Vote 100 and International Women’s Day

Maria Caulfield Excerpts

Thursday 8th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Dawn Butler]

I will congratulate the Queen on the dignity and poise with which she has held her position over the years. I hope that we might see the new generation coming in and taking that place in the future. [Interruption.] Long may she reign—absolutely. We do not want to see the end of her reign, but I understand that she is scaling back her duties to make way for the next generation. I am in no way advocating her quick demise.

Let me offer a cautionary tale from 100 years ago. Just as women were getting the vote, male misogyny struck a blow at women’s sport. Teams of women were playing football in front of large crowds and making big money, but the Football Association banned women from its grounds. The FA said that

“the game of football”—

this was probably said in a more pompous voice—

“is quite unsuitable for females and ought not to be encouraged.”

At a stroke, the FA destroyed women’s football. I bet that if Eniola Aluko is watching, she is probably thinking that not much has changed.

Women football players have been making up for lost time, however. Sadly, the England team lost narrowly last night to the world champions, the United States, but I wish them well on their continued journey. I would like to acknowledge the first real international women’s football star, Michelle Akers. In the 1991 women’s world championship, she was the winner of the golden boot, and she even appeared on a cereal box.

[Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)]

I want to highlight the work that Lewes football club does in the world of women’s football. It was the first club in this country to give equal pay to the men’s and women’s teams.

[Dawn Butler]

That is excellent news, and I hope that it will be reflected nationally as we encourage the game of women’s football. I would also like to note Briana Scurry, a goalkeeper who was the first black woman to be elected to the US hall of fame.

As women, we know that we have to break down structural barriers, but sometimes we forget just how deep the roots of those structural barriers are. We have to break down centuries-old traditions to get into places such as Parliament, which were designed to keep us out. Today, too many groups still face discrimination and disadvantage. We must look forward and tackle the structural barriers facing all women and those with protected characteristics so that we can achieve true equality for all.

The official theme of International Women’s Day is “Press for Progress”. I want to set out Labour’s priorities in the areas where the need for change is most pressing. There is a long list, and it includes tackling violence against women and girls, tackling domestic violence and abuse in the workplace, and, of course, tackling the enduring gender pay gap. I am proud of the role that Labour has played in ensuring progress in the UK by breaking down structural barriers that have long held women back. Labour brought in the Equal Pay Act 1970, the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 and the Equality Act 2010. We introduced the minimum wage and Sure Start. We extended maternity leave and doubled maternity pay, thus valuing women.

Now, Labour believes that we will make a real difference in closing the gender pay gap only with a combination of sticks and carrots. We will mandate all companies with over 250 employees to produce action plans to close the gender pay gap. Companies would be accredited for their progress and issued with certification, and only companies with certification would be able to bid for lucrative Government contracts. This is a win-win situation—it is the right thing to do. The workforce will be loyal, and companies will make more profit, as the Minister mentioned, and will be rewarded for good practice. We will also benefit as a country. According to a study by PwC, the closure of the gender pay gap would give a £90 billion boost to the UK. Globally, the boost would be trillions of dollars—trillions! In the developing world, it is widely recognised that empowering women is an important step in driving economic growth, and that should be part of our sustainable development goals.

Between 2015 and 2016, the UK fell from 14th to 15th place in a ranking of 33 OECD countries based on five key indicators of female economic empowerment. Our country deserves better. Our country needs a Labour Government and our policies to put people and progress at the heart—

[Maria Caulfield]

I thank the hon. Lady for giving way; she is being incredibly generous with her time. I hear with interest the proposals that the Labour party has on the table. Does she see a time when there will be a female leader of the Labour party, and if so, why has that not happened so far?

[Dawn Butler]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. This policy, whether introduced by a male or a female, is important to address pay inequality for women and to ensure that the gender pay gap is not just audited but closed. That is the important factor.

The near parity between women and men in the parliamentary Labour party has not come about by chance. The introduction of all-women shortlists promoted a change of culture. When the election was called at short notice and we had no time for all-women shortlists, we still selected and elected more women than any other party.

The test for any party is, “Are you helping or hindering?” I am afraid that many current Government policies fail that test. We in the Labour party are determined that we will be a help, not a hindrance, to women. I do not have time to go into all the elements of our key policy strands, but they form an acronym—AHELP. That covers access to justice; health and wellbeing; economic equality; leadership and representation; and protections for women. With this, we will see a real transformation.

Women make up 51% of the population, and without that 51%, the other 49% would not be here. So let this be the year that change happens. I will not wait another 110 years for real equality.

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[Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)]

It is a huge privilege to follow the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips), whom I served with on the Women and Equalities Committee. People say, “Do we still need an International Women’s Day?”, and I think that her speech sets out exactly the reasons why we do.

It is a huge honour to speak on International Women’s Day, which is a huge opportunity for us all to share in the achievements, particularly in this anniversary year of suffrage. One hundred years ago, some women were first given the vote, but this is also an opportunity to set out our ambitions for the next 10 years, as we come to celebrate the centenary of all women getting the vote, and for the next 100 years, so that the women who will be sitting in this place then can look back and list what our generation has achieved for women. I take the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Justine Greening): it is important to get on with that, so that they have a long list of achievements to read out in the years to come.

There is still so much to do in this country. We have heard many hon. and right hon. Members set out the issues that women in this country still face around equal pay and the gender pay gap. We just heard the list of names of women who have died by domestic violence. We still have to get 50:50 representation in Parliament, and we also have the ongoing issue of sexual harassment.

Women across the world still face burning injustices. Women in this world are still living in absolute poverty. Women experience rape as a weapon of war on a daily basis. Women still cannot access education, even just to learn to read and write, and as a result, it is not just them but their families who suffer. Women are still being used as sex slaves and trafficked across the world. There is also the issue of female feticide—female babies are valued less than male babies and are often dumped, abandoned or even murdered in some parts of the world because men and male children are valued so much more. We have a huge amount of work to do.

In this anniversary year, to tackle the issue of getting more women into this place, Conservative Members of Parliament have set up a series of “Her Stories,” where we highlight our personal history and how we got into this place. In my new role, when I ask women, “Why don’t you stand for Parliament, for local government, for your local assembly or as a police and crime commissioner?” one of the most common comments I hear is that they do not think that they have what it takes to make a difference. Highlighting our individual stories shows that we have such a diverse mix of people in this place from all parties—people have done different jobs, come from different backgrounds and are of different classes or faiths—and we all have a right to be here.

Listening to the individual personal stories of how women got into this place will hopefully encourage other women out there to think, “Yes, I can do that.” I say this to women: “If you are coming here because you want to be the third female Prime Minister of this country, you are probably coming here for the wrong reason. If you are coming here because you care passionately about an issue and you will not stop until you have achieved your aim, you are exactly the right person to come here, regardless of your background or experience.”

[Mrs Miller]

I want put on record the extraordinary work that my hon. Friend does, the experience as a former nurse that she brought to the Women and Equalities Committee, and the experience that she brings to the House as a whole, which provides an example for us all. She is absolutely right to highlight the importance of those stories in inspiring other women to come here.

[Maria Caulfield]

I thank my right hon. Friend for her kind comments. She herself is an absolute inspiration to women throughout the House as a result of the work that she has done as the first Chairwoman of that Select Committee in not only highlighting issues that are important to women, but pushing those issues.

I want to reflect on my personal and family story. The hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine) mentioned her grandmother. A hundred years ago, my own grandmother did not have the right to vote. My family were Irish Catholics, and it was not until 1922 that women in southern Ireland—and men—were given the vote. In Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom, many Catholic women and men could not vote in local elections until the Electoral Law Amendment Act 1968 came into force, mainly because the Irish Catholic community were neither home owners nor ratepayers and were therefore disqualified. I welcome our celebration of what happened 100 years ago, and I shall welcome our celebration in 10 years’ time, but I think it was a travesty that there were women in the United Kingdom who could not vote simply because of the community from which they came.

In the next generation of the family is my aunt, who came over from Ireland to work in this country. She actually worked in this place—in the dining rooms, serving Members of both this House and the other place. She has many a tale to tell about her time working here, although you will pleased to know, Madam Deputy Speaker, that I will not reveal any of them today. One of her abiding memories is of being able to pay tribute to Winston Churchill when he was lying in state. I am honoured to follow in her footsteps by also working in this place, although in a different role.

We all have family stories to tell that would make a difference, and we should be loud and proud about our history. It concerns me, however, that although we are achieving equality for women, we are not achieving it for all women, in this country or in the world. It is important that when we fight for equality for women, we do so for all women, and those in the most vulnerable communities often need our help the most.

I am also slightly nervous about the discord in this country that makes some women more equal than others, and gives some a greater right than others to speak out on women’s issues. We are a broad church of women in this place, and within our own political parties there is a broad church of women who have come here with different experiences and values, and different issues on which they want to campaign. My message is that there is no right or wrong issue on which to campaign. We all have different views about the NHS, education and the economy, and we all have a right to express those views. It is important for us, as a group of sisters, to respect each other’s views: we may debate them and, perhaps, argue against them, but we must respect the fact that we all have the right to express them.

Let me pursue that point by highlighting the person from whom I take inspiration on the political scene. You would of course, Madam Deputy Speaker, expect Margaret Thatcher to be one of my political heroines. I grew up in a working-class area of south London where there was little or no aspiration for a working-class kid like me, but on television I saw a woman who—although she had a posh accent, often wore a string of pearls, and carried a handbag at all times—told me from that television screen that it did not matter where I came from; it was what I wanted to do and how hard I was prepared to work for it that was going to make the difference.

You would expect Florence Nightingale to be high on my heroine list, Madam Deputy Speaker. As a nurse I worked at St Thomas’ hospital, and did courses at the Nightingale training school. She transformed not just nursing but healthcare in this country. You would also expect Marie Curie to be high on the list, Madam Deputy Speaker. As someone who worked in cancer care, I know that she put her life on the line to increase scientific advances and make a difference to cancer treatment. My greatest respect, however, goes to someone in a political sphere very different from mine. She sat on the Opposition Benches, but she is my absolute political heroine. She has, I believe, been underrated and underestimated in the history of women in politics.

We often talk about Northern Ireland nowadays. We talk about issues related to Brexit and a frictionless border; about the lack of an Executive and the lack of an Assembly; and about the Good Friday agreement. We highlight the work of John Major, Tony Blair and George Mitchell, but we have airbrushed the work of Mo Mowlam. I think that if she were still here, we would completely disagree on issues of health, education and economics, but I hold her absolutely in respect for the work that she did in bringing the nationalist and Protestant communities together in one room. At a time when there was not a female leader of the Democratic Unionist party or a female leader of Sinn Féin, she was in a room full of men and had to knock heads together. She was a straight-talking woman, she was a feisty and funny woman, and she got things done that other people could not do. She was the first female Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, and I think that her efforts should be recognised.

I absolutely take on board the advice that we should never meet our heroes in life because we will only be disappointed, but I had an opportunity to meet Mo Mowlam when I was working as a nurse in Brighton and she was giving a talk at Sussex University. I had never been to the university before, and I did not really “do” political talks. I was not into politics; I just voted in elections. I went to see Mo Mowlam and hear her talk because I was so inspired by the work that she was doing for the Irish Catholic community in Northern Ireland and, indeed, for all communities by bringing them together. Her talk was funny and witty, and she was everything that I had expected her to be. I went up to her and asked her to sign a copy of her autobiography for my other half, who was working overseas at the time. She refused to do it. She said, “I am not going to sign a book and dedicate it to him if he could not make the effort to be here. I will sign it to you, as a woman—and you must keep up the good work of being interested in becoming politically aware.”

I think that Mo Mowlam was one of the great politicians of our time. She was a fantastic woman, and we must remember her and all the work that she did. She was a woman you could do business with, whichever side of the political divide you came from.

This is a an opportunity and a time for us to recognise that equality is not about everyone being the same. We can have differences and still strive together for equality for all. Calling someone less of a sister because she is on a different side of the argument does not really promote our cause of achieving equality for all women. We have fought so hard to get freedom for women, and we have fought so hard to get freedom of speech and freedom to vote, but we still have so much more to do. So let us celebrate our differences and embrace them. One of my favourite sayings from Mo Mowlam was, “You are never terrified when you say what you mean,” which is something to which I still aspire. With that in mind, let us celebrate today. Let us remember the women who have made this country great, and let us work together to tackle the issues that still exist.

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[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

It is huge honour to be called to speak as the first woman Member of Parliament for Chelmsford on this, the International Women’s Day in the 100th year since women won the vote. Yesterday I became a member of the Women and Equalities Committee and attended my first meeting. There are a number of mothers on that Committee, and we were looking at the challenges faced by the parents of a newborn baby. We came up with a long list of recommendations, every one of which is to help fathers, because it is only by working together that we will achieve equality. I want to thank the hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge (Ellie Reeves) and, especially, my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman) for their contributions in this debate.

I am also a member of the Science and Technology Committee. As this is also the Year of Engineering, I want to focus my words on issues that affect women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. EngineeringUK estimates that the demand for graduate engineers outstripped supply by 20,000 people last year. We aspire to be a world-leading, 21st-century, innovative economy, but to achieve that we will need to double the number of engineering students at our universities. We will succeed only if we inspire the next generation of young women in our schools to take up the opportunities of science and tech.

Before coming to the House today, I attended an assembly at Barnes Farm Junior School in Chelmsford. I met Ada Barnes, who is in year 3. Ada told me that she is named after Ada Lovelace, who was the pioneer of computing. She invented the first algorithm that was run on a computer. She was the world’s first computer programmer and the mother of the digital revolution. We all know about Charles Babbage. He invented the machine, but she discovered what the machine could do. Ada Barnes asked me which woman in history had inspired me, so who do I choose? Do I choose my own daughter’s namesake, Elizabeth, our great Queen today? Do I choose Elizabeth I, who stood at the dockside at Tilbury as the Spanish armada was approaching and explained that she had

“the body of a weak, feeble woman; but…the heart and stomach of a king”?

She defended our country. Do I choose my namesake, Queen Victoria, who not only ran the huge British empire, but was mother to nine children? Or, at a time when I said I want to focus on women in science, do I focus on Margaret Thatcher, not only our first woman Prime Minister, but a scientist, too?

In areas of science we are doing really well, as 50% of those studying to become doctors at our medical schools are women.

[Maria Caulfield]

Does my hon. Friend recognise that Margaret Thatcher was also the scientist behind the Mr Whippy ice cream?

[Vicky Ford]

Absolutely, which goes to show how interesting science is. Women in science make great leaders, and women doctors have already broken though the glass ceiling in so many ways. Last year, the chair of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges brought together the presidents of the Royal Colleges of Surgeons, of Physicians, of Pathologists, of Radiologists, of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, of General Practitioners and of Paediatrics and Child Health. They were joined by the outgoing president of the Royal College of Ophthalmologists for a photo call. Every one of the nine people present was a woman. Our chief medical officer, Professor Dame Sally Davies, is a phenomenal woman, leading the world with her campaigns on antimicrobial resistance and now focusing on air quality. Those who are interested in technology, tech ethics and artificial intelligence should go and meet our Information Commissioner, Elizabeth Denham, as she is inspirational. She has degree in history and a masters in informational science.

However, there are other areas of science in which we are not doing at all well. Fewer than one in 10 of the engineers in this country are women, and we have the lowest level of female engineering professionals anywhere in Europe. Not only are we behind Germany and France, but we are way behind countries such as Latvia, Bulgaria and Cyprus. We must do better. Increasing the number of pupils taking maths at A-level is key. In November, the Government announced that schools would get an additional £600 for every additional pupil taking A-level maths. That has the potential to be transformational, so I thank Ministers for that. I hope that it will dramatically increase the number of pupils studying maths, but it will not necessarily solve the problem. That is because already nearly four out of 10 of the people doing maths A-level are girls, so that is not where the issue lies. The problem is in physics.

To become an engineer, one needs to do not only maths but physics. Girls are really good at physics. At GCSE, the classes are 50:50; some 64,000 girls passed physics GCSE last year, with nearly half of them receiving a top grade—an A or A*.That is brilliant, but at A-level the level drops from 50:50 to girls making up just one in five students. That ratio has not changed in 20 years, so we must encourage young women to do more in physics.

I need to declare an interest: I did physics A-level and I did win a prize. I won a silver medal in the physics Olympiad. I still have the book I was awarded, and inside the front cover is an inscription that is addressed to “Mr Victoria” and congratulates “him” on “his achievement”. I gave up physics—let us just say that I did not think that this was a career that valued me. That is ancient history, and a generation later much has changed, but we do need to encourage girls and to give them the evidence of why that career wants them.

I told the primary school assembly at Barnes Farm today three reasons why the girls might wish to consider a career in engineering. The first was that they are wanted. One third of companies say that they cannot find the STEM skills they need, so if girls do science and technology, they will find jobs. The second was that they will make money, because those jobs will be well paid. The evidence shows us that girls who have studied maths and one other science at A-level earn, on average, 30% more than their peers—an extra 30p for every pound. The third was that they will be happy. A recent study of more than 300 women engineers found that more than 80% of them said they were happy or very happy with their career choice. How many people can say that?

Taking a degree in engineering is a passport to work all across the world. Engineering gave us flight and helped to break through the frontier of space. Just last month, I was at CERN in Switzerland, where our engineers are uncovering the secrets of the universe. Taking up a career in engineering does not mean giving up all the glitz and the glamour. Just 10 days ago, at the catwalks in Milan, they had got rid of the models and instead the handbags were flown down the catwalks and paraded by a squadron of drones.

Today is International Women’s Day. It is a century since women got the vote. It is also the Year of Engineering. May I ask that we encourage all the women and men in this House to use that opportunity to go out and inspire the young women in our schools and classrooms to consider a career in engineering?