UN Women

Baroness Laing of Elderslie Excerpts

Thursday 10th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House recognises that around the world women continue to suffer discrimination and injustice simply because of their gender; notes that underlying inequality between men and women is the driving force that results in 70 per cent. of the world’s poor being female; recognises that empowering women will drive progress towards all the Millennium Development Goals; welcomes the launch of UN Women, the UN Agency for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, on 1 January 2011; recognises that the agency is an example of UN reform to improve efficiency and co-ordination; and calls on the Government to provide support to the new agency to ensure it has the resources required to end the discrimination that keeps millions of women in poverty.

May I begin by thanking the Backbench Business Committee, and in particular its Chair, the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel), for choosing to hold this debate in the week in which we celebrate not only international women’s day, but the centenary of the first international women’s day? Some Members of this House and people further afield have questioned the need for this debate, and have suggested that there is not much interest in the subject. The fact that you, Mr Speaker, have put a time limit of eight minutes on speeches, and the number of Members I see in the Chamber prove simply and beyond doubt that those people are wrong. We need this debate. I am the first to say that we will not change the world by having a debate in the House of Commons, but it is our duty to ensure that the issues before us are kept high on the political agenda in the United Kingdom and across the world. That is what I hope this debate will achieve.

In 1911, on the first international women’s day, women in Britain were still fighting for basic rights, including the right to vote, as we all know. I like to think that if I were 100 years older, I would have been an ardent suffragette, although I am pretty sure that I would not have been an ardent socialist suffragette. I would have needed my own movement to separate the two. I am sure that every Member in the Chamber this afternoon, and not just the women, would have supported the suffragist movement.

I was privileged in New York three years ago to be one of the UK Parliament’s representatives to the UN Commission on the Status of Women. When I met and listened to the presentations of women from all over the world, it struck me forcefully that the problems that our great-grandmothers struggled with at the time of the first international women’s day a century ago are still faced by most—not some, but most—women across the world today. As the motion states,

“around the world women continue to suffer discrimination and injustice simply because of their gender”.

I welcome the setting up of UN Women, which is properly called the UN Agency for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. I congratulate our Government on their support, particularly through transitional funding, for the new organisation. We all know that the United Nations has not always been the most efficient of organisations, but we must recognise that the new agency is an example of UN reform and is intended to improve efficiency and co-ordination. I welcome the Government’s approach to that aspect of the UN. The agency will not be just a talking shop. It is through empowering women that we, as an international community, will drive progress on all the millennium development goals, which everyone in this House supports.

I applaud the appointment of Michelle Bachelet, the former President of Chile, as the first executive director of UN Women. Most Members will agree with what she said when the agency was launched:

“Think of how much more we can do once women are fully empowered as active agents of change and progress within their societies”.

She said:

“My own experience has taught me that there is no limit to what women can do.”

[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] I heard a little, “Hear, hear.” [Hon. Members: “Hear! Hear!”] Thank you very much. Every woman, and indeed most men, in this House will agree with that statement—there is no limit to what women can do. To put joking aside, I never say that women can do everything that men can do.

I will be careful in my remarks, Mr Deputy Speaker, to respect the rules on parliamentary language. As I heard Jenni Murray, the excellent presenter of “Woman’s Hour” on the BBC, say earlier this week, “I will be very sparing in my use of the F-word. I will try very hard not to mention feminism.” [Interruption.] I am being goaded into mentioning feminism. I will mention it and I will also mention equality. However, although the concepts of feminism and equality are good to talk about, they are not what this debate, the motion and our aims are really about. I prefer to talk about empowerment. The point of empowering women, rather than just helping them or saying that they ought to be equal, is that doing so and giving them the practical skills that they need can make a difference in the societies in which they live and operate. It may come as a surprise to know that women earn only 10% of the world’s income, even though they work two thirds of the world’s working hours—and I bet that does not include looking after the children. Evidence shows that when women earn and manage their own money, they are more likely than men to spend it on educating and feeding their children.

I am not being narrow-minded and concentrating on feminism, and I do not argue that men have got everything wrong and that women can put it all right, but I do argue that wasting the potential skills and abilities of half the world’s population because of discrimination is simply appalling. If we really want to help developing nations, as well as continuing to help our nation, Europe and the western world, we must recognise the role of women.

I do not have time to develop all the details of the work that has to be done, but the House knows them well and many speakers will develop these points this afternoon. We have to tackle violence against women in all its forms, here in our own country and especially across the world and the horror of such violence in war zones. We have to tackle trafficking, forced labour, the fact that women are deprived of education, the fact that women need to control their own fertility to have any chance of empowerment or being able to contribute to their society, and the fact that women’s health is ignored in so many parts of the world. There is also, of course, the continued fight for democratic representation. I look forward to hearing what many colleagues will say on those and other subjects this afternoon.

I have been talking about women across the world, but let us not pretend that we have conquered the problems here in Britain. We can look around us, because 22% of MPs are women. I am sure other Members will agree that when we meet people at UN meetings and other international gatherings, they are astounded to hear that in Britain, just over a fifth of Members of our precious and much-respected House of Commons are women.

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is sounding a bit like a vicar we used to have when I was a child, who constantly used to blame those who were in church for those who were not.

My experience, having sat on a selection committee, is that some of the people who are hardest about not selecting women candidates for Parliament are, perversely, women on selection committees.

[Mrs Laing]

Absolutely right; my hon. Friend is totally correct. We have all been through it, and I have seen it. I know that it happens in our party, and I hear anecdotally that it does in other parties, too. He is also right to say that those in church are blamed for those who are not there. We need more women to come forward to be part of the democratic process, but we need to make it possible for them to do so. If I were to cover the points that I have made many times before on that subject, I would take far more than the five minutes still left to me, but I hope that other Members will address it this afternoon.

We have a long way to go, but I also say to the House—and I mean it—that the percentage of women in the House is not what really matters. What matters is making our voices heard when we are here. What matters is punching above our weight, and let us face it, our weight is generally much lower than that of our male colleagues. There is now a critical mass of women in this place that there was not when I first came here 14 years ago, and it is up to us to make our voices heard. That is exactly what we are doing this afternoon.

[Naomi Long (Belfast East) (Alliance)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that there is an important, subtle difference between working in an environment that is predominantly male and working in one that is male-dominated?

[Mrs Laing]

The hon. Lady puts it very well. The environment in which we work is both predominantly male and male-dominated, but we might not be able to change the former as quickly as we can change the latter by making our voices heard. I am pleased to see that so many women and men are here to do so this afternoon.

If our democratic deficit is bad, the deficit is even worse in the business world. I draw the attention of the House to Lord Davies’s excellent recent report, which identifies the loss to our economy because so few women are on the boards of UK companies. Once again, we cannot insist on their being there, but we can create the conditions that make it possible for them to live up to their aspirations and the aspirations that we as a society have for women.

At the same time, two thirds of low-paid workers in Britain today are women, and across the country, two women die every week as a result of domestic violence. Throughout the work force, women still earn an average of 16% less than men. It is not by changing the law that we can change those things and the others that are wrong, but by changing the attitudes of society. That is why it is important that we talk about these matters in the Chamber.

The great tragedy of the lack of women’s representation, the lack of women in top places in industry and the lack of women doing the jobs that they could be doing is that it is a waste to our economy and our society. The pursuit of equality is not just a philosophical end. If we take the empowerment of women seriously, then across the world, and especially in developing countries where it is so desperately needed, we must give women the chance of good health and good education, to develop skills and contribute to the work force, and to give their children the health and education that will strengthen future generations. If we empower women, we will let them teach their children that co-operating, living together in peace and respecting other people is a more worthy ideal than the old-fashioned way of fighting for territory and proving oneself the stronger man.

By empowering women, we will be able to instil in future generations the idea that the most important goal is respect for fellow human beings and basic human rights. We have come a long way on basic human rights. We believe—let us take this message to developing countries, too—that people should respect their fellow human beings and accord them the same rights that they would wish to have themselves. No matter what a person’s colour, what country they come from, what their religion is, what they look like or what they sound like, we would wish to accord them equality.

As we celebrate international women’s day, and as we ensure that we keep all those issues high on the political agenda, what chance do we have as a society, and further afield across the world, of according basic human rights and human dignity to the world’s minorities if we cannot start by according those rights and that basic dignity to half the world’s population who happen to be women?

I am pleased that we are able to have this debate, and I look forward to Members examining in greater detail the issues that I have raised. I thank the House for coming together this afternoon to ensure that those of us who are privileged women in a developed society can speak up for our sisters across the world who need our help.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Kate Green]

I certainly do and, together with the hon. Member for South Thanet (Laura Sandys), I am very proud to be a parliamentary ambassador for carers week this year. I hope that we will have the opportunity to highlight exactly the sort of contribution that carers make and to which the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood) refers.

I wish to take a moment to talk specifically about the position of lone parents, which was the subject of hot political debate 10 or 15 years ago. It has rather dropped off the political radar but, regrettably, that is not because their battle is entirely won. It is still the case that more than 90% of lone parents are women—lone mothers—but it is very important to recognise that very few women have set out to bring up their children alone. None the less, one in four children in this country will spend some time in a lone parent family, and those children and families face an exceptionally high risk of poverty. Of course it is right that we should do all we can to sustain sustainable relationships, but it is not the mark of a civilised society that we allow those who are growing up in households where relationships have ended to find that they do so in poverty.

[Mrs Laing]

May I thank the hon. Lady for her support in obtaining this debate with the Backbench Business Committee and say that she was most eloquent? Would she like to emphasise the need to break the myth that women who are bringing up children alone have been teenage mothers—the vast majority of these women are not? As she said, they do not choose to be in that position and, of course, all women and men in that position deserve our support.

[Kate Green]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right, because the average age of lone mothers is now 35 and just 3% of them are teenagers. There is a very wide gap between myth and reality, as she rightly said.

In conclusion, we need and must have a debate now on the way in which we secure and sustain the economic independence of women throughout their life course, whatever their family circumstances. That is why I am particularly pleased to support the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart). Women’s lives have changed dramatically, even in my lifetime. However, despite the progress that women such as me—well-educated, professional women in well-paid employment—have enjoyed over the past five decades, it is still women who bear the brunt of poverty in this country. Inequality on pay and, importantly, on pension protection reflects the fact that there is still too much segregated employment, and that we still have a social security system that fails to provide adequate support and an education system that still too often squeezes down girls’ aspirations. This is still the fifth largest economy in the world, and we cannot tolerate a situation in which women continue to live in poverty. It is unnecessary, wasteful and unjust. It is a scandal and we need to ensure that every one of our economic and social policies thinks women and thinks how it can address that injustice. So in this UK Parliament, which is aptly, if sometimes incorrectly, characterised as the “mother of Parliaments”, I say that we must establish the scrutiny body that the amendment proposes. In the week that marks the centenary of international women’s day, I hope that parliamentarians in this House will commit themselves to doing just that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Laing]

I thank the Minister sincerely on behalf of the whole House—that is an unusual thing to happen—for his support for today’s motion, for his and the Government’s support for the new UN Women agency, and for how he has assiduously taken onboard all of today’s points and made reference to them. No doubt he will take them on board in the future. That means that this has been a useful and constructive debate. I mention in passing that he deserves congratulation on what he has done not as a Minister—well, as a Minister as well—but long before that in setting up the excellent charity, the Malaria Consortium, which does a wonderful job in combating malaria, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. We should bear in mind that it is mostly women and children who die of malaria. On behalf of the House, I praise him for the work he has done.

We have heard this afternoon many speeches in a serious debate on a serious motion that actually means something. For the sake of time, I will not refer to any speeches in particular, except for that from my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart). It is important that we tell him that he is absolutely right; it is true that women are impossible, and it is entirely deliberate. We are also determined and never give up. [Interruption.] I think that was a “Hear, hear” from my hon. Friend.

I am sorry that I cannot support the amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart). However, I agree entirely with the intention of the amendment, and she is right to put it before the House. She has drawn attention to the fact that it is up to all of us, as Members of Parliament, in every area in which we are working, and in every Department, to hold the Government to account in tackling inequality and injustice. The House has delivered a strong message this afternoon that this Parliament is determined to fulfil its international duties in driving forward the millennium development goals, by empowering women for the greater good not just of women, but of the societies everywhere in the world in which they live and where they can have influence.

Here at home, new Members of the House will not appreciate that in recent years we have made enormous breakthroughs. I pay tribute to some of the hon. Ladies in the Chamber this afternoon for their work in ensuring that gender equality is taken seriously in this place. It is not so long ago that it was not taken seriously. Some of us have had to fight very hard to get to where we are now. That does not mean that we have won—we have a long way to go—but now most Members of Parliament, if not all, see the point of marking international women’s day, and that equality is worth it not just for its own sake, but for the sake of utilising the talents and abilities of the whole population of our country, not just half of it. The message is simple: where women are oppressed, society suffers; where women are set free, society prospers.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House recognises that around the world women continue to suffer discrimination and injustice simply because of their gender; notes that underlying inequality between men and women is the driving force that results in 70 per cent. of the world’s poor being female; recognises that empowering women will drive progress towards all the Millennium Development Goals; welcomes the launch of UN Women, the UN Agency for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, on 1 January 2011; recognises that the agency is an example of UN reform to improve efficiency and co-ordination; and calls on the Government to provide support to the new agency to ensure it has the resources required to end the discrimination that keeps millions of women in poverty.