, chair of the Mary on the Green campaign, to erect a statue on the green outside Parliament of Mary Wollstonecraft, who fought for women’s suffrage a full century before Millicent Fawcett commended her as the “leader in the battle”. If there is one thing the Minister could agree to today, it could be to take back to her colleagues the request and suggestion that Mary Wollstonecraft be acknowledged in a statue for her trail-blazing work, A Vindication of the Rights of Women, published in 1792. I hope that she will give us as favourable an indication as she can in her remarks later.

Women are important in all aspects of public life. We comprise 28% of judges, but only 9% of Supreme Court judges. We are 33% of councillors, but only 17% of council leaders. There is a deficit—a talent deficit—and, in these challenging times, I would respectfully suggest we need all the talent that we can get. As I said at the beginning of my remarks, what we do not measure we cannot manage. The EHRC is calling for Section 106 of the Equality Act 2010 to be enacted. That section requires political parties to publish candidate diversity data. Bringing the facts into the cold light of day has a wonderful effect on behaviour. The gender pay gap reporting rules come into force this year. As I speak, large companies are scurrying around looking at their gender pay gaps and trying to put in place systems to ensure that they do not get shown up in the same way again. The shaming effect of having one’s less-than-commendable statistics published for all to see would give political parties the incentive they need to revise and reform the way they choose their candidates.

My final number is 276. A postcard with that number printed on it arrived on my desk last year, and it took me a while to work out what it meant. It is my number; my place in the history of women elected to the British Parliament. In 2005, when I was elected, only 275 women had preceded me. Today, progress has speeded up but even so it will, apparently, take another nine elections before we achieve parity with the men. I want to see parity in my lifetime, but if I die before it happens I will jolly well come back and haunt these corridors until we have fair and equal representation of all the talents in this potentially great country of ours.