International Women's Day

Baroness Jenkin of Kennington Excerpts

Thursday 3rd March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jenkin of Kennington]

My Lords, I start my maiden speech today by congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Gould, on once again securing this important debate. I am conscious that there are many eminent pioneers both in this Chamber and outside who have led the way by campaigning on these important issues. In my own party, for example, I mention my noble friend Lady Miller of Hendon, who introduced last year’s debate on the same subject. My noble friends Lady Morris of Bolton, Lady Ritchie of Brompton and the Minister have all been active for many years in championing the cause of women, and particularly women in Parliament. I would also like to thank the staff of your Lordships’ House. It is well known that it is not the Government, the Opposition or the Whips who can tell you what is happening. If you really want to know what is going on, you have to ask a Doorkeeper.

I most enthusiastically thank my supporters. My noble friend Lady Shephard of Northwold was in 1992 appointed the first Minister with special responsibility for women’s issues; she has encouraged me and many other women. It is also, of course, a very special pleasure to thank my noble kinsman Lord Jenkin of Roding for his support and advice; the most pertinent, which I hope to follow today, is to speak “loudly, slowly and clearly”.

However, I have two other noble kinsmen who are both relevant to today’s debate. My great-grandfather, Sir Willoughby Dickinson, Liberal MP for St Pancras North, was an early and prominent supporter of women’s suffrage. He was incensed that his sister, an eminent doctor, did not have the vote. He first introduced a women’s suffrage Bill in the other place in 1907. In a speech, he said:

“I regard this question of the women’s franchise as part of the movement of civilisation”.—[Official Report, Commons, 28/3/12; col. 720.]

In the early part of the last century, women’s suffrage was not a universally popular cause, and his support for it did his career in the Liberal Party no good. On 10 January 1918, he wrote about the events in this place on that day:

“The House of Lords has passed the women’s suffrage clauses by 134 to 69, so this job of mine is finished”.

Although the struggle for women’s votes was finally won, the battle for women MPs had only just begun.

My great-grandfather later became a Labour Peer, Lord Dickinson of Painswick, and with great pride he watched his daughter, my grandmother, take her seat in 1937 as the MP for Hemel Hempstead. That same grandmother, Joan Davidson, who later sat in this House as Baroness Northchurch of Chiswick, was the only Conservative woman MP returned to Parliament after the 1945 election.

Although I stood as a candidate in 1987, my own active involvement with the issue of women in Parliament began in 2005. After the general election of that year, a mere 9 per cent of the Parliamentary Conservative Party were women. More and more Conservatives were at last starting to realise that this was not just an issue of representation, it was one of credibility—the credibility not just of the Conservative Party but of politics as a whole. Together with a small group, I co-founded Women2Win, a pressure group of Conservatives to get more women elected to Parliament. Women2win is still active and support is growing. Today, 22 per cent of MPs are women, a greater percentage than ever before, but still stuck towards the bottom of the international league table. I am especially proud, of course, of the 49 Conservative women MPs elected last May, up from 17 in the previous Parliament.

I must point out that none of this would even have started without the support of men, men like Brooks Newmark and David Cameron. But it was my own husband who pointed out something crucial right at the beginning. He said that women never make much progress until we succeed in persuading men that things have to change. Well, we still have some persuading to do. At this point, I should make it very clear that I am against positive discrimination; I want only the very best to represent us in the House of Commons. However, we still have to be vigilant to ensure that there is no discrimination against women candidates. In last year’s debate, my noble friend Lady Scott of Needham Market rightly drew attention to the fact that fewer women apply for the job than men. That has certainly always been the case, but we now have a greater critical mass and we have momentum. With so many more role models on both sides of both Houses, I believe that more women will come forward to be considered. It is crucial that these women, whatever their party allegiance, are supported and mentored. They need to know exactly what they are in for, and this is an area in which women in this House can also play a part.

Finally, on a more personal note, I end by paying tribute to a group still mainly made up of women, even in 2011. This is a group that does not receive universal sympathy. They are largely unsung, but never invisible. They are always relied upon, but rarely recognised; a group of people who put up with much, but without fuss. They do not merely keep the political show on the road, in fact, if it was not for them, it would never get out of the garage. I know all this because I have been a member of this group—the spouse of a Member of Parliament—for the past 20 years. As we celebrate the 100th International Women’s Day, I salute this band of few heroes but many more heroines.