Ukraine

Debate between Elizabeth Truss and Diana Johnson

Monday 28th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I will take up the right hon. Lady’s case urgently with the Home Office to get it resolved as soon as possible.

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

Like the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), I am concerned about the mass movement of women and children from Ukraine opening up opportunities for human trafficking and particularly sex trafficking. At the weekend, it was reported that, according to a number of charities, the Homes for Ukraine scheme risks operating as Tinder for sex traffickers. What does the Foreign Secretary have to say about that?

[Elizabeth Truss]

Criminal justice checks are done on all those participating in the Homes for Ukraine scheme, to ensure that there is proper safeguarding. I agree with the right hon. Lady about the very concerning issue of human trafficking at the border. We have more than 300 staff in the region working with the international agencies to prevent that from happening, but she is right to say that it is a real risk, and we take it extremely seriously.

Sanctions

Debate between Elizabeth Truss and Diana Johnson

Monday 28th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I thank my hon. Friend for his idea. Nothing is off the table.

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

I welcome what the Foreign Secretary said about banning Russian airlines and Russian ships from docking at our ports, but yesterday afternoon, a Russian-owned and Russian-crewed ship headed from Inverness to the Humber to dock. I know she has made it clear that she is in discussions with the Transport Secretary, but can she give some indication of when we will have sanctions to stop that happening? There was a huge amount of local opposition in the Humber to that ship.

[Elizabeth Truss]

The local opposition is right and we are working as fast as we can to deal with the issue.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Elizabeth Truss and Diana Johnson

Wednesday 26th May 2021 Commons Chamber

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

What progress her Department has made on bringing forward legislative proposals to ban conversion therapies.

[The Minister for Women and Equalities (Elizabeth Truss)]

We set out in the Queen’s Speech our intention to ban conversion therapy, which is an abhorrent practice. We will consult in September and legislate as soon as possible. We are also putting in place support for victims.

--- Later in debate ---

[Elizabeth Truss]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is why we are proud that we are instituting the UK’s first ever international LGBT conference under the theme of “Safe To Be Me”, which is about protecting people from persecution worldwide. The conference will be led by Lord Herbert and will take place in June next year. I look forward to welcoming my hon. Friend to appear at it.

[Dame Diana Johnson [V]]

I am pleased that the consultation will be starting soon. Does the Secretary of State intend for the Cass review to be part of the consultation, and will the consultation address issues of sexual orientation and gender identity?

[Elizabeth Truss]

The consultation will address the issues of gender identity and sexual orientation. The Cass review is taking place separately; that is a matter for the Department of Health, but of course we want to ensure that the under-18s are protected from making irreversible decisions about their own future.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Elizabeth Truss and Diana Johnson

Thursday 19th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

We have already done trade deals with 52 countries and we are on course to do many more, and we are absolutely committed to the Good Friday agreement.

[Dame Diana Johnson [V]]

As one of the MPs for the Humber energy estuary, where we are doing pioneering work in areas such as carbon capture, it is heartwarming to hear American President-elect Biden talking about the global climate crisis and the action needed to address it, and seeing this as a way of generating the jobs of the future. Will the Secretary of State expand a little on what she thinks can be put into any trade deals in terms of this country’s green technology and making sure this creates the jobs needed on both this side of the Atlantic and the other?

[Elizabeth Truss]

In the new UK global tariff we have reduced the tariffs on 100 green goods, and we want to encourage more other countries to support that. Of course we are committed to working with the US, and next year we will have the presidency of the G7. That is a really good opportunity for us to pursue that agenda of tackling climate change, alongside our COP26 commitments, and of course we will be looking at putting these in all our trade deals.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Elizabeth Truss and Diana Johnson

Wednesday 23rd September 2020 Commons Chamber

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

  The recent report by the all-party group on sexual and reproductive health in the UK found that women are increasingly having difficulty accessing contraception because of cuts to budgets and complex commissioning arrangements. The past president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, Professor Dame Lesley Regan, has pointed out that Viagra was made available to men over the counter and without a prescription within a year of being licensed, but the safe progestogen-only pill has been licensed for more than 60 years and we still do not trust women to get it over the counter at the chemist. What is the Minister going to do about this blatant discrimination against women?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. I will take the issue up with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care.

International Women’s Day

Debate between Elizabeth Truss and Diana Johnson

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.

UK-US Trade Deal

Debate between Elizabeth Truss and Diana Johnson

Monday 2nd March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

My right hon. Friend is right. There are issues that are dealt with at a federal level and a state level. We will be seeking an agreement that secures access to US Government procurement at a federal level. We will also be looking, in the first instance, at the major states as well to gain more access for British companies.

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

The Secretary of State said that if an agreement could not be reached to exclude the NHS from any trade deal, then we would walk away, but will she be clear on whether, if any trade deal was done, she would expect there to be explicit wording in it to exempt public services from any liberalisation measures?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I can assure the hon. Lady that we will put in the wording necessary to deliver the commitments that I have laid out in the objectives—that is, no increases to drugs prices, no services put at risk, and also the NHS itself not being on the table. That will be clear.