Equality Act 2010 Guidance: Gynaecological Conditions

Hannah Spencer Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd November 2026 Westminster Hall

[Hannah Spencer (Gorton and Denton) (Green)]

A few weeks ago, I posted a video sharing some of what I am learning about endometriosis, and the response was absolutely heartbreaking. My comments were full of people sharing their experiences—years of pain, being dismissed by doctors, struggling to get a diagnosis and then, on top of that, trying to hold down a job and get their employers to understand. I heard about lives turned upside down by a condition that they have no control over and very little support with.

I hear the same stories from people in Gorton. What gets me the most is that it does not have to be this way. All that is needed is for women’s pain and the pain of those who are assigned female at birth to be taken seriously by the doctors who serve them, by the employers they work for and by the Government who represent them, yet instead, as has so often been the case throughout history, it ends up being the people most affected who are left to fight for the change that they deserve. Despite the pain and debilitating symptoms of endometriosis, they are the ones coming up with the ideas, solutions and plans. They are the experts, and we should all be listening.

One in six women with endometriosis leaves the workplace due to their condition. Almost half say that they have struggled to progress in their career because of endometriosis, and almost half had not received workplace adjustments. Almost half had lost income. Despite endometriosis affecting one in 10 women, it is rarely taught effectively at medical schools as part of the curriculum, leaving future healthcare practitioners without the necessary knowledge.

Those with endometriosis in Gorton and Denton and in every constituency across the country are losing money, missing out on opportunities and struggling to stay in employment, not because they do not want to work but because the support simply is not there. We are talking about basic, practical help that could make the difference between someone staying in work and having to give it up completely. Good employers want guidance. They want advice on flexible working, on time off for medical appointments, extra breaks or a phased return after surgery. Good employers want to help their staff so that their businesses can perform to their highest potential.

We need a Government that will finally listen to, and act on, lived experience by adding gynaecological conditions such as endometriosis to the Equality Act 2010 guidance on the definition of disability. These conditions are long term—often lifelong—and by definition, they fluctuate and recur, meeting the criteria for disability. There must be specificity in the guidance to ensure that employees disabled by debilitating chronic conditions such as endometriosis are supported with reasonable adjustments and legally protected against workplace discrimination.

To Sanju Pal, who has campaigned for so long and so hard on this, as well as the tireless work of countless other organisations, and to everyone for sharing their experiences and who are out there fighting for change, I say thank you. This debate is entitled

“the potential merits of adding gynaecological conditions to Equality Act 2010 guidance”,

but I think the people living with these conditions would find it pretty shocking that we even have to debate the merits. The debate should be about how much longer we can afford not to.

Immigration: Earned Settlement

Hannah Spencer Excerpts

Monday 2nd November 2026 Commons Chamber

[Hannah Spencer (Gorton and Denton) (Green)]

By allowing those with more money to jump the queue and receive earned settlement status faster, these changes amount to an attack on lower-paid workers and, by extension, lower-paid British-born people too. Time and again the working classes, whatever their nationality or migration status, have been looked down on and left behind. Does the Home Secretary agree that her changes send a clear message to people who have come here or people who have been born here that they are worth less if they do not earn enough?

[Shabana Mahmood]

I reject that entirely. First of all, lower-paid British workers are already British; they do not need settlement in their own country. In this policy, including with all its transitional arrangements, the Government have recognised public service alongside earnings for faster pathways to settlement. I ask her to bear in mind that the highest earners pay the highest in tax, and it is our taxpayers’ money that funds the public services that we all rely on. We have found a solution that is fair for everybody, rewarding those who make the biggest contribution, including in public service roles.

Child Sexual Offender Data

Hannah Spencer Excerpts

Monday 1st June 2026 Westminster Hall

[Cameron Thomas]

I thank the right hon. Member for his intervention. I have to say that I am not entirely familiar with the specific instance that he has laid out, but certainly it is ongoing today and across the country.

The reasonable among us must not avoid these uncomfortable societal issues. We must never leave the floor open and unchallenged to racists and white supremacists who unfairly denigrate demographics at large for the crimes of a few. In the absence of reasonable voices, this issue has been weaponised by the far right and deployed by its propagandists to sow racial, cultural and religious division.

[Hannah Spencer (Gorton and Denton) (Green)]

As has been raised, why were those women and girls never believed? I have a constituent whose sister was a victim of grooming gangs and tragically died from HIV contracted as a result of that abuse. Another constituent wanted me to be here today because all too often this conversation is dominated by men. The women who were sexually abused and exploited as children by grooming gangs deserve to have their voices heard.

[Dame Siobhain McDonagh (in the Chair)]

Order. Ms Spencer, I appreciate that you are very new to this House, and it is great that you are at this debate. I note that you will be making a speech later, and there will be time, but what you are doing at the moment is making an intervention, so it needs to be really brief.

[Hannah Spencer]

Thank you, Dame Siobhain; I was just coming to my question. Sowing division will not keep children safe. Does the hon. Member agree that the next steps must be guided by listening to survivors and by fostering a culture in which women and girls are believed?

[Cameron Thomas]

I fully endorse the hon. Member’s comments. I often feel self-conscious about bringing this issue forward as a man, when really we should be listening to the voices of women and girls, particularly those who have been victims of these crimes.

Victims of domestic and sexual abuse, exploitation and trafficking deserve to be treated with compassion and sincerity. Their tragedies should not be a foundation over which clamber opportunistic and ambitious politicians desperate to score political points over their opponents, as did the Conservative party in January 2025. It is a continuing tragedy that these cases are most vociferously contested by thugs who attack police and defile our national emblems, by political opportunists and by hostile foreign commentators who call for civil war and violent uprisings against the elected Government. They rarely, if ever, consider the victims. Social media commentators periodically ask me, “What are you doing about grooming gangs?”; they never ask me what I am doing for the victims.

Elon Musk’s interest in the 2024 summer riots and the unimaginable crimes that they followed was not in the protection of women and girls. Rather, it was based upon his apartheid-nostalgic white supremacism. Musk’s concern for women and girls extends only to his own attempt to exploit them, as evidenced through his reluctantly public exchanges with sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. That brings me to the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth—again, I feel self-conscious for delivering this from behind him. Despite Musk’s relationship with paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth continues to publicly court him. Last year, he was paid £40,000 by Elon Musk through his platform X, the same platform over which Musk provoked the riots in 2024.

In closing, let us bring forward this motion, and let the evidence show that I am sure most sexual abuse of this kind does occur within the family—but let the evidence show where it does not, and let us act upon it as one.