(5 years ago)
Westminster HallWestminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
The point about taboos has been raised by many people, and the fact that this condition is so under-researched and given so little airtime because it relates specifically and only to women. I bring the Minister’s attention to the #periodpositive pledge, developed by my constituent Chella Quint, which campaigns against menstrual taboos and asks particularly for all official documentation to explicitly use the terms “menstrual issues” or “menstrual health issues” rather than euphemisms such as feminine and sanitary hygiene.
That is a really helpful suggestion, which we will make sure is fed in.
(5 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberThere is clear evidence that work offers people the best opportunity to get out of poverty. A working-age adult living in a household where every adult is working is about six times less likely to be in relative poverty than one living in a household where nobody works.
Research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation shows that the real-terms cut in social security is the single biggest driver of in-work poverty, leaving those struggling to make ends meet on poverty pay losing hundreds of pounds a year. If the Secretary of State is looking forward to the benefits cut not being extended, as she told Sky News, why do the Government not end it now, rather than wait to review it in 2020?
This Government are not only delivering record employment in all regions of the UK—it is accepted that work is the best route out of poverty—but targeting support at the most vulnerable in society, with increases in the national living wage, which will see the fastest pay rise in the last 20 years, changes to the income tax threshold and a doubling of free childcare.[Official Report, 14 February 2019, Vol. 654, c. 9MC.]