International Women's Day

Baroness Morgan of Ely Excerpts

Thursday 3rd March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Morgan of Ely]

My Lords, I feel very privileged, not just to be present here as a new Member, but also because I shall have the honour of speaking for more then three minutes, which is more than I ever had in my 15 years serving in the European Parliament. Nevertheless, I will keep my contribution brief because I am keen to be back in Wales tonight to vote for further powers in the Welsh Assembly referendum.

As we celebrate the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day, I would like to start by remembering Viscountess Rhondda. She was a Welsh suffragette who burnt a postbox to draw attention to her cause. She was imprisoned and went on hunger strike; she was such a nuisance, though, that they let her out in four days. She was never allowed to take up her seat in the House of Lords, as she would have been had she been a man. There are other feisty women from Wales like Jemima Nicholas, who repelled the French invasion of Fishguard, but I am glad to see this tradition of feisty Welsh females is alive and kicking in the House of Lords.

Despite this, my noble friend Lady Kinnock and I were only the sixth and seventh women in the history of Wales to be elected to full-time public office in 1994. It is great to be back together again, and I thank her and my noble friend Lady Royall for being my supporters. I thank noble Lords and staff for the warm welcome that I have been given since entering the House. It was particularly lovely to be greeted this morning by a Welsh-speaking policeman on my way in. It is a very different experience from entering the European Parliament as the youngest Member in 1994. In fact, I was just about to hit my mid-life crisis. I am happy to say that, on coming here, it suddenly abated.

We have come a long way in 100 years. Personally, hitherto, I think that I have probably benefitted career-wise from being a woman, but I recognise that that is exceptional. I, along with other women, have a responsibility to help others who have struggled because of their gender.

Women’s representation in politics in Wales has changed dramatically since 1994, but it took the establishment of the Assembly and the introduction of a gender-equal selection method by the Labour Party to go from probably the worst representation in the world to one of the best. We had more women in the Cabinet than we had men. That was absolutely unique in the world. Much thanks for this achievement must be given to my noble friend Lady Gale, who worked tirelessly as the general secretary of the Labour Party. She gained recognition and the accolade of Welsh Woman of the Year for her great work in this area. I thank her for tutoring me not just through my entrance into this place, but through the past 15 years. Recent political selections, however, for Westminster and the Assembly have demonstrated that unless we keep the foot on the pedal we will revert to the previous trend.

Economically and educationally, women are more powerful than ever. The Economist has stated that over past decades women have contributed more to the expansion of the world economy than technology or emerging markets. This fact is generally ignored. Now, however, we are experiencing the most severe recession since the great depression, with dire consequences for women across the globe. There is a real danger that we will see a pushback on the gains that we have seen in recent decades.

The European Commission, in its 2009 report on inequality, stated that the economic slowdown was likely to affect women more than men. In the past, women’s concentration in the public sector has helped protect women from the initial impact of a recession. Not this time. Almost half the women who work in Merseyside are employed in the NHS, schools or the caring professions. In Greater Manchester, the figure is two out of five. Cuts to children’s services are likely to make life very difficult for many women.

How was the recession caused? Literally, it was a manmade disaster. Women need to be included in formulating the response. So far, there is not much sign of that. All 27 out of 27 central bank governors of the EU are men.

These great upheavals, however, offer us opportunities. We can learn lessons from elsewhere. If you look at what has happened in Iceland, for example, you can see that this has fuelled the transformation in the way that the economy is driven. It has turned the key levers of finance over to women. It has a female Prime Minister. A woman heads up two of the major banks there. In Iceland, risk awareness, profit with principles, emotional capital and sustainable growth are not fashionable buzzwords, but are accepted as a part of good business.

We have come a long way since Viscountess Rhondda took her stance. Of course, we can go further, but let us not let the centenary pass without recognising the immense strides that have been taken in the past century. I thank my noble friend Lady Gould for introducing this debate, and I look forward to making many more contributions in this House.