Parliamentary Candidates: Barriers for Women

Kit Malthouse Excerpts

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.

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend and parliamentary neighbour for giving way. It is important to say that not just political parties but the Government and Parliament need to think about ways of encouraging more women to come here. Too often we say that it is down to women themselves and the parties, but this place and the Government need to work with us to make that happen.

[Kit Malthouse]

I completely agree. It is incumbent on everyone—women, the Government, men and society—to present the real picture of what happens here, so that women who are put off by the principal atmosphere projected in the media realise that there are other aspects of the work beyond the yah-boo politics in the Chamber.

I am with those who suggest that we should have a proxy system. Frankly, that should be not just for Members who are on maternity leave but for those with serious illnesses. It is strange that the maths of the House can be changed—often significantly, as we might find—by someone happening to suffer an illness or by someone having a baby. I think a sensible proxy system for use in particular circumstances would be widely supported in the House and in the country as a sensible measure to enhance our democracy, as the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) said.