International Women’s Day

Jackie Doyle-Price Excerpts

Thursday 9th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Jackie Doyle-Price (Thurrock) (Con)]

May I thank the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) for the speech she has just given? I thank her for doing what she has just done each year because, by taking this step, she has drawn a huge amount of attention to this issue, and we are all talking about it a lot more as a consequence. Personally, I am grateful, and women up and down this country should also be grateful.

I am very pleased to see the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar) witnessing that speech in his place. I hope he will take this in the spirit in which it is meant when I say that I hope he was listening, because we still have a culture in this country in which our criminal justice system devalues women when it comes to being victims of crime. It is all very well for us to pass these wonderful laws in this place about equality, saying, “We’ve got the Equality Act, isn’t it marvellous”, but behaviourally there is still massive prejudice and discrimination against women, and nowhere is that more clear than with the murder of women. If a man murders his wife, he is treated less severely by the courts. That surely is wrong, and it is something we must absolutely tackle.

It is so depressing that when, over recent months, we have seen higher-profile cases of this nature hit the headlines, it is done in a very voyeuristic way. We still end up talking about these women, who have been victims of terrible violence, as if it is some kind of soap opera, and that just is not good enough.

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the hon. Member for her powerful speech on this subject. Does she agree with me about the role of the media in reporting these crimes? This goes back to that tragic murder, but essentially a number of these men are depicted as family men for whom something just went wrong, but they should be viewed as what they are—murderers.

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

The hon. Lady makes her point very powerfully. The way the media reports these things is like a soap opera, not a crime. It is about creating a story out of someone being the victim of a hideous act of violence. She is quite right to highlight the fact that people say, “Oh, it’s a family man who has done this”, and “Well, they were feeling so diminished because they’d lost their job”. That happens, and at the same time we have female sex workers murdered every week of the year who do not even merit a mention. That just illustrates the pervasiveness of the culture in this country that still treats women as objects, and it is still very much a world that runs according to men.

I am standing here listening to myself, and thinking, “God, what happened to you, Jackie?” When I was growing up in the 1980s, I thought the battles of feminism were won. I never thought I would be standing here banging on about the rights of women, but as time progresses I just think we are going backwards. It is almost as if Parliament has passed these laws to establish equality, and that means it is all right—job done—but the job has not been done at all. In many respects, this has gone backwards. I do not want to be treated like a delicate little flower, but, because we have a law that does not do that and that establishes my rights, that has given a lot of men a behavioural excuse not to treat me with respect and not to recognise the fact that, being a woman, I do have vulnerabilities. I do have vulnerabilities, and I am quite happy to accept that. I know some of my male colleagues think that I do not, but I do.

[Dame Maria Miller]

Does my hon. Friend agree with me that one of the things the Government have done in the last 10 years, by making relationships and sex education mandatory for all school-age children, is to start to embed in the education of all our children in this country what a good relationship looks like, which is going to be very pertinent when it comes to the treatment of women in the future?

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

I agree with my right hon. Friend, but I have a word of caution on that, because it has to be with the right materials. I am afraid that we have a bit of a wild west out there, because we have had all kinds of organisations bidding for Government money to produce materials for this space, and I certainly feel that some of the materials I have seen are not appropriate to be shared with school-age children.

[Dame Maria Miller]

Would my hon. Friend join me in urging Ofsted to do a deep dive on this issue, so that it can look at exactly the point she has made? It is an issue I have raised with Government Ministers and with Ofsted directly.

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

I think that point is actually a very good one. To guarantee the quality of these tools and the content there needs to be a degree of inspection. We know we will find bad actors everywhere in society, and perhaps in schools we need to make sure that we do have that protection.

[Wera Hobhouse]

Very briefly, because I know there is a lot of pressure on time, is it not also important that the people who deliver these courses—the teachers in the room—have to be specialist teachers, rather than leaving it to a maths teacher?

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

I actually have less sympathy with that point. I think we should all understand what standards of good behaviour are, and it should be intrinsic. Frankly, no teacher should be allowed in a classroom if they do not understand respect. It comes down to that ultimately, and I think all teachers should be equipped with that.

[Vicky Ford]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Anna Firth (Southend West) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

If my right hon. Friend and my hon. Friend do not mind, I will make some progress, because at the moment my speech has been entirely interventions.

I am glad to see the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson) in her place because I want to talk about abortion. It is very important that we in this place—the mother of Parliaments, this advanced democracy—challenge ourselves about whether the laws we have are really fit for purpose, particularly when on things such as abortion we are quite good at lecturing the rest of the world. My fundamental view is that our abortion law is currently not safe. The most important thing we can do in this place is make sure that our laws do no harm. I have said this before in this House, but the law we have regulating abortions—the Abortion Act 1967—is older than me. I have not worn too well, but, frankly, that has worn even worse. It is in desperate need of reform. I am afraid that while we treat this as an issue of conscience, we are failing women, because that law predates medical abortion. It deals with a situation where the only terminations women could have were surgical, which, as we all know, are more dangerous, and the law is drawn up on that basis, which is why it relies on two doctors having to certify that the procedure is necessary. Do we really need two doctors now, when we have the availability of medical abortion? I just do not think it is necessary.

Back in the 1990s, when Kenneth Clarke was Secretary of State for Health—so we are going back a long way—the abortion law was amended at that point to enable abortions to take place in settings different from the licensed establishments that the state approves of. However, it took until the pandemic for that to be made a reality, and the reality made was not the one intended at the time the law was passed in the 1990s. It recognised that we now had medical abortion, which could be administered safely by pill, and the whole idea, when Ken Clarke accepted that amendment, was that we would be able to access abortions in places such as family planning clinics and places of beauty, instead of the stigmatised list of places that have to be regulated by the Secretary of State. That, by the way, has made sure that our abortions are a monopoly service provided by two providers in the independent sector; they are very rarely done by the NHS. Earlier this week, we discussed the Public Order Bill and the whole issue of protest, but would there really be so much protest if abortion services were more embedded in our established national health service, instead of being shunted away into the back streets somewhere, which makes them a target?

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

It is worth remembering that an early Conservative woman Member of Parliament, Margaret Thatcher, in 1967 both voted to decriminalise male homosexual acts and stayed up all night to help get David Steel’s Abortion Bill through the House of Commons.

Can I put it to my hon. Friend that, given that it is now so common and that there are over 200,000 abortions a year in this country—it takes two to tango, so that is 400,000 people contributing, some perhaps more than once, but not many—we ought to make it easier? People who decide that having an abortion is appropriate, should be able to do it easily and safely, without embarrassment.

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

That is exactly the point that I was coming on to make. I absolutely respect why Members of this House have ideological objections to abortion and why they will always vote to restrict it. However, the fact is that abortion is an established right in this country, and it is our obligation to ensure that those laws are safe and that women can access abortion as early as possible in their pregnancies. That is actually the most important thing and the safest thing, and that is why they must be much more readily available.

Let me make a point to the Front Bench—which I fear will fall on deaf ears, just because we continue to see this as an issue of conscience, rather than of safety—that this is something that really ought to be reviewed. I would suggest to the Minister that we have, in our women’s health ambassador, Lesley Regan, someone who, as a former head of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, is eminently qualified to undertake a review, perhaps not to make recommendations, but to just highlight how the current abortion law is not fit for purpose, so that we can properly review how we might improve it.

The way in which the Abortion Act is established is not encouraging a healthy debate about the issue either—on both sides, I might add. That is the starting frame of reference, so we end up in this ridiculous debate about time limits. Ultimately, we just need to get away from that and think about it as a health procedure. When that Act was passed back in 1967, it was a radical and empowering measure that advanced women’s rights, but here we are, more than 50 years later, and we need to take a good look at it.

[Dame Diana Johnson]

Will the hon. Member give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

I will give way to the right hon. Lady, because I know that she has very passionate and informed views on this, and has done so much on this issue.

[Dame Diana Johnson]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady. I am so pleased to hear her make this speech. What is even more worrying is that, while the 1967 Act is more than 50 years old, it is of course underpinned by the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, which is a Victorian piece of legislation that says that abortion is a criminal offence. Really, until we decriminalise abortion and treat it as a healthcare matter, we really will not get rid of the stigma. That seems to be the thing that we need to do in this country—decriminalise it and treat it as a healthcare matter—which I think the hon. Lady is supportive of.

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

Absolutely. It must be treated as a healthcare matter. However, on the point that the right hon. Lady raises about the 1861 Act, I looked into that when I was a Minister, to see how many convictions there were, and, to be honest, we still need to have some kind of protection maintaining the criminality of abortion where there could be coercion involved. Again, these are issues that are still crimes against the woman.

[Dame Diana Johnson]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way again, and I will be very quick, but decriminalisation does not mean deregulation. Of course, all the healthcare laws that apply to our clinicians, nurses and everybody else would still need to apply, so things such as coercion absolutely would be regulated for and treated as an offence. However, the underlying issue of women being criminalised in that Offences Against the Person Act has to go.

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

I think the fact that the right hon. Lady and I are having a ding-dong about this, while we actually want the same outcome, illustrates just how badly that debate has taken place, because of the bookends of the 1861 Act and the 1967 Act. Again, it comes back to us all wanting better outcomes and a safe system for women. That should be our starting point, not those two pieces of legislation. We can probably strengthen the protections for women regarding coercion if we look at it in that way.

As usual, I like to use this speech to challenge ourselves about what we are not getting right for women. But I have not got until midnight on Sunday, so I will have to be a bit more limited in what I am able to tackle. However, I am pleased to have been able to say what I have about abortion today.

I also want to come back to the point, which the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North made in her speech, about indecent exposure. I absolutely amplify her overall argument. To be honest, flashing is not seen as a crime. It has been totally normalised. I heard on the radio, just this week, that as many as 50% of women have been victims of that crime. I cannot emphasise enough that sexual violence is something that escalates, so the moment that some things are tolerated, that behaviour will only increase. Wayne Couzens is perhaps the best example of that.

This is where I come back to equality laws and advances that are meant to empower women. I want to talk about the whole issue of contraception. Yes, it has given women the opportunity to take control of their fertility and enjoy their sexuality, and all the rest of it, but it has also generated a culture in which men feel even more entitled, and where girls are feeling more and more forced to become sexualised beings, earlier perhaps than they are ready to. That is why I feel very strongly that we need to keep our safe spaces.

[Vicky Ford]

I would just like to point out to my hon. Friend—who I really value and who is saying some great things—that I do not think it is contraception that has led to many of the challenges that young women are facing today, especially more violent dangers and sex. The contraceptive pill has been around for 70 years, but the violence that women face today is also linked to pornography and other issues.

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

I am sorry, but my right hon. Friend is clearly not understanding what I am saying at all.

[Vicky Ford]

Sorry, have I missed the point?

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

Yes—well, she has had no sleep. The point is that we have a culture where girls are expected to be sexualised at an earlier and earlier age, and more and more of that behaviour is being tolerated. We have a situation where we have the growth of gangs, and we talk about boys stabbing each other, but we do not talk about the sexualised sharing behaviour that happens among those gangs.

Going back to my earlier point, that is why we really need to jealously guard our safe spaces. We have had this debate a number of times before, and, similarly to the abortion debate, we end up debating things on a very polarised basis when, actually we are talking about safety.

I was very concerned to read in Parliament’s gender guidance that the advice given to anyone, in regards to gender, is that people should be encouraged to use the facilities that they feel comfortable with. I then went on to read that, as part of the restoration and renewal project, 70% of our toilets will be gender-neutral, and the remaining 30% will be split evenly between males and females, so we will only have 15% of toilets, under that will be female-only.

At the risk of upsetting some of my male colleagues here—actually, I think some of them are not very comfortable with shared-gender spaces either, mainly because they do not find men’s toilets very nice, and are even more embarrassed to have to share them with women, if truth be known—it is important that women have their own spaces, so that we can maintain our privacy and dignity.

Again, that comes back to the point about indecent exposure, because those of us who jealously guard the need for women to have their own toilets and changing facilities are not scared of trans people; we are scared of male sexual predators. The truth of the matter is that a male sexual predator will use every tool at his disposal to get access to his victims.

Ultimately, this is a behaviour that none of us understands, but there are some men who are actually very proud of showing off their penises—God knows why, because they are not the best things to look at at the best of times. They love their penises so much that they want everyone else to see them. Well, we don’t.

For that reason, I will not apologise about continuing to maintain my defence of us having our own facilities that men, for whatever reason, will not have access to. We now have to work hard to establish that proper respect. While more than 50% of women are victims of indecent exposure, we have not reached the level of respect that every woman in this country deserves from their male counterparts. It is incumbent on all of us. I know we are mainly women here today in the Chamber, but I also say to my male colleagues here, thank you for being here, and please do your bit to ensure that we all enjoy that freedom as well.

--- Later in debate ---

[Maria Caulfield]

I absolutely agree. As I have said, that is why we included violence against women and girls in the women’s health strategy, and as we approach the first anniversary of the strategy, I am keen for us to move towards making that our priority for the second year, working across Government. I am happy to work across parties as well, because this is such an important issue. Despite all the strategies, plans and—let us be fair—significant funding, we are still not making progress in the areas in which we want to make it. We have been presented with many images, but I was particularly struck by what was said by the hon. Member for Brent Central (Dawn Butler) about the way in which language is used to describe both female victims and their perpetrators, which suggests that an offence of that kind can be justified—that it simply happened, that it was a mistake, and that it was not all that significant. That has to change, which means changing the culture as well as creating the infrastructure to support it. I am keen for us to make progress on that in the next 12 months.

[Jackie Doyle-Price (Thurrock) (Con)]

I am very interested by what my hon. Friend has just said. She referred earlier to putting violence against women and girls at the heart of the health strategy. If we are serious about increasing the rate of convictions for rape and sexual violence, and indeed domestic violence, we should bear in mind that women report being treated like pieces of evidence. What we need is wraparound therapeutic support for victims, so they are not re-traumatised every time they try to obtain justice. Will that be a large part of what my hon. Friend is doing?

[Maria Caulfield]

Absolutely. We do need to look at how we support women, and that includes female MPs. I am thinking of Rosie Cooper, who simply left the House of Commons because of what she had experienced. She has gone on record as saying that she did not feel safe continuing.