Welsh Affairs

Madeleine Moon Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)]

This is the Welsh affairs debate, but we are also today considering the role of women, so I wish to spend time looking at the role of women in Wales. MPs had the opportunity today to invite a young person—a young girl—from our constituency to join us, to shadow politicians and to see how we worked. That is very important and Amy Edwards, a young girl from Bryntiriion comprehensive school in Bridgend, spent the day with me. I asked that school to send someone because I was particularly impressed by the young girls there and their eagerness to participate in political discussion and debate, and to ask for more information and to gain greater understanding.

I was horrified when I saw the Equality and Human Rights Commission report “Who runs Wales?” I do not know how many hon. Members have seen it, but it sets out a clear message that Wales remains a country where those taking the major decisions that have an impact on all of us remain, overwhelmingly, men. We need to set clear targets for public and private sector board appointments. We need to make sure that our women are educated so that they can take on the positions; so that different issues will be discussed and different viewpoints heard; so that we reflect the whole of the population of Wales; and so that politicians are in tune with the population we serve. We have a wealth of talent in Wales, but sadly we are still neglecting nearly 50% of it.

In Wales, only 28% of police officers are women, but it gets worse at the top, where only 12% of chief constables are women; 77% of those working in health are women, but only 10% of health chief executives are women; 72% of people in local authorities are women, but only 18% of local authority chief executives are women. Teaching is no way to the top for women either, because 75% of all schoolteachers are women, but only 57% of head teachers are women. Even in the third sector only 36% of the leadership are women. The media are no better, with only 33% of senior management teams being women and only 22% of the editors of our daily newspapers and weekly nationals being women. The figure for the trade unions is only 36%. We must recognise that in the history of Welsh politics—since 1536—there have been only 13 female MPs. It is only because the Labour party used all-women shortlists that Labour has now increased its number of female MPs. Plaid Cymru and the Conservatives, from whom we have heard a great deal today about their aspirations for Wales, have never had a woman MP for Wales.

We are about to lose two important women MPs from the Labour Benches. I look forward to having two, if not more, female MPs representing Wales, so that the voice of the women in Wales can be heard from these Benches and we can clearly represent the whole of Wales.