Westminster Foundation for Democracy: Funding

Debate between Fabian Hamilton and Rupa Huq

Wednesday 2nd March 2022 Westminster Hall

[Fabian Hamilton (Leeds North East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under you as Chair, Dr Huq. I warmly congratulate the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) on securing such an important debate. It comes at an extremely important time, as Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine’s democracy rages on, becoming more brutal by the day.

The Westminster Foundation for Democracy has been conducting vital work in Ukraine as part of its inclusive and accountable politics programme, which aimed to help the Ukrainian Parliament strengthen its important role in scrutinising Government legislation. That improves transparency and accountability, which, as right hon and hon. Members will agree, are the bedrock of any democracy.

The WFD has played a part in helping Ukraine to build its democratic institutions. That is everything that Putin fears: democracies working together to prevent the horrific repression and human rights violations that we see in Putin’s Russia today. That is what he envisages for Ukraine, so it is vital that we do all we can in our Parliament to empower organisations such as the WFD, so that they can help prevent that.

In Belarus in 2020, we saw clear evidence of election rigging by the Lukashenko regime. Now that same regime is playing its part in attempting to destroy Ukraine’s democracy. The Opposition welcome the sanctions against those in the Belarusian and Russian regimes who look to subvert democracies. In particular, we welcome the fact that the UK, EU and US have agreed to disconnect some Russian banks from SWIFT, but there is much more that the UK Government can do to cut Putin’s rogue regime out of our financial system.

The hardest possible sanctions must be taken against all those linked to Putin, and against the Russian Government’s interests. We should work in a co-ordinated and unified way with our allies to ensure that the Putin regime faces the severest possible consequences for its unprovoked violence. That is why we, as parliamentarians in one of the world’s oldest democracies, must throw our support behind the WFD and its international partners in the global democracy coalition.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, eastern Europe was suddenly awash with new political parties legalised after the one-party authoritarian system of governance of the Soviet bloc came to an end. Hope was on the horizon, and I am confident that such hope will soon return to eastern Europe, including Ukraine.

The WFD has historically played a key role in protecting that hope. In the western Balkans, for example, it has worked closely with political parties to ensure that they are more policy focused and orientated towards voters’ needs. It has also helped to develop more effective parliamentary practice and, as a result, better legislation. It worked to enhance the democratic culture of formerly undemocratic states by facilitating greater interaction between state and non-state actors on the challenges affecting the everyday lives of citizens.

Properly funding the Westminster Foundation for Democracy is a significant part of Britain’s influence abroad. That influence does not stop at democracy; with it comes freedom of the press, human rights, the rule of law, the right to peaceful protest, and many other freedoms that we enjoy in this country and that, sadly, many others around the world do not. The WFD shows that we can all play a part in changing that. The rights of democracy campaigners are being violated every single day, and we must do all we can to support courageous activists in countries such as Cuba, where the Government continue to limit access to the internet in a desperate attempt to prevent campaigners for democracy having their voices heard.

Today I have highlighted some of the Westminster Foundation for Democracy’s work. Its work to increase Britain’s democratic influence across the world is needed now more than ever, from Nicaragua to Hungary, from Venezuela to Colombia. We are truly fortunate to live in a democracy, and I urge the Minister to commit today to the future of the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, so that we may spread hope to the less fortunate parts of our fragile world.

[Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)]

Just a reminder that we have to allow a couple of minutes for Richard Graham to conclude. I call the Minister.

Houses of Parliament (Family-friendliness)

Debate between Fabian Hamilton and Rupa Huq

Tuesday 10th November 2015 Westminster Hall

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

The other day at about 8 o’clock, I found myself heading back from the mother of Parliaments, which is—I still pinch myself—my workplace. I was heading from tube to road with a neighbour of mine from a few doors away, who said, “Late night at work, was it?” I was not fast enough to say no, this was an early night; as all Members know, it can be a lot later than that on a Monday.

Last night I did not even see my 11-year-old, who started high school this year. All the parenting guidebooks would say that that is a crucial time to be with one’s child. Until we get elected to this place, we do not really know what goes on in here. I have been here for six months and I am still acclimatising. We do not know what time we will get away until the day itself, and that unpredictability is part of the problem that my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) so persuasively highlighted.

To those on the outside, a debate such as this, as the right hon. Member for Chelmsford (Sir Simon Burns) mentioned, will not get a lot of sympathy. We are seen as overpaid and all the rest of it, but, after six months here, I have worked out that this place is many things. It is awesome in the true sense of that word: awe-inspiring. It is traditional and humbling, but one thing it is definitely not is family-friendly, so I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this timely debate today.

A Mumsnet survey from 2011 found that 91% of MPs would not describe their job as family-friendly. One of the early visits that I hosted here was for a school party from Ellen Wilkinson school in West Acton; I am proud that my constituency has a school named after a woman Labour MP who led the Jarrow march. In the Q&A bit afterwards, one of the girls said to me, “Why are there so few women MPs?” Partly, we take that for granted when we are on the inside, and my hon. Friend highlighted well the inside/outside divide on these issues. In my reply, I cited the family-unfriendly hours. On Mondays, I have been getting away at half-past midnight—and I am always the first person to leg it. Even when I was heading home at eight o’clock, and my neighbour thought it was late, I had been trying to get away quickly.

The Speaker’s Conference on parliamentary representation talked of the

“inflexible and unwelcoming attitude of the House towards families”.

That should not be so. However, as my hon. Friend said, we need reform on many levels. We need to be a modern Parliament, to reflect the communities we seek to serve; otherwise, we will have an ever-narrowing talent pool, and the big fish in that small pond will be self-replicating professional politicians. My hon. Friend mentioned that the Labour party’s previous leader—indeed, the three party leaders at the general election—had done nothing other than work for head office; they were backroom boys who had become leader. We need people from outside who have had other adult workplace experience and can bring in fresh thinking.

How would we define the average family in the UK today? The definition would have to take into account 2 million single parents. Gingerbread remarks that, contrary to media reports,

“these days, bringing up children on your own is actually a very normal part of family life in the UK.”

One in four dependent households is now a single-parent family. As a parent, every working mother constantly feels guilt about where their loyalties lie. If they work in a place such as this, that is magnified and multiplied severalfold, and that is even truer if they are a single parent. Flexibility in the workplace has been legislated for, but it seems not to apply to this place. Wherever people work, flexibility has a stigma attached to it, and they are made to feel embarrassed about even asking for flexible arrangements. However, that is even truer in the House. Gingerbread states that 57% of single parents work and that their average age is 38, contrary to the Daily Mail stereotype of their being feckless, teenage, brown-faced people.

All the research shows that mums are under-represented in this place, and single mums even more so. It takes a certain type of person to be an MP—we have to be shameless exhibitionists and a bit megalomaniac, and we must have a sense of public service and an ability to adapt. If all those things stifle diversity, that is a bad thing. We have to balance all these things.

To some extent—we heard this from the right hon. Member for Chelmsford—the idea that we have always done things this way—

[Fabian Hamilton (in the Chair)]

Order. I am sorry, but you are out of time.

[Dr Huq]

Really? There is so much more I could have said.

[Fabian Hamilton (in the Chair)]

There always is. I call Alison Thewliss.