Women in the House of Commons

Debate between Hannah Bardell and Caroline Nokes

Thursday 7th December 2017 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Cabinet Office (Caroline Nokes)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson, and, indeed, to be back in this Chamber after a gap of a considerable number of months. I apologise if I am somewhat rusty. I have often said—and I believe that the Chairman of the Select Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), shares the view—that sometimes Parliament is at its best in Westminster Hall, when we are speaking in a consensual and cross-party manner. I think that I recently followed my right hon. Friend, in successive weeks, on “The Politics Show South”. I heard her say one week that she felt that Parliament was at its best when it worked on a cross-party basis in Westminster Hall, and I repeated that the following week. I am sure that the viewers of the BBC’s “Politics South” programme found us slightly tedious, but never mind. We have seen elements of that consensus today. Right hon. and hon. Members, including those who may have spoken and then had to leave, raised a number of really important points, many of which I will struggle to disagree with.

Of course, I congratulate my right hon. Friend on securing the debate, and all the members of the Select Committee on an excellent report. Unsurprisingly, I have had the opportunity to read and reflect on it and, indeed, the Government response this week.

The issue of diverse representation in Parliament was last discussed in this Chamber just three months ago, in a debate led by my hon. Friend and parliamentary neighbour the Member for Eastleigh (Mims Davies). I am sorry that she was unable to be here today, because I also had the opportunity to read the record of that debate and the many important and pertinent comments that both female and male Members of the House made about their struggles to get here and, indeed, some of the challenges that we all face when we are here.

I echo the comment that my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke made about how well Hampshire has done in securing female representation. I believe that we lead the way on diversity, in terms of both gender and BAME representation. We are doing brilliantly on that, but I cannot necessarily point to the reasons why. Back in September, the hon. Member for Livingston (Hannah Bardell) made a similar comment about why she could not necessarily share all the secrets of why Livingston and West Lothian had done better than other parts of the country in securing both female representation and female candidates. I was struck by the comment about the constituency that was, I think, the only one in the country with an all-female line-up at the last election.

I was talking about Hampshire. When my right hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt), my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Caroline Dinenage) and I arrived here in 2010, I was struck by the tales from my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke about how miserable this place had been when there were only 17 female Conservative Members. That increased to nearly 50 in 2010, and today it is nearly 70. We now have my hon. Friends the Members for Fareham (Suella Fernandes) and for Eastleigh. Between 2015 and 2017, we also had my former hon. Friend Flick Drummond, then Member for Portsmouth South, whom we all very much miss and would like to see back here.

As my ministerial colleagues have made clear in their response to the report and, indeed, in various debates in the House, we want more progress, and that means a gender-balanced and therefore representative House of Commons. I was struck by the comments, which none of us would disagree with, that this would be a better place if we had better gender representation. There is certainly real aspiration—we have heard some today—on both sides of the House to find talent in the broadest cross-section of society. That should also be the case in our local councils, where women are represented similarly to how they are here: they hold only one third of elected positions and comprise only 17% of council leaders.

Local government is often seen as, and indeed is, a pipeline for talented people who might aspire to come to this place. Looking around the Chamber, I can see people who have been representatives on local authorities, as I was, and who, either by accident or design, found themselves on a trajectory that brought them to Westminster, but I argue that there are woefully low numbers of female council leaders and councillors. If we are to look at local government as our pipeline, we simply cannot take it for granted.

Earlier this week, my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke hosted an event entitled “Ask Her to Stand”. That is such a crucial part of this. Whether we are male or female Members of the House and whether we are members of large parties or small ones, we all have a responsibility to find women who are interested and active, to encourage them to develop and to foster their talent, so that they have the confidence to come and occupy the same positions as we do. It is a real privilege to be here, and we have to find constructive and positive solutions to some of the more challenging aspects of the job.

I often spend time encouraging women I meet to think about standing, but I was really struck by the comments of the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq) when she was asking what she should say to young girls in her constituency: should she look them in the eye and tell them that this is the greatest place to work, or should she be honest? It is a really difficult question. I had some young girls from St James’ Primary School in Bermondsey come in here a few weeks ago as part of the “I Can Be” project, and they asked me whether this was a great place to work and whether I loved every minute of my job. I was honest, but I said that the same is true of any job: you will love bits of it and hate bits of it. That is very true in Parliament, but there are some environmental factors. Many Members have referred to both the environment and the culture. I told those six-year-old girls that we have to modernise, and if modernisation can bring with it the removal of the mice, I for one will be a very happy Member of Parliament.

Virtually every Member has spoken about the cultural issues in this place, and I can argue with none of the comments made, especially on voting at midnight. I was going to describe an impromptu surgery, but it was not a surgery. I sat in the Lady Members’ Room between 10 and midnight on Monday and the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn was there for part of the time. I confess I was asleep for some of the time. I talked to some senior Members from her party about what we could do to make this place more attractive. I will give credit to the hon. Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown), who was particularly honest in some of her views. She was right: it is a nonsense that we are here voting at midnight on occasion. Although the issues are serious and important, can any of us attest to being at our best at midnight? I certainly am not, and the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn can attest to the fact that about two minutes before the vote I was fast asleep, and probably snoring.

We have a long way to go and I am conscious that I have many words that I want to say but will probably not get through all of them.

[Hannah Bardell]

I thank the Minister for giving way, and for her comments. One of the cultural issues that we touched on in our report was the representation of women and female parliamentarians in the media— the abuse and attention that we often receive. Speaking for myself, I have not received a huge amount of that, but some of my colleagues have. When we look up at the members of the Lobby during Prime Minister’s Question Time, which is about the only time the Press Gallery is ever full, we see how scarce women are among them. Some of the challenge is in the Lobby and in those who report on our parliamentary work. Does my hon. Friend agree that we must do more to ensure that there are more women—and greater diversity—in the media?

Jobcentre Plus Offices: Closure

Debate between Hannah Bardell and Caroline Nokes

Monday 30th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes]

This is not about squashing anything; it is about making sure that we have full desks in buildings, not empty desks. In some instances, we have jobcentres where more than 20% of the desks are unused. The hon. Lady will be aware that unemployment is down nearly 5% across London since 2015, and it is very important that we make the best use of the facilities we have and get the best value for taxpayers.

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

The DWP guidance says that it is a reasonable expectation that claimants should have access to an office within 3 miles or 20 minutes’ travelling time. The Minister is planning to close the Broxburn centre in my constituency, which will result in claimants travelling 6 miles or 30 minutes. Given that that closure is in breach of her own guidelines, will she reverse the decision? If not, will she put on a free, accessible bus for my constituents and others so that they will not be left out in the cold?

[Caroline Nokes]

The circumstances that the hon. Lady has outlined are outside the ministerial criteria, and that is exactly why we are having a consultation with the public on the matter.