Menopause

Debate between Charlotte Nichols and Laurence Robertson

Thursday 9th June 2022 Westminster Hall

[Charlotte Nichols (Warrington North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to see you serve in the Chair, Mr Robertson. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) for securing the debate, and for her ongoing commitment to pursuing wider public understanding and support for menopausal and perimenopausal women. The fact that all four nations of the UK are represented here is a real testament to the diligence, determination and doggedness of her campaigning. Having spoken in the debate that she secured last year, I am pleased that this is now a regular feature, and that the needs and experiences of women undergoing this stage of life are now being properly considered.

According to Hansard, the first time that the word “menopause” was used in our Parliament was in 1943, in the Lords, in a debate on “population problems”. It was not mentioned in the Commons until 1964, and the 100th reference was not until 2017. We are in a much healthier position now that we can consider it as one of the areas of life that we should properly appreciate.

I was struck by the comments from my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea about the experiences of women wrongly prescribed antidepressants and anxiety medication when what they needed was HRT. I know at first hand the life-saving potential of medications of that type, but only when they are appropriately prescribed. Side effects can often include excessive sweating, insomnia, agitation, anxiousness and dizziness—all things that can, themselves, be symptoms of menopause. That means that the wrongful prescription of those medications could actually exacerbate the very misery that caused affected women to seek medical support in the first place. At best, it would be treating some of the symptoms but not the underlying causes.

Let us hope that, as a Parliament, we are reflecting a society that increasingly understands and accommodates the symptoms of menopause, which affect so many in our country—around 5.1 million women aged between 45 and 55. As the right hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) made clear, many younger women, and people who do not define themselves as women at all, also experience this. They may find it even more difficult to access support as they do not fit the typical profile.

It is essential that every affected person feels confident and able to discuss their symptoms with their employers, and to have requests for workplace adjustments met. We have all now had the chance to see the value of flexible working, and if a woman suffering from hot flushes asks to wear a more forgiving uniform, or to change her work hours so that she is not commuting in crammed transport during rush hour, that should be granted. That is an area that should have been included in the long-promised employment Bill that was so glaringly absent from the Queen’s Speech.

Throughout my career I have often been lucky enough to be one of the youngest, if not the youngest, women within my team, and to have been surrounded by women who were older and more experienced, and who were often going through symptoms of the menopause or the perimenopause. It has meant that I have had the benefit of watching them, listening to them and hearing them. Their generosity, in talking about what they were going through, means that when I get to that stage of life I will know what to look out for, what treatments are available, and what adjustments I should be able to ask for, demand and expect from my employer. We need to foster cultures in every workplace that allow people to have those conversations with each other, with younger colleagues and with their employer, and importantly, to be listened to so that accommodations can be made. That will set a really positive precedent for our society as we move forward.

An important part of that wider societal understanding is the inclusion of menopause in relationship and sex education classes in schools. I am glad that that has been the case since 2019, but I would like to hear from the Minister about how widespread that teaching is. It would be ironic if our children now learn more about menopause than our medical professionals do. Last year I challenged the then Minister, the right hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Ms Dorries), about gaps in training at medical schools, as 41% do not teach about the menopause. She promised improvements by 2024, but I would like to know what the figures are now, because we cannot improve what we are not consistently measuring and tracking.

Many of the physical challenges of the menopause can be addressed through HRT, but access should not be a postcode lottery dependent on GP understanding or sympathy. In Wales and Scotland, women benefit from free prescriptions, including for HRT treatments. Can the Minister tell us what more the Government will do to ensure affordable access, particularly in the context of our current cost of living crisis, and what steps are being taken to address the issues of supply that have been raised by right hon. and hon. Members across the House?

To conclude, I am delighted that this is becoming a regular discussion, not least because we can therefore hold Ministers accountable on progress. I hope our questions are answered today. If not, we will continue to raise them at every opportunity, because suffering is not a necessary or inevitable part of ageing.

[Mr Laurence Robertson (in the Chair)]

We now come to the Front-Bench speeches.