Women: Representation and Empowerment

Baroness Morris of Bolton Excerpts

Monday 7th March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Morris of Bolton (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester on her excellent maiden speech. How good it sounds to say “her” maiden speech. I also offer huge congratulations to my noble friend Lady Mone on a maiden speech that encapsulated her warmth, sense of humour and no-nonsense, down-to-earth attitude. She was enormously kind about me but I have to tell your Lordships that the pleasure is all mine, although I take some pride in the fact that my noble friend now calls the Royal Gallery by its real name and not “that big cold room”. She is a breath of fresh air and an asset to these Benches and your Lordships’ House.

Women have always worked for the well-being of their families, and so contributed enormously to the economy, but I was surprised to find that women’s employment rates were as high in 1851 as they were in 1971—roughly 43%—a fact that I came across thanks to Noor Abdel-Haq from Oxford Spires Academy, who spent last week with me on work experience and thoroughly enjoyed her time looking up statistics for this debate. However, while the numbers of women working might have been similar for much of the past 150 years, the difference in the quality of employment, the status of women in the workplace and women’s representation are light years ahead. I, too, thank my noble friend the Minister for giving us the chance to reflect and note these significant changes.

Later this year, it will be 15 years since my right honourable friend Iain Duncan Smith asked me to become vice-chairman of the party with responsibility for candidates. I worked closely with my noble friends Lady Shephard of Northwold and Lord Taylor of Holbeach, and we were charged with making the Conservative Party look more like the country it aspired to represent; and that meant we needed more women because, whatever your views on all-women shortlists, the 101 Labour women MPs elected at the 1997 general election literally changed the face of British politics for ever. We were enormously successful in finding talented women candidates; we just were not as successful at winning the 2005 general election; and all our efforts yielded only 17 women MPs. Most went on to be elected in 2010 and 2015, many now serving as Ministers and in the Cabinet, and others—I look at our Front Bench—have come to your Lordships’ House and serve as Ministers.

However, it takes a long game to change a culture and it takes endless patience, preparation and, above all, support. I pay enormous tribute to my noble friend Lady Jenkin of Kennington, whose unstinting work with Women2Win, the organisation set up in 2005 by her, my right honourable friend Theresa May and by men and women to encourage more women to get involved in politics, saw the number of Conservative women MPs increase in 10 years from 17 to 68, as we have heard. That is not just good for the Conservative Party; it is good for Great Britain.

The progress of women in the United Kingdom cannot be debated in isolation. It is a big world out there and we have much to learn from one another. So although today’s debate concentrates on the United Kingdom, I am sure that my noble friend the Minister will not mind if, on the eve of International Women’s Day, I mention my beloved Middle East. I had to be the first to break rank and go international. I declare my interests as set out in the register.

There are a lot of misconceptions about the role of women in the Middle East, and, sadly, we heard some of them voiced in your Lordships’ House a couple of weeks ago. It is far too easy to trot out the stereotypes when the truth is somewhat different. Women’s suffrage has varied in the Middle East and north Africa. It began in mandated British Palestine in 1946, and now across the region women can vote and stand for office. Last month, the United Arab Emirates announced the appointment of eight women Ministers, and women sit in the Shura Council in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

In a report in 2012 on women’s empowerment in the region, the George W Bush Presidential Center confirmed that the Middle East is crowded with highly accomplished, strong and determined women. We see this in the wonderful women ambassadors who serve in the UK—currently from Morocco and Lebanon and previously from Bahrain, Jordan and Tunisia—and in inspiring businesswomen such as Rasha Al Roumi, who runs Kuwait Airways, and Randa Ayoubi from Jordan, the founder of Rubicon, an Amman-based entertainment company, who was recently named one of the 25 most influential women in global television. In Kuwait, there are now more women than men graduating in science and engineering. Sciences Po in France is currently conducting research into why that might be. Perhaps we could learn something from that research. These women, and countless more like them, live in countries where society is often more conservative than the leadership, and which, relatively speaking, are still at the beginning of their journey towards the full empowerment of women. We must do all that we can, whenever we can, to support and acknowledge their achievements, because they will be the role models and the drivers of change in the future.