International Women’s Day

Baroness Goudie Excerpts

Tuesday 10th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goudie (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow my good friend the noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson, who has worked with me on a number of issues. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, on her appointment, and I am very excited by the appointment of the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, who I think could really deliver a lot for us across the divide. I also congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Ranger, on his speech. It is always hard making your first speech, because in this House you know that everybody knows much more than you do about what you are going to say.

I must also say to my noble friend Lord Young that Grunwick played a long part in my life in the early 1970s, when I was a councillor in Brent and Grunwick was in the Roundwood ward. I was assisting a housing association whose residents had problems because the gardens were being trampled by the pickets, although I was on the side of the pickets. It was a long, complicated trial, in which we did not do well in the end, but it was an important dispute in history that took things much further.

Some of my colleagues feel that this women’s agenda is finished. I am sorry, but it has a long, long way to go. I am tired of people telling me—inside this House and wherever I go—that these International Women’s Days have to cease, as there are other things to focus on. I feel that this has been one of the nicest International Women’s Day debates in this House, and we have to continue them because there is a whole agenda to be taken forward. We have accomplished a lot, but we have a long way to go.

This year’s International Women’s Day theme is “Generation Equality: Realising Women’s Rights”. Given that focus, this is a key time to look ahead and consider how to engage women across the generations and across the world. In addition, 2020 is the 25th anniversary of the Beijing platform and the 20th anniversary of UN Security Council Resolution 1325.

The Beijing platform meant a lot to all of us in this Chamber, and I remember watching the films and later seeing the videos. My great friend, whom all of you know, Ambassador Melanne Verveer was there, along with Hillary Clinton. They took forward the agenda, which is the agenda that we are still working on today. When I spoke with them about this evening’s debate and asked where we are going on women, peace and security and on the whole question of Afghanistan, they told me about their meeting in Washington.

As you will see when that is published, they talked about what it is like to live in a place where, as a woman, you are not allowed to be at the peace table; I will come back to that in a moment. You are living in a war-torn area where thugs and terrorists are gaining everything, your children are being murdered and there is no food. That applies not only to Afghanistan but to Syria, Sudan and the Congo.

Like my noble friend, I ask the Minister, following the undertaking given by the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, when she was Minister, that we should not allow Britain to be at any peace table without us having women there. We should sit outside and insist on that, just as the women of Northern Ireland and the women of Colombia sat outside. Because they sat outside—and they took it in turns doing so—they were able to be invited in.

We happen to be lucky that, both in Colombia and in Northern Ireland, we had people who were enlightened and who understood that we need not just women like us but local women sitting at the peace table. The local women know what is required, whereas the boyos will say, “Oh fine, we are sorry, we’ll go away.” They forget about education, further education and health; they forget about everything that matters—including investment. Without any of those, those countries cannot survive, and the peace talks do not last. Colombia and Northern Ireland are the only places where the peace talks lasted for any length of time.

So we must continue with that promise that we will not be at peace talks without women. We must be there because—despite what is happening—we are a leading country in the field of women, peace and security. We lead the field in general peace and in education across the world, and we are going to lead on girls’ education and boys’ education.

Furthermore, as I raised in the House some while ago, we should use the DfID budget and some Foreign Office money to take the lead on women’s and girls’ health around the world, and in particular on maternal health. I hope that, in the talks on trade, the USA do not try to do to us as they have done to other countries by saying, “If you give maternal health advice, abortion advice and family planning advice, there will be no deal—we will not play with you.” I have seen some of the letters they send, so I ask for an undertaking on that.

We also need to look at a new approach, with a feminist foreign policy, which we need to take forward. Without women being involved in every part of foreign policy, we will not get the true foreign policy agenda. Gender equality is central to this framework and underscores that men and women, boys and girls, must interact together and work together to have the kind of society that is important to us and to address power imbalances.

We talked earlier today about representation of women in Parliament. The representation of women in parliaments around the world is terrible, but we have to remember that women are selected by their constituency party under their party’s rules. As I have said before, the Labour Party and the Liberals took the risk of having all-women shortlists, and it worked out. I am not in favour of quotas—as you all know—but sometimes you have to try that, and we have to encourage other countries to do the same.

Also, we know that in countries of war, things are different because it is agreed that there should be a 50:50 parliament, and that is right. However, in the situation that we are in, we also have to try to achieve that. If we look at the situation in America and in some European countries, the imbalance is terrible. We should look at ground-breaking ideas from countries such as Canada and Switzerland, which have an enlightened global policy and a feminist policy.

As my friend and yours, my noble friend Lady Armstrong, said to me today, “Well, Mary, it’s not just a feminist foreign policy that we need to look at but a feminist budget.” I know that some people around the world are looking at that, and that is what we must have, so that we are working together, and that we are at every peace table.

As one of the last speakers, if I continue, I will only be repeating what everyone else has said.