Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Hannah Bardell and Kit Malthouse

Monday 26th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

T3. What equality impact assessment have the Government and the Secretary of State made of the emotional and psychological impact on the women subject to the two child cap and the rape clause and, further, on the DWP workers who have to implement it? Does she agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss), who has fought so valiantly on this issue, that forcing women to relive abuse in an interview is an utterly disgusting and abhorrent policy?

[Kit Malthouse]

The hon. Lady raises an important point. She will know—I was asked this question in a Westminster Hall debate last week—that we have attempted to deal with this issue with some sensitivity. The undertaking I have given to her hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central is that if she believes there are particular issues with the system in place for dealing with this, we are more than happy to look at them. I would be more than happy to meet the hon. Lady as well to discuss it.

Parliamentary Candidates: Barriers for Women

Debate between Hannah Bardell and Kit Malthouse

Wednesday 13th September 2017 Westminster Hall

[Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

I was honoured when I was asked to be co-chairman of Women2Win—and pleased, because I recognise that gender equality in this place is the responsibility of men as much as women.

I have three points to make. First, I am conscious that role models matter. I know because I am the proud owner, with my wife, of a pair of five-year-old twins, a girl and a boy. Pleasingly, our young daughter has been given all sorts of role models by books such as “Winnie Finn, Worm Farmer”, “Rosie Revere, Engineer”, “Ada Twist, Scientist” and “Fantastically Great Women Who Changed the World”. One day, while describing a picture with a spacecraft in it, I referred to the spaceman being inside. I realised that we were making progress when she said to me, “Daddy, how do you know it’s a man?”

On the flip side, the responsibility of men was made clear to me when my son argued with my wife about whether there could be female bus drivers, because he had never seen one. These things matter. That is why the education programme in this place—getting schoolchildren in to talk to them about what MPs do and who they are—is so important.

[Hannah Bardell]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that gender stereotyping is, in many respects, reinforced in children’s early years by toys and books? My mum, who was a single parent, could find only one book with a single parent in it.

[Kit Malthouse]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right; there is certainly not enough literature and so on for young people, but the situation is better than it used to be. I recommend “Princess Smartypants” for young girls who want a good combination.

It was a real shock to come here after 16 years in London government, where politicians do not actually get a lot of abuse, and realise how much abuse female MPs take compared with male MPs. I am with the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) about getting rid of anonymity online. Women generally—not just female MPs or female journalists—get enormous amounts of abuse online compared with men, and we need to think carefully about anonymity.

I also want to mention what we project in this building. It is often said that women are put off coming here by the atmosphere: the aggression, the confrontation—all the stuff that appears in the media. In fact, 90% of our work in this place is not like that. The real picture, in Committee, in debates such as this one and elsewhere, is much more consensual and less aggressive.