Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership

Margaret Ferrier Excerpts

Tuesday 18th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Huddleston]

I thank my hon. Friend for his work in championing international trade over many years. He is right that signing this deal and other deals is one thing, but we must ensure that businesses are aware of the opportunities. Therefore, we will be, and are already, working through export support services, trade advisers and other programmes to ensure that we take full advantage of the opportunities available. We want businesses large and small, some of whom have probably never exported before, to realise that there is a whole world of opportunities out there in the EU, but also way beyond that.

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)]

Great emphasis has been placed on the diplomatic benefits that the UK will see through joining the CPTPP. What further steps are Ministers taking to cultivate positive diplomatic relations in the Indo-Pacific region?

[Nigel Huddleston]

There are multiple ways in which we are doing so. In fact, the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Anne-Marie Trevelyan), is doing exactly that right around the Indo-Pacific on an ongoing basis. As well as advancing our trading opportunities, there are many opportunities to have discussions on a wide range of issues that concern us and our constituents, whether that is the environment, labour rights or a whole bunch of others. Some of those are part of trade deals, but many go beyond them. We have discussions across multiple Government Departments on those issues.

Post Office Horizon IT Scandal: Compensation

Margaret Ferrier Excerpts

Tuesday 18th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for speaking out about this matter on a number of occasions. One of my constituents—Sam Harrison of Nawton near Helmsley—passed away prior to receiving full and fair compensation, and that situation should never have been allowed to happen. Interim payments are available, so some compensation is available. In the terrible situation where somebody has passed away, that compensation will still be paid to their estate. That is slim comfort of course, and the hon. Gentleman’s central point that we should get the money out the door as quickly as possible is one I totally agree with.

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)]

Some individuals who have already been compensated have been devastated to find that a significant portion of that money has gone straight to paying back creditors. They are then in the position of having to make a second compensation claim, suffering additional stress and anxiety. What talks have there been about ensuring that any payments made are sufficient to cover all expenses, as well as properly compensating individuals for their hardship and loss, without the need for additional claims?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her question, and I am happy to look at any specific cases. If she is talking about those who are bankruptcy claimants, Sir Wyn in his report agrees with our view that insolvency practitioners should not be able to take a share of group litigation order compensation. We have taken advice from specialist counsel on how best to deal with that issue, and we will look to take further action on that in due course.

Women and Equalities

Margaret Ferrier Excerpts

Monday 17th July 2023 Ministerial Corrections

The following is an extract from Women and Equalities questions on 12 July 2023.

[Margaret Ferrier]

Current legislation requires all public facilities to have sanitary bins in female and gender-neutral toilets. However, as highlighted by the Boys Need Bins campaign, hygiene bins need to be provided in men’s toilets. What steps is the Minister taking to introduce legislation that addresses that issue?

[Maria Caulfield]

I reassure the hon. Lady that work is going on in that space. My ministerial colleagues from the Department for Work and Pensions are looking at this, and will be updating the House shortly.

[Official Report, 12 July 2023, Vol. 736, c. 338.]

Letter of correction from the Minister for Women, the hon. Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield):

An error has been identified in my response to the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier).

The correct response should have been:

Post Office Ltd: Management Culture

Margaret Ferrier Excerpts

Thursday 13th July 2023 Westminster Hall

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir George, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows) and the Backbench Business Committee on securing this debate.

I start by paying tribute to the work that the Under-Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully), did when he was the Minister responsible for this issue, and I am sure that the Minister here, the Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade, the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake), feels as strongly about this subject.

Respect in the workplace should be the bare minimum that every worker receives; it should be a given. People work to make a living, pay their bills, and provide for themselves and their family. The majority of workers are assets to their company, and as a collective, their work makes it possible for companies to turn profits—sometimes huge profits that can pay out huge bonuses for executive shareholders, who are a very select few at the top of an organisation. Workers’ contribution should earn them respect, and inspire appreciation for them from those at the very top of an organisation, who are responsible for fostering an inclusive and welcoming working culture. Unfortunately and unacceptably, in many workplaces, that does not happen. We know that it did not happen at Post Office Ltd.

It is difficult to know where to start with the Post Office scandal. Today, we are focusing on the management culture, which is one of those issues that profoundly impacts every aspect of an organisation, and it undoubtedly played a vital role in what unfolded with the Horizon system.

I pay tribute to all of the postmasters and postmistresses who found themselves a victim of the Horizon scandal—every one of the men and women whose integrity was questioned, and who were accused of dishonesty and fraud; those who lost their job, livelihood and, in many cases, freedom; those who were isolated from their community, because they were under a black cloud of suspicion; and those who suffered the breakdown of their family unit under the strain of this long-running saga.

I pay my respects to those who ended up passing away before justice could be served or before their name was cleared, as well as to their families, including those in my constituency. I also say thank you to every former postmaster and postmistress, and those who worked with them, for their hard campaigning over the years to see this wrong recognised and addressed.

I welcome the fact that in its remaining phases, the inquiry will review some of the issues around the working culture. That is essential to understanding exactly how and why so many people found themselves in the situations that they did. However, it will mean very little if it does not prompt change. Lessons must be learned, and not only by the Post Office; this process must inform the improvement of workers’ rights across the UK.

What happened at the Post Office had devastating effects. Sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses were left with overwhelming anxiety, depression and other long-term mental health troubles. Their vulnerability was exploited, leading to many pleading guilty to crimes they did not commit. Many were driven to financial ruin when they were expected to make good the shortfall in the accounts from their own money. Some were sadly driven to taking their own life.

We often hear that there is strength in numbers, but for the best part of two decades, that was not the case for these victims, despite so many of them experiencing issues with the Horizon system, and being adamant that these accounting errors were systematic. They were not listened to. The problems were hidden and covered up, and many did not realise that they were not alone in their difficulties until many years later. In fact, between 2000 and 2013, over 700 people were prosecuted on the back of issues with Horizon.

It is absolutely astonishing that no one bar the postmasters affected put the pieces together sooner or, crucially, acted on it. It is now clear that internal investigations by the Post Office meant that the issues were identified much earlier than it had indicated, which is mind-blowing. It means that the chief executive at the time and others were aware that it was very possible that innocent people’s lives had been destroyed for no reason. That is unforgivable. Why were apologies not immediately made? Why was the path to justice not immediately set out upon? Why did these people—human beings with lives and families—not matter enough?

Some of the most disgusting things I have read relate to the racial classifications that the Post Office used for its postmasters. At the height of the Post Office’s pursual of unsafe prosecutions against its postmasters, racial identification codes were used by its security operations team in a compliance document. The Post Office has not been able to confirm when those classifications were removed from its working practices. It is language straight out of another century, and language that we all condemn. It is language that is incredibly racially charged, ignorant and, frankly, unacceptable. It illustrates the culture at play in the Post Office at the time, and it is not an attractive picture. Racism has no place in the workplace or, indeed, our country.

The fact that the former chief executive was able to leave her role voluntarily, having been paid £500,000 a year and awarded an honour for her contribution, is a disgrace. So is the fact that senior executives received bonuses of hundreds of thousands of pounds last year, particularly as one of the metrics used to justify those payments, and judged to have been met, was compliance with the inquiry. Essentially, they got a pat on the back and a huge financial windfall for doing what the Post Office is legally obligated to do. Add that to the fact that the Government will have to pay huge sums of taxpayers’ money to bail out the Post Office as it pays the compensation owed to postmasters and postmistresses. It makes a mockery of the entire fiasco.

I am sure that more will come out of this inquiry that will continue to shock us. I am sure that every Member of this House agrees that postmasters cannot and should not wait any longer to receive the compensation that they are rightfully due. I am not sure that anything can be done to fully right the wrongs that have occurred throughout this scandal. However, we must not hear any more excuses or denials, and above all else, we must not see any repeat of such widespread and utterly avoidable injustice.

Oral Answers to Questions

Margaret Ferrier Excerpts

Thursday 18th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for Business and Trade (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I do not need any excuse to chase up the Department on the semiconductor strategy, and I will do so. As the hon. Lady knows, it does not sit within our remit, but with DSIT. In this Department, we are making sure that the critical minerals needed to put semiconductors together are in the supply chain and that we can get hold of them, but I am more than happy to chase up that strategy.

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)]

Large global car makers have warned that the UK’s transition to electric vehicles will be impeded if the UK Government and the EU do not delay the stricter rules of origin, which could add tariffs on car exports. Will Ministers negotiate on the issue to safeguard the UK’s automotive industry?

[Kemi Badenoch]

The answer is yes; we are actively working on the issue, and we are not the only country impacted by it. Just yesterday, officials from Germany were talking about how they needed to look into it. It is due to the rising cost of components, which we will look at as part of our trade and co-operation agreement, but it is something that both sides are interested in resolving, so I assure the hon. Lady that we are actively working on it.

CPTPP: Conclusion of Negotiations

Margaret Ferrier Excerpts

Monday 17th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Kemi Badenoch]

I thank my right hon. Friend for the opportunity to say “yes” wholeheartedly in answer to his question, and to emphasise that this is not just an agricultural deal but one that cuts across multiple sectors. Most of all, I thank him for the opportunity to go into a little detail about Japan’s chairing of the working group. Multilateral negotiations are just so much more complex, in an interesting way, than bilateral ones. I know that, for the Japanese, it was often like herding cats and took quite a lot of effort and patience to get all the negotiating parties in the same place for us to agree a deal, so I am particularly grateful to them for all their work.

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)]

The economic growth of CPTPP member Malaysia is largely dependent on palm oil, which raises environmental concerns. What plans do Ministers have to ensure that the UK’s joining does not undermine our environmental principles?

[Kemi Badenoch]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question, especially because it gives me an opportunity to expand on exactly what the implications of the tariff-free rate on Malaysian palm oil are. There are 9,500 lines of products in the tariff register, of which palm oil represents just a handful—maybe up to 10 or so. The UK Government share the regard for environmental protections, and we thought very carefully about them. It was not a decision we took lightly, but we arrived at the conclusion, based on the facts, that we already import only about 1% of Malaysia’s palm oil and that keeping more tariffs on will not reforest. Malaysia has actually done a good job of reducing deforestation—deforestation related to palm oil fell by 60% in Malaysia in 2012—and 72% of UK palm oil imports in 2021 were certified as sustainable, up from 16%, so it is moving in a positive direction. We should not tell the story of palm oil of 20 or 30 years ago; things are quite different now. To go back to my point about standards, the standards for what we will import are written here, not in other countries.

Oral Answers to Questions

Margaret Ferrier Excerpts

Thursday 23rd March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Hollinrake]

It is a great pleasure to do so. I congratulate my hon. Friend on her work. The money that has been invested in Hope Street will contribute to its being a safer, more welcoming place to visit and shop, which in turn will support the local economy. Regenerating streets such as Hope Street is essential to making our high streets and town centres successful, and I congratulate her on the work she does in this regard.

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)]

The financial viability of the high street continues to decline as businesses struggle to compete with online shopping, the impact of which will be felt most keenly in local and small to medium-sized businesses. What discussions has the Minister had with the Chancellor about the urgent need for a long-term, local-scale economic plan to support high streets?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

The hon. Lady is right to raise this issue. We have put in place £13.6 billion of business rates support to help businesses over the next few years, but we are also improving access to finance, improving business support through our growth hubs and cutting red tape, making it easier for businesses to start up and scale up in the UK. That work will continue.

--- Later in debate ---

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)]

The United Arab Emirates recently warned Ministers against raising concerns about human rights issues in Gulf Co-operation Council countries if we want to negotiate strong trade deals. That goes completely against our trade principles. Can Ministers confirm that they will not be held to ransom and will not sign trade agreements where human rights are a key concern?

[Kemi Badenoch]

In everything we do, we ensure that we continue to promote and assert British values. That includes within the trade agreements that we are signing with all countries.

Post Office: Horizon Compensation

Margaret Ferrier Excerpts

Thursday 23rd March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I am very sorry to hear what has happened to the hon. Gentleman’s constituent; that must have been a devastating situation for him. I do not think it would be appropriate for me to talk about individual cases on the Floor of the House today—I do not think that Madam Deputy Speaker would want me to do so—but I am very happy to liaise with the hon. Gentleman. If he writes to me, we can take that up on his behalf.

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)]

I thank the Minister for his statement and for the work of his predecessor, the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully). The emotional toll that this tragedy has had on the Horizon victims and their families is devastating, particularly those who passed away before they were exonerated, one of whom was a constituent of mine. New evidence has revealed that the Post Office-Horizon help desk was a toxic and resentful environment where racism was reportedly a daily occurrence. What investigation have Ministers made of that workplace culture and how it may have hindered the system error from coming to light sooner?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right to point out the emotional distress that many people felt, and the fact that some people have passed away while this process has been ongoing, a point also made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis). To be clear, any compensation can, of course, be paid to family members in that situation—a situation that, clearly, is entirely unacceptable. The Sir Wyn Williams inquiry will look at all the different factors at play in terms of why this happened, what could have been done, what should have been done, and who is responsible. I am absolutely determined to make sure that we learn the lessons from it, but not just that: if people can be held to account for what they have done, they should be, and I will do everything I can to make sure that they are.

World Down Syndrome Day

Margaret Ferrier Excerpts

Thursday 23rd March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member on today’s Backbench Business debate and the Act that he got through Parliament. Whether a child attends a special educational needs and disabilities-specific school or a mainstream school with SEND support is not dependent on any particular condition or diagnosis, but dependent on where the child’s needs can be best met. Children with Down syndrome can thrive in mainstream education, so does the right hon. Member agree that increasing awareness of the condition among education professionals, parents and all children is important in ensuring that children with Down syndrome have access to the right learning environment for them?

[Dr Fox]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for making that point, because we can pass as much legislation as we like, but if the professionals at the sharp end, who are required to implement any changes or guidance, do not have sufficient understanding of the problem they are facing, we are all at a deficit in our response. I think the issue of professional education is so important not just for teachers, for whom it obviously is important, but for the medical profession, the social work profession and those involved in local government, who will deal with some of those issues relating to care, particularly long-term care. I think it is an extremely important issue.

I was able in the UN debate to show how the United Kingdom has a very proud record in legislation in this general area. The UK has a long-standing tradition of ensuring that the rights and liberties of disabled people are protected. We ratified the UN convention on the rights of persons with disabilities in 2019. Internationally, our disability inclusion and rights strategy sets out the ambition to embed disability inclusion across all our diplomacy, policy and programmes. The Equality Act 2010 legally protects people in England, Wales and Scotland from discrimination in the workplace and in wider society. We also have the Mental Capacity Act 2005, covering England and Wales, to ensure that every attempt is made to support someone to make decisions about their own lives, and that of course includes people with Down syndrome.

I would like, if I may, to say a word about the Down Syndrome Act and remind us why we passed this legislation. Primarily, it was about empowerment. The Act legislates not for Down syndrome, but for people with Down syndrome. It requires the Government in England to produce Down syndrome-specific guidance relating to health, social care, education and housing services. I hope that Members from Scottish and Welsh constituencies may be able to update the House on how this legislation is being adapted and implemented there. I will come back, if I may, to the point about its being Down syndrome- specific, because I have some concerns that that may be being lost in some parts of the consultation process.

It is important to remind ourselves about the legislation. Under the Act, public authorities such as hospitals, schools or social care providers cannot ignore the guidance when commissioning and delivering services. The guidance must set out what the unique needs of people with Down syndrome are, and what public authorities should be doing to ensure that the support needs of people with Down syndrome are met to enable them to live fulfilling lives. I will come back to this element of the guidance, because one of the issues we discussed in Committee—this has been a controversial issue in this House in relation to other legislation—is when does the guidance become instruction. If Ministers are issuing guidance that is in effect instruction, surely that should be laid before the House of Commons so that we can recognise the importance of that and scrutinise how ministerial authority is being used.

I think that for too long there have been too few levers available for individuals, families and their advocates, including us as Members of Parliament when it comes to getting fair treatment for our constituents with Down syndrome. After all, what is the point of rights in legislation if we cannot enforce them and if there is no mechanism to do so? That was one of the key elements we discussed during the passage of the legislation, and it led to two very important and, I think, innovative changes: the first is on parliamentary scrutiny, and the second is on individual empowerment.

One of the problems we have faced before is that, when Ministers issue guidance, there is very little ability for parliamentary Select Committees to take direct oversight of it. One of the principles we established—and I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Gillian Keegan), who is now the Secretary of State for Education, for her support in establishing this principle—is that if the guidance is in fact instruction, the guidance would be laid before Parliament, which of course means that the Education Committee, the Health and Social Care Committee and local government can all look at it in real time.

One of the things we considered was whether we would have to put a sunset clause on this legislation to enable Parliament to look at it again. The mechanism that we decided on—I think rightly—in this House and in the other place was that, in publishing the guidance, we would have real-time oversight, because when our constituents bring problems to us, we are all able to write to the Chair of whatever Committee it is and ask them to look into that particular aspect of how the Down Syndrome Act is functioning. That gives us, as Members of Parliament, a lever that we did not have before when we simply wrote a letter to a Minister and hoped for the best, which is not sufficient to implement the rights of our constituents in the way that I think we envisaged during the passage of the Act.

International Women’s Day

Margaret Ferrier Excerpts

Thursday 9th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dame Maria Miller]

I thank the hon. Lady for those kind comments. It demonstrates how we work together and have shared interests. Just to refer back to our venture to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women earlier this week, I chaired a panel of young women, and they were asking about how we work together, and where the political divides were. I have to say that I used Jo Cox’s words that there is more that unites us than divides us. That is another thing I would like to remember fondly today.

Having women in Parliament and in leadership really matters—we know that—because it changes the conversation, the discussion and, above all, the decisions that are made both here and in organisations across the country and around the world. To mark International Women’s Day, at the start of this week I led one of four delegations of UK parliamentarians to the UN Commission on the Status of Women. My delegation was from the all-party parliamentary group on United Nations women. We thank the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association for its support in helping that delegation happen.

At the CSW in New York, thousands of women from around the world met to discuss the status of women, with four delegations from our Parliament. There were 18 hon. and right hon. Members and noble Members of the House of Lords at that global event. The event was at times harrowing, and I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) will draw later on some of her work while she was there. It was harrowing in particular to hear directly from women from Afghanistan, Ukraine and other parts of the world, including Colombia and Mexico, about their own personal experiences, particularly around sexual harassment and worse. The Afghan women we heard from talked about the brutal beatings, the torture and worse, but they are still there, prepared to protest to regain the hard-won rights of the past two decades. We also heard from women in Iran living with a brutal regime. We must continue to play our part in this Parliament, as we have a proud tradition of doing, in keeping these women’s plight at the fore and ensuring that their need for support and change is never forgotten.

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)]

It has been difficult to watch as women’s rights have been stripped away in Afghanistan since the withdrawal of troops. Now, Afghan women who were divorced and able to escape abusive marriages under the previous Government have found those divorces nullified and found themselves at risk under adultery laws. Does the right hon. Member agree that the Government must pick up the pace with the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme to make sure we can offer sanctuary to those women?

[Dame Maria Miller]

In bringing this matter up, the hon. Lady is doing what we all must do, which is to raise these issues in public. That is what the Afghan women I met were pleading for—to make sure that their plight was not forgotten—and they were enormously grateful for hon. and right hon. Members raising these issues, so that not only does the world media not forget, but our colleagues on the Treasury Bench do not forget either.

[Dame Maria Miller]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. He is always a great supporter of women. He raises an important issue, which is that women have many different roles in this country and in our national life, and we should celebrate all those roles in this debate. But, above all, we need to ensure that women have a choice as to what role they take on, and we should never allow barriers to get in the way of them succeeding and reaching their potential in life. I am sure his sassy granddaughters would agree with that.

The Commission on the Status of Women, as well as being harrowing at times, was also enormously uplifting. It was empowering to hear from other female parliamentarians, NGO leaders and activists about how they are working and campaigning for change. I had the great pleasure of meeting the Speaker of the Belize Parliament, the honourable Valerie Woods, who is also deputy chair of Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians. The Inter-Parliamentary Union had many meetings at the CSW, which serves to remind us of the importance of organisations such as the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and the IPU, in the light not only of our Parliament, but of Parliaments around the world. They are incredibly useful organisations for women to be able to drive change and learn from other Parliaments.

As I said, the UK Parliament had four delegations—the biggest group ever to be at the CSW—demonstrating that the significance and importance of women’s rights among colleagues across the House has never been more heightened. At the UN this week, thousands of women from across the world saw laid bare the global erosion of women’s rights since the Beijing declaration was adopted in 1995: the reversal of Roe v. Wade; 4 million women and girls out of education in Afghanistan; women in Ukraine rendered victims of sexual violence at the hands of aggressors. Closer to home, two women are murdered by their partners each week in the UK—I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) will be talking about that in her contribution to the debate.

There is no doubt that in the UK over the past decade a huge amount of progress has been made. I pay tribute to the Minister for Women and her predecessors—of which I am one—for all they have done to ensure that we continue to see momentum in women’s rights. The Minister has done so much, particularly on women’s health, and I pay tribute to her work in that area. Although I will speak about some of the challenges that we have to face, and ways to address them, it is important to keep at the back of our minds that huge progress that we have made as women, and the huge contribution that women make to public life, making this place, and other places, better as a result.

How do I know that this place is better for having women in it, and why it is important that we continue to push for more women to enter public office? True representation is the answer to that question. Representation—good, strong, diverse representation—is vital in political life because it encourages trust in political bodies. Engagement in democracy is stronger when people see themselves in their elected representatives. Representation tends also to result in diversity. That in turn results in a greater range of ideas, which for a deliberative system such as our democracy is hugely important to improve our decision making.

In the business world, research by McKinsey found that, for every 10% increase in gender diversity in senior executive teams in the UK, earnings in that company before interest and tax rose by more than 3%. There is a dividend not just for commercial organisations, but for organisations such as ours in ensuring that that diversity is in place.

[Margaret Ferrier]

The right hon. Lady is generous in giving way. I was at a Balfour Aviation event last week, where it was pointed out that women remain significantly under-represented in more senior roles, with only 6% of pilots being women. The training is incredibly expensive and we have heard about the barriers to becoming a high earner that many women face. Does she agree that the Government could be providing more financial support aimed at encouraging women into industries such as aviation where they are under-represented?

[Dame Maria Miller]

The hon. Lady raises an important point about pilots. I know her point is slightly broader than that, but pilots face issues in staying qualified to fly, if they have children. That is one of the reasons— I met that sector of the industry a number of years ago—it sees such a haemorrhaging of women out of the industry. But she makes a broader point. Over the last decade and a half, we have made some important progress in getting in place the idea and notion that having more women in senior roles in organisations is important. On STEM—science, technology, engineering and maths— I actually think those on the Treasury Bench should be singing much louder than they do on their success in putting STEM first and foremost in young women’s minds. When we compare STEM graduates coming out of our universities now with the graduates who came out of our universities in 2010, there are now more women than men coming out with STEM degrees. We do not shout about that enough, but she is right that those women are still on a junior level. We need to ensure that the barriers have been removed so they do not, as we see in the case of pilots, end up having to move out of the industry because barriers are in the way. She makes an important point.

As I say, in the business world, research from McKinsey found that gender diversity increases earnings and that companies in the top quartile for diversity outperform their industry mediums. McKinsey believes that that is because diverse companies are better able to win talent to improve customer understanding, employee satisfaction and decision making, leading to what it calls a virtuous circle.

If diversity can improve our businesses, it can improve our Parliament, too. Where our performance metrics are not found on balance sheets, they are found in the decisions we make for the future of our country. Diversity and deliberative processes, by which I mean voices from more backgrounds bringing new ideas from different life experiences, are foundational to what we do here. The Center for Talent Innovation identified that 56% of leaders do not value ideas they do not personally see the need for. Given that we know that women have experiences of life that are very different from those of their male counterparts, we can see from that figure how important it is that we have more women not only in this Chamber but at the decision-making table of Government.

What is the solution? We need diversity in leadership, and having women central in our debates adds legitimacy to our democratic process. It means that our work in scrutiny is done in a more rounded and full way, and policy can be made that more fully encompasses the needs and dreams of the people we serve. The UK electorate and all electorates are half women, so representing women’s voices here is directly important to at least half of our constituents. Gender equality in Parliament is all about democracy and improving our democracy. It is clear to see why it is important that we make an ever-increasing effort to ensure that diversity can thrive in this Parliament.

Our Parliament has come a long way and we have a very reforming Speaker, who has put the role of parliamentarians front and centre in this place and picked up some of the issues that are incredibly important to women not only coming into Parliament but staying in Parliament. I am thinking particularly here about personal security. However, our Speaker has also inherited an enormous backlog of issues that have not been tackled for a variety of reasons in recent years. It is my belief that the House of Commons must continue to renew its energies in this area to ensure that it is not only the political parties that are working hard to get more women into the House of Commons, but the House of Commons itself that is appealing and is a place where people want to come and have a career. The women who have the capacity, the capabilities and perhaps even the personality to come into Parliament have a lot of choices and different ways they can use their lives. If we do not make sure that the people who have the best capacity are attracted to come to Parliament, as well as have a vocation, we are going to miss out on the brightest and the best, a phrase that is often mentioned to me by Ministers who are responsible when I talk about this issue.

One of the ways we can ensure that we increase the appeal of our Parliament is through gender-sensitive audits, to ensure that we have an understanding of what makes our Parliament strong, and where we can improve it and make it more appealing for women. I pay tribute to the Inter-Parliamentary Union, which developed the concept of gender-sensitive Parliaments in 2010. Since then, multiple Parliaments around the world—including our own—have conducted gender-sensitive audits to see how they fare. That was developed further by the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, which put together a toolkit to make it easier for all sorts of Parliaments to implement such an audit.