Role of Women in Public Life

Lord Loomba Excerpts

Monday 5th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Loomba (CB)]

My Lords, women’s empowerment and gender equality are all at the heart of my work and what I strive to achieve as an advocate for women and girls’ rights across the globe. These rights that we are celebrating today have been hard won and are still being hard won the world over as progress continues to move at a snail’s pace. Indeed, Mary Wollstonecraft wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Woman in 1792 and is acknowledged as the leader in the battle for votes. Here in this House, female participation, through life Peerages, took a further 40 years after the 1918 Act to achieve.

Globally, the latest figures from the UN show that only 11 women are serving as head of state and 12 as head of government. The figures also show that, globally, there are 38 states in which women account for less than 10% of parliamentarians in single or lower Houses, including four Chambers with no women at all. One country that particularly stands out is Rwanda, where women have won 63.8% of seats in the lower House, the highest number of women parliamentarians worldwide. Figures from the IPU show that globally the UK is ranked 39th for female participation in Parliament. While we are not that far in front of Afghanistan, in 55th place, we are faring much better than the USA, in 99th place; but our closer neighbour, Germany, is in a similar position, in 45th place. France has bucked the trend and recently achieved over 40% of female Members in its last elections.

What can be seen from all these statistics is that the mainly slow, grinding process of increasing women’s participation in political life is not achieving a lot; as Helen Lewis said in a recent article:

“It is embarrassing that it took 98 years”,


until 2016, for the total number of women ever elected to our Parliament—to date, 455—to reach the same number as male MPs sitting at present. It is something that we, as a developed nation, should be leading the way on. We should be setting an example on the world stage that we truly believe in equality in political life.

Women make up nearly half of the world’s population, yet very few are actively involved in the decisions that affect their lives. Each country is different, with different needs and different priorities, but what is not so different is the lack of women in political life. If Rwanda can increase women’s participation, so can we. We must seriously look at what it is that prevents women partaking in politics in this country and do something about it. Is it the issue of work/life balance? Is it the awful abuse we see meted out? Is it parity of pay stopping women achieving these aims? Is it lack of interest? Is it all of these things and more? Do we know the answer to these questions? It is only by knowing what is stopping women getting into politics that we can seek to address the problem.

Just as the UN has the HeForShe campaign, we too can encourage more men to get on board with the idea, so that it is not a fight for gender equality but a collaboration, a working together so that we can achieve it. We heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, that there are only 10 men participating in today’s debate and three times more noble Baronesses. It should not be like that; we should be at least equal. The UN has also asked everyone to “step it up” with its “Planet 50-50 by 2030: Step It Up for Gender Equality” campaign. But how can we possibly help women to achieve in other walks of life if we do not have enough women in Parliament too? We should be stepping it up, but ahead of 2030, and making it a challenge for the next general election.