International Women�s Day

Harpreet Uppal Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Harpreet Uppal (Huddersfield) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Brent East (Dawn Butler) for securing this important debate. It is with huge pride that I stand here today as the first woman MP for Huddersfield�[Hon. Members: �Hear, hear!]�but hopefully not the last. Female leadership continues in my local area, with a female leader of the council and our fantastic West Yorkshire Mayor, Tracy Brabin, and deputy Mayor, Alison Lowe. Of course, I have to mention you, Madam Deputy Speaker, as a proud Yorkshire woman �that is fantastic.

International Women�s Day is a fantastic opportunity to celebrate the achievements of women, but it also marks a call to action to accelerate women�s equality. Around the world, we are witnessing a growing push- back against women�s rights�advances that were made painstakingly over decades. As parliamentarians, we have a particular responsibility to ensure that we do everything we can to progress women and girls� equality and fight back against the culture wars from those who try to give easy and angry responses to complex problems, which too often pit us against each other when many of us are fighting for the same goals.

I recently attended a Reclaim the Night march in Huddersfield, the first of which took place in Leeds back in 1977. As with those first powerful marches in the 1970s, we were there to renew our commitment to building a future free from violence against women and girls and to assert our right to go out without fear, whatever time of day or night it is. Recent data shows that 2 million women are estimated to be victims of violence perpetrated by men each year. That is one in 12 women. Police chiefs have warned of young men being radicalised online by so-called influencers. As the Safeguarding Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips), said,

�The scale of violence against women and girls in our country is intolerable, and the Government will treat it as a national emergency.��[Official Report, 25 November 2024; Vol. 757, c. 492.]

I am very glad that she is in that role, doing this work.

I am proud that we have more women in this Parliament than we have ever had, but we are only at 40%, so there is still more to do. I am glad that a women�s caucus has been established to look at issues on a cross-party basis, but the onus cannot just be on women; we must all act together and say, �Enough is enough.�

I want to note a couple of local organisations in Huddersfield that work really hard to support women, including the Pennine Domestic Abuse Partnership, Kirklees Rape and Sexual Abuse Centre, WomenCentre and the Lipstick Project, among many others.

When it comes to the responsibility of social media giants to curtail behaviour online, we must simply ask, are they doing enough? If the answer is no, we have to demand more. It cannot be right that at times, algorithms are driving this destructive and divisive behaviour.