International Women’s Day and Protecting the Equality of Women in the UK and Internationally

Lord Sandhurst Excerpts

Thursday 17th March 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

My Lords, I speak today from the perspective of a retired male lawyer—pale and perhaps a little stale. I shall look at where we have come from and where we have got to today because history is important.

I start with the Matrimonial Causes Act 1857, under which, for the first time, men could petition the court for a divorce on the basis of their wife’s adultery. However, a wife wanting to divorce her husband had to prove not just his adultery but an aggravating factor such as rape or incest. That imbalance continued until the Matrimonial Causes Act 1923, which put husbands and wives on an equal footing, each now able to divorce the other on the grounds of simple adultery.

Women’s property rights picked up—that is, for those who had some property—when, in 1882, the Married Women’s Property Act allowed married women to own and control property in their own right for the first time. That was, for some at least, a big step forward.

Let me turn to suffrage. Things kicked off in the late 1880s when a woman who fulfilled the necessary property qualifications was permitted to vote in the new London County Council elections. I have a particular interest in this. My great-great-grandmother, the first Lady Sandhurst—by then a widow—questioned why, if she could vote, she could not be a candidate. So, in 1889, she stood in the London County Council elections—in the Liberal interest, I fear. She won the popular vote in the Brixton seat but her defeated and cross Conservative opponent challenged her election in the courts. He argued that, although the statute gave her the right to vote, it spoke only of men as elected members. That argument succeeded and she was disqualified. She was not deterred: in 1890, she was elected president of the Society for Promoting the Return of Women as County Councillors. She would have been very proud of my aunt, her great-granddaughter, who became a county councillor and, later, the chairman of Oxfordshire County Council.

Although the right to vote in general elections was given to women after the First World War, as we all know, there was still discrimination against women because they could not vote until they attained the age of 30. Only in 1928 was that limitation removed. At much the same time, in 1921, we had the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act. This enabled women to read for the Bar. Helena Florence Normanton was the first woman to take advantage of that Act and join an Inn of Court. In November 1922, she was the second woman to be called to the Bar of England and Wales, following the example of Ivy Williams in May 1922.

Progress for the women was slow at first but, after the war, it got a bit better. In 1949, Normanton and Rose Heilbron both took Silk. The next year, in 1950, Elizabeth Lane took Silk. Lane was appointed the first woman County Court judge in 1962 and, three years later, the first woman in the Family Division of the High Court. I appeared quite often before her; she was a jolly good judge. Now, we have women judges at all levels, including the very highest, even if they are still outnumbered by men.

On a personal level, when I joined my chambers of, I think, 15 or 16 men in 1973, it had no women members. There were growing numbers of women at the Bar; a contemporary of mine was Heather Hallett, now the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hallett. As the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, will know, women undoubtedly needed even more grit and luck to start at the Bar than men—much more. In 1977, we selected the first woman member of my chambers. I recall the initial discussions well. They revolved around two things: first, the lavatory facilities; and, secondly, whether she would leave to have children.

However, we overcome that barrier. Thereafter, at least in my chambers, a candidate’s sex was never an issue. We recruited many more women, although I acknowledge that I cannot say the same throughout the Bar. We also learned, in my chambers, to treat women with respect and not to expect them to join in and enjoy so-called banter. Happily, as I speak today, my old chambers has six women as Queen’s Counsels and a substantial number of women members. Two former women members now sit on the High Court Bench. One of them, Philippa Whipple, will this afternoon be sworn in as a Lady Justice of Appeal.

So, we make progress and have come a long way. However, when I look at the wider world, there is much still to be done. Childcare is hugely expensive. In most, if not all, families, the burden of running the home still falls more heavily on women. I know; I have a working daughter. The large number of women graduates and the growth of working from home will perhaps see the balance change over time and male partners take a greater share. I certainly hope so.

However, to my mind—we have heard this from other noble Lords today—even more serious than opportunities at work are the incidents of daily life that women have to put up with. Only yesterday, the business pages on the BBC News website had as the lead item that Lloyd’s of London had fined a member firm, Atrium Underwriters, £1 million because it had

“admitted charges relating to bullying and misconduct during annual ‘boys’ nights out’ … These included initiation games, heavy drinking and making inappropriate and sexualised comments about female colleagues”.

That was yesterday, so we men have much to learn. We must all do better.

However, the worst part of this laddish culture is that, as we have heard, the disrespect for women and plain misogyny at its heart is not just unpleasant and demeaning for women but leads to violence. This is not getting better. I looked at the crime figures for London. In 2010-11, some 3,300 rape offences were recorded. Ten years later, in 2019-20, that figure had more than doubled to 7,890. As we know only too well, women are afraid to walk home at night alone. I could go on. Put simply, until we men—I am not perfect myself—treat all women with respect and decency, those numbers will not improve.

More generally, too many women are demeaned. That is why, for my part, I am sorry to see the pressure from some in the transgender debate. In arguing for rights, some advocates pour scorn on women who wish to preserve privacy and personal modesty. Women should not have to give up their hard-won rights before they have even got true, effective equality with men. We have come a long way but have a long way still to go. We can and must do better. Women must not come second.