Equal Franchise Act 1928

Debate between Luke Pollard and Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi

Thursday 5th July 2018 Westminster Hall

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield) for securing the debate. She is a woman I am proud of, as I know many Members are.

It is vital in such a debate not only to celebrate the achievement of the 1928 Act, but to remember the stories of the women and fighters who campaigned for it and who won the battle for electoral reform, suffrage and equality. It is 100 years since some women got the right to vote—not all of them, but some. It was a good step forward. People often get confused between the different Representation of the People Acts. Were it not for the fantastic Voice & Vote exhibition in Westminster Hall, it would be easy for Members of Parliament, too, to be confused about when each piece of legislation was passed, and what it meant.

In 1918 the vote was given to some women—only those at the top of society. The 1928 Act gave the vote to all women over 21, rather than those over 30 who were landowners. That was a huge step forward, and it meant that 52.5% of the electorate in the 1929 general election were women. That was transformative. The fact that it took 10 years—two whole Parliaments—fully to extend the franchise shows just how scared the establishment was of giving proper representation to women and the working class across the UK.

I pay tribute to the incredible campaigners who continued to make the case for the legislation. Many gave up their freedom, faced imprisonment or went on hunger strikes. Many, such as Emily Davison, gave their lives for the cause, but the campaigners never gave up. They are an inspiration to all of us in this House and we pledge ourselves to further their cause. The story is often overlooked.

In Plymouth we are proud to be part of the suffragette story, and of the fact that the suffragette movement there was not just one of rich women campaigning for the vote. The women took things into their own hands. Members may be familiar with the beautiful Smeaton’s Tower on Plymouth Hoe. That lighthouse still stands proudly, but the suffragettes put a bomb in it and tried to blow it up. They wanted to attract attention to their cause. I am glad that the lighthouse still stands, but the story of how local women in Plymouth resorted to those means to try to gain attention and credibility for their cause should continue to be talked about.

I want to talk now about Nancy Astor. As my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury said, the story of how we reached the point where only a third of our Parliament are women started with Nancy Astor taking her seat in 1919. She represented Plymouth Sutton and was introduced to the House of Commons flanked by Balfour and Lloyd George. It will be the 100th anniversary of her election—and of Plymouth’s voting for a woman—in November 2019. She and I would disagree fundamentally on nearly everything. She stood for many things that I could not stomach, countenance or go along with, and I am sure that that would be the case for nearly every Member. We would not share her views on slavery, anti-Semitism, fascism and LGBT equality, but her story, the fact that she was the first woman to take her seat in this place, and the fact that Plymouth was the first place to elect a woman who took her seat means we are intimately entwined in the story, which we must keep telling.

There are far too many girls and young women in schools in Plymouth and across the country who do not know about Nancy Astor. I do not want her political views to be advocated; I want the story of brave women, many of them standing alone, doing brave things and pushing the boundaries for women in general. She was initially known as the Member of Parliament for women, and we should talk about her role. There should be debate about the good and bad sides of all politicians. The first step that she took is important. It may seem odd for me as a Labour MP to speak here about a Conservative MP—especially one I fundamentally disagree with—but we need to tell the story. It frustrates me that the story of women in our politics is not told. We hear about men, and occasionally about the women standing behind them. We need to break that, and we can do so only when we—men in particular—start to tell the story. We cannot leave it to women to tell the story of women in politics. It is for all Members of Parliament, male and female, to talk up the role of women in Parliament.

[Mr Dhesi]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. As to women pushing boundaries, does he agree that women, and especially those from ethnic minorities, are often not given much credit for their accomplishments? The first black lady mayor in the country, Lydia Simmons, was elected in Slough. She was an inspiration for many, yet often such individuals do not get the credit they deserve.

[Luke Pollard]

My hon. Friend has proved my point precisely that we need male MPs speaking up as well as female MPs, and I thank him for taking the advice so quickly.

I recently visited the superb Voice & Vote exhibition in Westminster Hall. I pay tribute to the House authorities for putting it on. It really is a superb exhibition, and hon. Members who have not visited need to take the time to do so. They will notice that one exhibit is Nancy Astor’s dress, on loan from Plymouth museum. She picked the dress because it looked like a man’s suit; it looks like a double-breasted suit. Beside it is a little plaque explaining that she chose it because she wanted people to judge her by what she said and not for what she wore. It is therefore somewhat ironic that 99 years later I stand here, as one of her successors, talking about her dress and disagreeing with all her words, but perhaps those are the joys of democracy.

Parliament was a very different place when Nancy Astor became a Member. Voice & Vote tells us the story of a system that did not welcome women to Parliament. It did not afford them the equality and credibility that they deserved by virtue of their election. We can see that in the fact that in 1929 there was only one coat hook in the Lady Members’ Room for eight female MPs. That was simply unacceptable. However, there is still far too much that the women at that time, Nancy Astor included, were fighting for that we are still fighting for today.

Nancy Astor was not afraid to stand up for herself as a woman, even in the face of power. She had an incredibly canny sense of humour, and people who have spent time in Plymouth will know many stories about her. I will touch on just a few. In particular, I want to touch on her relationship with Winston Churchill. Many hon. Members will know one story about it, but there were so many glorious clashes between them. Apparently, Churchill once told Nancy Astor that having a woman in Parliament was like having one intrude on him in the bathroom, to which she retorted, “You’re not handsome enough to have such fears.” She is also said to have responded to a question from Churchill about what disguise he should wear to a masquerade ball by saying, “Why don’t you come sober, Prime Minister?” But perhaps the most famous exchange, which I am sure all hon. Members will know of, is the one in which Nancy Astor said, “Mr. Churchill, if you were my husband, I would poison your tea,” to which Churchill replied, “Madam, if you were my wife, I would drink it.”

So many stories are told about Nancy Astor, but so few are told about many of the other fantastic female MPs for Plymouth. I want to single out Lucy Middleton, who was the MP from 1945 to 1951 and a real tower of strength in the trade union movement. She is not remembered enough by my party in Plymouth, or by all of us here. Sadly, she lost her seat, to a male member of the Astor dynasty, Jakie Astor, in 1951, but it is good to see her name on the wall of female MPs in the Voice & Vote exhibition, because there is so much more that needs to be said in that respect.

One thing that frustrates me every time I come to Parliament—and that helps keep alive in me the fire so that I do not become accustomed to or cushioned by this place—is looking around the rooms in which we have our meetings and seeing all the old white men in wigs staring down at me. This place has a problem, because nearly every room—except, perhaps, this one—has too many pictures of men, too many pictures of old men, and too many pictures of old, white, rich men on the walls. Where are the women? Every single one of these rooms should have 50:50 representation. If there are not the paintings of women from our political history, commission them or borrow them and put them up. Take down those images of old white men, so that when young children from Plymouth come to visit Parliament they see pictures of people who look like them. Let us also ensure that there is not just male and female representation. Let us ensure that we have on our walls LGBT heroes, black, Asian and minority ethnic heroes, and disabled heroes. This place looks far too much like the old stale white male club that it sometimes was in the past.

We can change that. We need to do it by speaking up about equality. We need to continue to be restless about it to ensure that we keep fighting the misogyny that we see in our politics, in our parties and in our society. We need to give a voice to the single parents, to the WASPI women and to those people who are standing up for equality and want a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work. That is what we all need to do. We can all do our bit to ensure that we get there by telling the story of women in politics, and the 1928 Act is a really important part of that. I look forward to my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury still being in this place in 10 years’ time to lead the debate on the 100th anniversary of that Act.