International Women’s Day

Baroness Jenkin of Kennington Excerpts

Thursday 9th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to speak in today’s debate, introduced so ably by my noble friend Lady Shields. I made my maiden speech in the International Women’s Day debate six years ago and I am glad to say that today I rise with a little less trepidation than I did on that occasion.

We all have our daily routines, do we not? My first is a cup of tea in bed with Bernard, trying to have a chat and distract him from reading the papers. My next is 120 squats while I clean my teeth. Then, as I cycle over Lambeth Bridge, I think about two things. The first is how lucky I am to have been born with the golden lottery ticket of life—to live in a largely generous, tolerant and fair society. The second, as the noble Baroness, Lady Prosser, said, is to remember those who do not.

Every day I remind myself of the women around the world who are born to abject, grinding poverty and live utterly miserable lives. Those lives are blighted from birth. Often they experience FGM, followed by early and forced marriage, usually to much older men. Millions experience gender-based violence. Many are effectively slaves or are trafficked across the world. There is no escape for them. They have little or no access to any form of birth control, very little knowledge of sexual or reproductive rights and no choice of when or how to have their families. I particularly welcome the Government’s prioritisation of family planning and the forthcoming summit later this summer.

But the greatest injustice in these girls’ lives is the lack of access to education. We all know that the world would be a much better place if all girls went to school and that the key to helping developing countries solve their problems is educating their female populations. There are still 61 million girls across the world between the ages of five and 14 who are deprived of an education. In countries such as Nigeria, Afghanistan and Pakistan there are millions of girls who never get the chance to enter a classroom.

If political leaders around the world would wake up to the benefits, and the essential justice, of educating the daughters of their countries just as surely as they educate their sons, their economic growth would be boosted, their population pressures would reduce, infant mortality would drop and child nutrition would improve. We in this country should be proud that our Government are so committed to supporting the women and girls development agenda. For example, through DfID, we have helped 6 million girls attend schools in Punjab province in Pakistan, and I look forward to the day when every girl has the same chance.

I very much welcome the appointment by the Foreign Secretary of Joanna Roper, a senior diplomat, as a special gender equality envoy. I look forward to hearing more about how she plans to support this agenda. I am sure that she will hold these girls in her heart, as we all do.

In my remaining minutes, I move swiftly to another topic. Next year will obviously provide an opportunity to commemorate the centenary of some women’s right to vote, but this year too marks a special milestone in that journey. Noble Lords may have visited the current exhibition in Portcullis House focusing on the anniversary of the Speaker’s Conference in 1916-17. Speaker Lowther, the ancestor of my noble friend Lord Ullswater, said at the time:

“I cannot pretend that I look forward to it with enthusiasm. I fear that the number and complexity of the issues, which will be raised as we proceed, will overwhelm us and it will be almost impossible to obtain anything approaching unanimity upon the more important topics which will come up for discussion”.


But after many meetings, and a number of votes, an agreement was finally reached that led to the Representation of the People Bill. One of the most dedicated women’s suffrage supporters at the conference was Willoughby Dickinson MP. He was the only one of the conference members with a perfect record of both attending and voting in Parliament in all the Divisions on women’s suffrage. Dickinson recorded that on 10 and 11 January 1917 the conference agreed to consider the question of women suffrage by 18 votes to four and that they agreed that there should be some measure of women’s suffrage by 15 votes to six, but a Motion that it should be on the same terms as men was lost by 10 votes to 12. However, on 29 January he wrote:

“I made my proposition that vote should go to occupiers or wives of occupiers, and this carried 9 to 8. Thus by a majority of one, suffrage clause went forward!”.


Sir Willoughby, I am proud to say, was my great-grandfather, and in the exhibition is a photograph of him with his daughter—my grandmother—as she took her seat in the House of Commons in 1937. I can only imagine how astonished she would be, as the only Conservative woman MP in 1945, to see, with the election of Trudy Harrison a couple of weeks ago, 70 Conservative women MPs and our country led by our second woman Prime Minister—something of which I am very proud. I think she would also be astonished to find me on these Benches.

Male Abusive Behaviour

Baroness Jenkin of Kennington Excerpts

Wednesday 8th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Verma]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to help men who seek support in addressing their abusive behaviour.

[Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Con)]

My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lady Verma and at her request, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in her name on the Order Paper.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government’s Ending Violence Against Women and Girls strategy sets out our ambition both to support victims and to improve early intervention measures to prevent reoffending and to stop these crimes happening in the first place. The Government are funding a number of new approaches to manage perpetrators of domestic abuse, including the Drive project, which helps perpetrators change their behaviour. We also fund the national Respect helpline, which offers perpetrators advice and support.

[Baroness Jenkin of Kennington]

My Lords, I know all noble Lords will welcome the additional funding for the prevention of domestic violence announced in today’s Budget. Does my noble friend the Minister agree that to address what are often intergenerational cycles of violence by men towards their wives and partners, it is important to work with those perpetrators, as she mentioned, by offering training programmes such as the Domestic Violence Intervention Project?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My noble friend is absolutely right. Intergenerational domestic violence is not only meted out on generations of women but those behaviours are passed on to the children. It is breaking those cycles through education and working with perpetrators in those programmes that we hope will break the mould.

Alcohol

Baroness Jenkin of Kennington Excerpts

Tuesday 6th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Stamford (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Con)]

My Lords—

[The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Evans of Bowes Park) (Con)]

My Lords, it is the turn of the Conservative Benches.

[Baroness Jenkin of Kennington]

My Lords, is my noble friend aware of any plans to improve calorie labelling on alcoholic drinks? Experiments I have seen show that if people are aware of the amount of calories they are drinking, they will drink up to 50% less than they had planned to otherwise.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I am not entirely sure whether the Government are planning to introduce calorie labelling. I know that there is calorie labelling on some drinks. I will have to get back to the noble Baroness because I do not know the answer to her question. However, I will find that out because I certainly think that it would deter Guinness drinkers, as that is very calorific.

Calais: Refugee Camp

Baroness Jenkin of Kennington Excerpts

Thursday 15th September 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, for this debate and for his relentless campaigning on this subject.

I declare an interest as a board member of UNICEF UK, which arranged for me and my noble friends Lady Morris of Bolton and Lady Hodgson—neither of whom can be here today, sadly—to visit the refugee camp in Calais at the end of July. This was a trip facilitated by Citizens UK. I take this opportunity to thank it and the volunteers, not just for arranging the visit but for the wonderful work they do in the camp, especially their support for children. All the volunteers, including those working in the kitchens to feed the refugees, are doing amazing work. I also pay special tribute to the extraordinary Liz Clegg, who lives with those children in horrible circumstances. She has no background in humanitarian aid but is loving and caring, and is supported only by contributions from those who visit. We felt humbled by them all.

We too were shocked by what we saw and heard: children afraid to leave their tents during the day, in case everything they had was taken from them, while every night they risk their lives in trying to enter the UK illegally. We saw no government advice on the Dublin III family reunion process, or the provision in the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Dubs. Instead, those children are reliant on the relationships built by a small voluntary group formed by Citizens UK. We were told that before the intervention of these volunteers, children who have family members in the UK had no idea that there was a safe and legal way of being reunited with them.

It is difficult to discount the pull factor with regard to the broader stance on the French and European migrant crisis; indeed, we met a number who wished that they had not come and were trying to get the message home to others not to make the journey. But when it comes to unaccompanied children who are eligible under Dublin III we must take action, as the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, said—and fast. I fear history is likely to be unkind to us if we do not. There is no valid reason for our Government to keep children in Calais when they have families in the UK ready to receive them, take on the responsibility and have a duty of care. This is distinct from opening the floodgates and being overwhelmed.

Let me give an example. Earlier this week, I met a volunteer who has been working in the Jungle. She met two such children in Calais: Huda, who is 14, and her brother Ibrahim, who is 16. They are Iraqi Kurds whose mother is in Birmingham and whose father was killed in 2005 by a bomb in Iraq. They became separated from their mother immediately after the bomb, in tragic circumstances, and left Turkey on their own last August—Huda having begged Ibrahim, as she was desperate to find her mother. My contact was heartbroken to see these children cold, vulnerable, upset and hungry. They were insulted and belittled by the CRS police in front of her eyes. She quickly raised £3,000, got them out of the camp and paid a local host family in Calais —themselves volunteers—to look after them while legal proceedings ensued. The process took over nine months and involved two separate tribunals, Home Office lawyers, UK lawyers, barristers, French lawyers, French care systems, DNA testing and hundreds of hours of correspondence before the UK finally took charge of the children. This example demonstrates the psychological trauma that so many children experience. The apparent inertia of the French and British authorities ultimately meant a greater cost to our taxpayer, while causing extreme emotional hardship on these children.

From a cost-benefit analysis—economically, politically, and socially—it seems that we should expedite processing Dublin III children. For those lacking UK family ties the solution is more complex, although a child’s safety should be paramount along with a concern for their future, be it in the UK, France or elsewhere.

I have three ideas for my noble friend the Minister to consider. When the previous camp demolition occurred, hundreds of children went missing. This makes it critical that the processing of these children is speeded up and that they are kept safe in appropriate accommodation during this period with access to the legal and social care they need. A group should be mandated to identify unaccompanied children with a legal right to be in the UK and to provide the legal advice they need to be processed. We should take on the traffickers and smugglers by ensuring that refugees are aware of their legal rights at the start of their journey as well as in Calais, as the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, said.

Collectively our countries have achieved so much for humanity and have so much to be proud of, and it saddens me that there appears to be no solution to the plight of these desperate children in Calais.