International Women’s Day

Debate between Baroness Harman and Caroline Nokes

Thursday 5th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes]

The hon. Lady is, of course, right to point out the link between domestic abuse and women too often ending up in the penal system. I am somewhat surprised and disappointed that the hon. Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper) is not here, because she has frequently raised with me the issue of women in the justice system and what more we have to do to assist them and to avoid them ending up there in the first place.

This debate is a chance to look backwards as well as forwards, and to consider whether the previous 12 months have been good for women. I have supported, promoted and, indeed, celebrated measures in this House but, as Charles Dickens might have said, they have been the best of times and the worst of times. It is odd for somebody from Southampton to quote a man from Portsmouth—those who are not from the south coast will not understand what I mean—but it accurately sums up the progress we have made and the setbacks there have been.

I vividly remember when the Domestic Abuse Bill was first introduced, when we heard the fantastic, powerful and horrendous contribution from the hon. Member for Canterbury. I also remember the powerful contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier)—I was sitting directly behind him, and it will forever be seared in my mind—about Natalie Connolly and the horrendous defence we see used increasingly often in domestic abuse and murder trials that rough sex is something women victims enjoy. There should be no place for such a defence.

Last year we did see the introduction of stalking protection orders, which are designed to protect the victims of stalking, the vast majority of whom are women. The crime survey for England and Wales estimates that 4.9 million adults in England and Wales have experienced stalking or harassment in their lifetime, and women are twice as likely to experience stalking, with mixed-race women and those aged 20 to 24 at greatest risk.

The law was changed last year so that upskirting offenders can be arrested and sent to prison. Some of us felt that legislation was unduly delayed, and, of course, there were some interesting lingerie-led protests.

My right hon. Friend the former Member for Richmond Park, now a noble lord, secured a strengthening of the law on female genital mutilation. I know my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister cares deeply about the issue, and I am pleased to hear the Minister for Women and Equalities mention it today. As Immigration Minister, I worked hard to keep out of this country people who advocated FGM. I was appalled when I heard the deployment of the phrase, “It is only a little bit of cutting.” No, it is child abuse, it is illegal and there should be no place in this country for people who are the proponents of FGM.

Outside the world of politics, we saw last October the first all-female spacewalk, and last month Christina Koch returned from the longest single spaceflight by a woman. She spent 328 days in space, an incredible period, and she is one of those fabulous role models that we have for young women everywhere. Dina Asher-Smith, in Doha, scooped silver in the 100 metres, gold in the 200 metres and silver in the relay, becoming the first Brit to win three medals at a major championship, Simone Biles continued being one of the greatest women athletes ever, racking up medal after medal at the world gymnastics championships in Stuttgart, and Jade Jones added her first world taekwondo title to her double Olympic gold. Of course there are those who cannot bear to watch female athletes and make offensive comparisons. To them I say that I would like to see them compete with Sarah Storey, who achieved her 35th world para-cycling title.

On pay, there have been some triumphs, although I would argue that they are not wins—they are merely fairness. Samira Ahmed won her case against the BBC in January this year, but we all know there is a long way to go. Gender pay gap reporting has shone a light on disparity, but we know that some Departments have gone backwards and the disparity is greater today than it was this time last year. Perhaps when the Whip—my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield)—responds, she will be able to give us an assurance that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is absolutely committed to closing the gender pay gap. In this place, we have done better—

[Ms Harriet Harman (Camberwell and Peckham) (Lab)]

I absolutely agree with everything that the right hon. Lady is saying in her speech, and I congratulate her on becoming Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee. Will she meet me so that we can plot together to use the forthcoming employment Bill as an opportunity to bring in new tougher laws to narrow the gender pay gap? Although in law it is illegal, the yawning pay gap persists. We can use that Bill to toughen up the law. Shall we work together on that?

[Caroline Nokes]

I believe the right hon. and learned Lady, the Mother of the House, is working on a number of issues on which she and I would find common ground. I am always delighted to meet her to work out how we can continue to do better. The Women and Equalities Committee has only met for the first time this week, but it has a number of priorities it wishes to look at. One of my contentions was that the gender pay gap should be a recurrent issue that we revisit annually, giving Ministers the opportunity to come before the Committee to explain to us how the Government have been making progress, or perhaps otherwise, on closing that yawning gap.

As I was saying, in this place we have done better. The Secretary of State and the shadow Minister both mentioned that there are now more women MPs than ever before; 34% of all MPs are women, and that is a great deal better than the situation was in 2010 when I arrived. I recall that when I joined the House, my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) pointed out to me that when she came in here in 2005 there had been only 17 Conservative women MPs. There was a massive jump in 2010. From last year’s election, this Parliament did do better, but on this side of the House we are still a long way short of 50%. I cannot help but mourn the departure of people such as Amber Rudd, Claire Perry O’Neill, Caroline Spelman, Baroness Morgan, Justine Greening, Anne Milton, Margot James, Sarah Newton and Seema Kennedy, many of whom came in at the same election as me in 2010. But I am delighted to see new Members here, and I know that in time they will rise to the dizzy heights that those female colleagues whom I mentioned rose to. I know that they will come to love this place, be promoted and contribute a great deal.

I believe I am correct in saying that across all Government payroll positions we are now just shy of 50:50. But—and it is a big but—has that percentage been reached by putting women on to the first rung, the unpaid payroll? If so, what on earth has that done to the gender pay gap in government, when 73% of the Cabinet are men and 45% of Parliamentary Private Secretary positions are filled by women who are not paid. So I think we have some things to celebrate and some that I simply cannot. I am saddened that the men in grey suits went after a woman Prime Minister—again. I am genuinely saddened that the Labour party looks unlikely to elect a woman leader—again—although I am the first to acknowledge that polls can be wrong. I wish every female candidate left in that race luck, and indeed those who are in the contest to become deputy leader. Having mentioned a string of Conservative colleagues who have left this House in the past 12 months, I should say that I also miss Luciana Berger, Ruth Smeeth and Angela Smith, to name just a very few. In this place, there has always been, and I hope there always will be, solidarity and sisterhood across the House. Some of the best advice I ever received in this place came from Joan Ruddock, way back in 2010, when I was a newbie and she was something of a grande dame of the Labour party. I refer to her as a grande dame as a term of affection, although I note that Quentin Letts now refers to me as a grande dame and I am not sure it is meant to be complimentary at all.

What we have certainly seen over the past year is an intensification of the harassment, bullying and torment of female politicians on social media. One of my local papers, the Andover Advertiser, asked me this week to provide some commentary ahead of International Women’s Day, and I found myself speaking of resilience. There are days when I hate the fact that I have to be as tough as I am. I always describe myself as having the hide of a rhinoceros, which is sometimes useful when dealing with constituents, particularly the ones who think it is okay to email me to tell me that I am a “tiresome underachieving woman”. I am sure they think they are getting somewhere with their comments, but I always prefer to laugh at them, envisaging a chap of a certain age, undoubtedly as red in the face as he is in the trousers, as he bangs his keyboard with venom. I joke, but it is not a laughing matter, and I know that I get off extremely lightly compared with the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott). For those new to the House, let me say that the “mute” and “block” buttons are your friends, and that by being here you achieve more every single day than your fiercest keyboard warrior critic ever will.

On press commentary, it was only last week that we had the celebration of 100 years of women journalists in the Press Gallery. Miss Marguerite Cody was the first woman ever to report from Parliament, but today there are still too few women who look down on us from the press seats. The faces we see are still predominantly male, some not in the first flush of youth, and for good reporting we need diverse reporting, even when we might find the commentary uncomfortable. I have no doubt that women do ask the toughest questions but also the fair ones. I use as an example the fact that no woman journalist has ever asked me what my dad thinks.

I turn to the role I now hold as Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee—what a great position and opportunity. My predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke, steered the Committee through its first five years, and I am very conscious that I have a difficult pair of shoes to fill. I suspect, however, that with size 8 feet I can more than manage it. She rightly mentioned the lack of statues of inspirational women in our country. There is no shortage of women role models, but there is a shortage of tributes to them through the arts and through culture. It is brilliant that in her constituency we now have a statue of Jane Austen, but I am struck by the fact that my constituency was the home of Florence Nightingale. She was a very modest woman who demanded that there should be no tribute to her when she died. Her grave is in the same village as I live in and it does not even have her name on it—it has her initials only. I look forward to going in a few months’ time to the unveiling of a stained glass window in Romsey abbey, which was deliberately moved away from the church in which she is buried but absolutely reflects the importance she had as a woman, as a scientist and, given the way she worked with government, as a politician—this was someone born 200 years ago.

Although the Women and Equalities Committee met in this Parliament for the first time yesterday, so it is still very fresh, there was no shortage of ideas. There was also a commitment to conclude in this Parliament some of the work started by the predecessor Committee in the last Parliament and curtailed because of the December election. We will in turn form our own priorities and set our own agenda, but some of that will be to return to the gender pay gap to benchmark progress. There is a serious job to do in scrutinising the performance of Government against their own objectives, and we will do that with determination and commitment.