International Women’s Day

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Thursday 5th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Rigid stereotypes about what girls should do and what boys should do also hold boys back. They do not give them the opportunities they might want in traditionally female professions, for example, and they do not allow them to express themselves in ways that can be helpful and empowering and make their lives better. This is the point that I was making at the start of my remarks. Of course I am proud to be a woman; I love being a woman. I have two daughters, and I encourage them to celebrate being female, with all the great benefits and life experiences that that brings. At the same time, however, they should not in any way feel that that defines them or places on them any expectations about the way in which they live their lives. Equality for everyone—everyone being free from those preconceptions—is good for our society. It unleashes ideas and opportunities that will benefit us all.

I want to talk about my recent experience at the African investment summit that we held here in London. I met a group of fantastic entrepreneurs called the Lionesses. They were from sub-Saharan Africa, where they are leading the way with the highest rate of women entrepreneurs on the planet. They were a fantastic group of women. I do not think it is a coincidence that women are achieving so much in business. Free enterprise and free trade do not care about someone’s gender or sexuality, or the colour of their skin. The first female Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, once said that

“a widget remains a widget—and it will be bought anywhere if the price and quality are right. The market is a more powerful and more reliable liberating force than government can ever be.”

That is why we are so keen as a Government to champion female entrepreneurs, to champion opportunities for women in business and to champion women in the workplace. We need to ensure that everyone can enter, get back into, and get on in the workplace. I am proud that under this Government the employment rate for women has reached a record high of 72.4%. Almost 2 million more women are in work since 2010. When I talk to women across our country, they are not interested in identity politics. They are interested in how they, their families and their communities can get on in life. That is why we as a Government are focused on tackling the barriers that hold people back and on levelling up our country.

We are investing in our railways, roads and broadband to bring opportunities to every home and business. We have doubled the free childcare available in England to eligible working parents of three and four-year-olds to 30 hours per week. We are supporting families across the UK through tax-free childcare, and we have established a new £1 billion fund to create more high quality, affordable childcare. We will extend entitlement to leave for unpaid carers, the majority of whom are women, to one week. This is the real substance of our national programme, which is inclusive to everybody. Its aim is to unite, to level up and to bring together every region and nation of our country.

As well as tackling these policy challenges, we recognise that ingrained assumptions pose barriers that make it harder for people to fulfil their potential. I vividly remember, as a 12-year-old girl, getting on a flight with KLM. My brothers were presented with junior pilot badges, but I was presented with a junior air hostess badge. That was a revelatory moment for me. I did not like being told what job I was able to do because I was a girl. I do not believe that any girl or boy should be encouraged to pursue a career or study a course because of their gender, yet between the ages of seven and 11, boys are almost twice as likely as girls to want to be scientists and four times more likely than girls to want to be engineers. This is linked to a significant lack of academic attainment for women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, and to their severe underrepresentation in related fields. That is why this Government have championed maths and science, benefiting girls and boys alike. There has been a 31% increase in girls’ entries to STEM A-levels in England since 2010, and the number of women in the UK accepted on to full-time STEM undergraduate courses increased by 34% between 2010 and 2019.

We recognise that championing women’s rights cannot stop at our borders, and the Government are also taking steps to empower women internationally. I find it appalling that child marriages, female genital mutilation and the denial of access to a quality education still blight our world, keeping women down and damaging the countries they live in. This is depriving us all of the ideas that they could pioneer, the vital jobs that they could be doing and the dreams that they could be pursuing.

The Government recognise that women can contribute positively to the modern world just as much as men. That is why we continue to support targeted development programmes to ensure that all girls, right around the world, receive 12 years of quality education. I strongly agree with the Prime Minister, who speaks so passionately on this subject, that all girls must be allowed to achieve their potential, whether they were born in London, Lagos, Lima or Lahore. The world must stop wilfully neglecting the enormous benefits that accrue for everyone when girls are given an education and job.

We are driving progress towards ending all forms of violence against women and girls internationally, including sexual violence in conflict, and we are promoting women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights and supporting their economic and political empowerment. We are also hosting a conference—chaired by a former Member of this House, Nick Herbert—that will ensure that LGBT people across the world are safe and free to live the lives they wish, including lesbians and bisexual women and the specific challenges that they face.

[Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

Before the Minister moves back to the domestic sphere, I want to ask her what her Government are doing on the international front to protect women human rights activists around the world. They are standing up for the human rights of the people they represent, but they also face discrimination because of their gender.

[Elizabeth Truss]

The hon. Lady makes a good point about female human rights activists, and I will certainly take it away to ensure that we are doing all we can, in conjunction with the Foreign Office.

We are celebrating the achievements of women today. This does not mean being defined by being a woman, favouring women over men or being pigeonholed by outdated stereotypes. It is about defending the rights of adults to make choices, to be free to live the lives they choose and to flourish on their own terms. The Government are proud of the steps we are taking to advance the potential of women, both in levelling up opportunities here in the UK in areas such as housing, transport and childcare, and in our efforts to extend those opportunities across the world in areas such as education.

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[Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

I start by paying tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) for reading out that list again. Very sadly, one of my constituents, Libby Squire, was on that list. She was a young woman at Hull University, at the very start of her university career. It is an appalling tragedy that she—and all the other women, of course—is on that list.

I was very pleased to hear the maiden speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Apsana Begum). I was a councillor in Tower Hamlets for eight years, and I recall very well the rise of the British National party, and the community coming together to crush it back in 1994. She spoke very well about the women’s involvement in Cable Street, and about the suffragettes in the east end. I am sure she will also recall the important role that the matchwomen played as grandmothers of the Labour movement—and, I think, of the Labour party. I notice that a number of us are wearing ribbons to mark the matchwomen’s strike in 1888.

I want to take this opportunity to celebrate the amazing politicians and activists who have been fighting for so long to change the injustice in Northern Ireland around abortion law. In particular, I have to mention my remarkable hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy). Someone once said to me that MP should stand for “must persevere”, and the perseverance that my hon. Friend has shown is remarkable. I pay great tribute to her, and to my hon. Friends the Members for Bristol South (Karin Smyth) and for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd), and to Baroness Barker in the other place. Those changes, which will be introduced in the next few weeks, will help us in this place to think again about the law that currently applies, the Abortion Act 1967, which I think is due for a review.

We all know that the last few years have been very difficult for all MPs, but particularly women MPs, given the insults, threats and behaviours we have faced—behaviours that, when I came to this place in 2005, I had not really experienced. The last few years have been very difficult, and of course there was the tragic murder of our good friend Jo Cox. However, I know that many women around the world who put themselves forward to be politicians, journalists or human rights defenders face harassment, intimidation and victimisation daily.

Hillary Clinton coined the phrase,

“human rights are women’s rights, and women’s rights are human rights”.

As it is International Women’s Day, I want to mention a few incredibly brave women around the world, and ask the Government what they are will do to support them. First I want to raise the case of the Saudi right to drive campaigners. Several brave Saudi Arabian women who campaigned for the right to drive have been arbitrarily detained since May 2018, including Samar Badawi and Loujain al-Hathloul. In November 2018, Amnesty International reported that several of those women faced sexual harassment, torture and other forms of ill-treatment during interrogation, including electrocution and flogging, leaving some unable to walk or stand properly. In one reported incident, one of the activists was made to hang from the ceiling. Can the Minister say whether the Foreign Secretary, on his recent visit to Saudi Arabia, called for the unconditional release of those women activists?

I also wanted to highlight in the Chamber the case of Nasrin Sotoudeh, a prominent lawyer and human rights defender in Iran. She was arrested at her home on 13 June 2018 and detained without charge for over six months. She was convicted on seven charges and sentenced to 33 years in prison and 148 lashes. Her peaceful human rights activities against being forced to wear the hijab, including those undertaken when acting as a lawyer—for example, when meeting clients—were used to build a criminal case against her. Even her insistence on choosing an independent lawyer, instead of one from the list of 20 selected by the head of the judiciary, has been cited as a criminal act. Will the UK Government call on the Iranian authorities to release Nasrin immediately and drop all charges against her?

The third case I wanted to highlight was that of Dina Meza from Honduras. She is a celebrated independent journalist committed to defending freedom of expression and information. She spent years investigating and reporting on human rights violations across the country and challenging those breaches. Dina worked at incredible personal risk, and has previously had to flee Honduras for her safety. Because of the threats she faces, she receives protective accompaniment from Peace Brigades International. What steps have the UK Government taken to help promote freedom of expression and protect women journalists in Honduras?

Finally, I want to talk about Rosalinda Dionicio from Mexico. She is the leader of the United Peoples’ Network of the Ocotlán Valley in Defence of Territory, which, since 2009, has been demanding the closure of the San Jose mine, which is owned by a subsidiary of the Canadian company, Fortuna Silver Mines. The group says the mine has caused enormous environmental destruction and water shortages in the community. Rosalinda was attacked by gunmen in 2012, but survived. Despite the attack and the subsequent threats, she continues to struggle for the rights of the indigenous communities affected. What will the Government do to help protect and improve the security of indigenous women human rights defenders in Mexico?

Those are just some examples of incredibly brave women around the world to whom we politicians need to pay tribute. We need to press our Government to stand alongside them and do whatever they can to protect them.