International Women’s Day

Maria Miller Excerpts

Thursday 5th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered International Women’s Day.

This motion in support of international women’s day also stands in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Mrs Spelman) and my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Jessica Lee). I should say that my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash did the heavy lifting on all this but was detained elsewhere and unable to go to the Backbench Business Committee on the day we put our bid in. I thank her, and all the right hon. and hon. Members across the House who supported our application for this important debate. It is one of the rare parliamentary moments in our calendar when, across the Chamber, there is more that unites us than divides us. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for its support in making the debate possible.

It is an enormous privilege to open this debate. It is not only here that international women’s day will be marked—more than 300 events will be held in the UK to mark the economic, political and social achievements of women across our globe. Our enduring thanks have to go to organisations such as the United Nations, Oxfam, Women for Women International, CARE International and the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts, which bring this event alive for thousands of people across the United Kingdom.

Each international women’s day gives us an opportunity to pause and take stock of the progress that we are making throughout the world in gaining a fundamental right: the right to be treated equally, regardless of our gender. The breadth of today’s debate is daunting, and I do not think that any one speaker can hope to cover every aspect of the important work that many Members are doing in the House, whether it is connected with domestic violence towards women, female genital mutilation, or a host of other issues that are equally important. I want to focus on two issues: the role of women in the workplace and their role in this place.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I congratulate the right hon. Lady and her colleagues on initiating the debate. Does she agree that we still have a long way to go before women have parity with men in terms of pay?

[Maria Miller]

I think we have made important progress in that regard, particularly under the present Government but previously as well. For women under the age of 40, the gender pay gap has all but disappeared, and when we disaggregate the overall data, we see that progress has been made. As the hon. Gentleman says, it is worrying that the gap has not disappeared completely, but, as I am sure he knows, that has much to do with some of the choices that women are making about how they want to lead their lives, which they have an absolute right to do, and also with some of the choices that they are making early in their educational careers. We need to ensure that they are fully aware of the implications of those choices.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

The right hon. Lady said that the pay gap for women aged 50 and over had increased, and suggested that that might be partly to do with choices that women make. Is the enormous increase in unemployment among members of that group, compared with the decrease in unemployment in every other cohort, a result of choices that they have made?

[Maria Miller]

I think the hon. Lady misheard me. I referred to women over the age of 40, and I did not say that the gap had increased. However, she is right in one respect. I am sure that there are many reasons for the pay gap to continue, and I think that she and I share a desire for the position to change. I shall say more about that later.

[Mrs Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the Government’s major changes has been taking people out of income tax at the lower end of the scale, and is it not a fact that 58% of those workers are women?

[Maria Miller]

As my right hon. Friend says, the Government have made real progress in not only giving more women access to child care, but helping women on lower incomes, as well as women of pensionable age. I am not suggesting to the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) that all the problems have been solved, but I think she would want to join me in ensuring that praise is given when it is due.

As I said at the beginning, I want to focus on both the workplace and this place. On a day like this, we should never forget what our forebears did to ensure that we would all be here as women Members of Parliament. There is also much to celebrate in the country more widely in respect of the role of women in our society. Over the past year, we have seen the appointment of the first woman bishop, the first female president of the Royal College of Surgeons, and—this is of particular interest to me—the first female Formula 1 driver, Susie Wolff. Many more women are breaking through and providing role models for us all, which can help to change attitudes and, importantly, raise aspirations.

Let me add one more name to that list: Fiona Woolf. I think that she deserves a particular mention. Although she was not the first female Lord Mayor of London, I believe that she did more than any other Lord Mayor to tackle the issue of gender equality in business, championing women and their contribution to the City of London, and taking that further with the City’s first Pride dinner in celebration of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender City workers. I think we should put on record our thanks to her for all she did in that role.

I shall now focus on the role of work in women’s lives, knowing full well that other colleagues will pick up the other vital threads. Last week the head of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, wrote:

“In too many countries, too many legal restrictions conspire against women to be economically active”,

yet we know that the right to work is fundamental to the story of women’s equality. Christine Lagarde was prompted to say that by an IMF report which found that, despite the progress made on gender, almost 90% of countries surveyed still had legal restrictions based on gender that can stop women having the same opportunities to work as men.

While progress has been made, we should start this debate in the full knowledge that for many of our sisters around the world progress can be almost impossible to see. That is why the work of my right hon. Friend the International Development Secretary is so critical in supporting our aims.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on her speech and on this debate. Will she commend the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) in bringing forward his gender equality Bill for international development? It is absolutely critical that our international development programme, which our right hon. Friend the International Development Secretary so ably leads, ensures that gender equality is embedded in everything it does.

[Maria Miller]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to remind me of that important Bill, because through such legislation we can ensure that Britain continues to lead the way, as we are doing in our Government policy, prioritising women and girls in overseas work, helping more than 2 million women overseas to get jobs and over 5 million girls to attend school. That sort of leadership can make a real difference.

[Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend also welcome the news today that the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has given this great city £5 million to tackle domestic abuse and violence?

[Maria Miller]

Absolutely, and I pay tribute not only to the Mayor of London for the excellent work he does in his office, but to my hon. Friend, who has shown real leadership on this issue not only in her constituency, but across London. With women like her on our green Benches, we can make real progress in these areas.

The theme of this year’s international women’s day is “Make it happen”, and it is incumbent on all of us to make sure we are making it happen for women not only in the UK, but around the world. The Commission on the Status of Women, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, and the team of dedicated people at the Government Equalities Office led by Helene Reardon-Bond work tirelessly to support change around the globe, to take the experience of our country abroad, and to advocate and deliver the change that is needed. They and the ministerial team ably led by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education, and the Ministers on the Front Bench today as well, play a critical role and I applaud them for their enduring hard work and urge them on.

What the IMF report to which I have referred underlines is that laws, however apparently benign, can affect the true opportunities women have, and I would like to draw the attention of the House to a problem raised by one of my constituents: the posting of revenge pornography online, an act that I believe was designed specifically to intimidate and undermine the women who were the victims. It is a very female-based crime, yet I was advised by the police that it was not necessarily a crime at all at that point. All the victims I have met are women, although I am sure there are some men who are affected, too. These women endured enormous trauma, and some even blackmail, and almost all cited a direct effect on their work and family life as a result of being the victims of this appalling and despicable behaviour. It is a testament to the commitment of the Lord Chancellor on these issues that when I raised this with him directly, he acted at once. We must ensure that we are responsive to the new crimes that the internet can create, and I believe this Government have done just that. It is now, after one short year, a crime to post nude or sexually explicit images online without consent, and I applaud my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor for taking that swift action.

The British workplace was designed by men for men, and so were many of the laws that are assigned to it. That is why the task of workplace modernisation is so important. There is now a record number of women in work—more than 14 million—and 80% of the growth in female employment in the past four years has been in managerial, professional and technical sectors. The Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson), was instrumental in pressing for extending the right to request flexible working and in introducing a system of shared parental leave. Increasing early-years education for three and four-year-olds and the most disadvantaged two-year-olds, and making tax-free child care available to all for the first time, are also clear ways in which this Government have taken action to modernise the workplace for women in the past five years.

We have removed some of the most entrenched barriers, helping women to gain greater financial security through work and also in retirement. Our state pension reforms will improve the lives of the more than 600,000 women who will benefit from the single tier pension and receive an average of £8 a week more as a result of this Government’s actions. There are now more women-led businesses than ever before. One in five small and medium-sized enterprises is now led by a woman. There are more women on FTSE boards than ever before, and there are now, for the first time ever, no all-male FTSE 100 boards. These are significant achievements, and the Government should be recognised for what they have done. I believe that we shall see this legacy come to maturity in the next 10 years.

When it comes to promoting gender equality, one of the key indicators alongside work is the proportion of seats held by women in a national Parliament. I should like to pay particular tribute to the work of the all-party parliamentary group for women in Parliament, which is ably led by my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Mary Macleod). She has worked assiduously to ensure that female representation in this House remains firmly on every party’s agenda. Her report published last summer rightly made a number of recommendations of which every Member of the House should be aware.

One recommendation, which has already been mentioned, is that we should not miss the opportunity to ensure that matters relating to women and equality are properly scrutinised. The establishment of a women and equalities Select Committee, to ensure proper scrutiny both for Government and for those outside Government on equality issues, is one of the report’s most powerful recommendations. Lord Davies’s work on women’s representation on boards has demonstrated how effective it can be to establish an expectation when it comes to gender. Through his work, he has almost doubled the number of female company directors in FTSE 100 firms by putting in place a target and monitoring it, and by generating a great deal of good will behind the issue.

It is almost unbelievable that we do not have a scrutiny body on women and equality led by the House of Commons. As a former Minister for Women and Equalities, I can tell the House that I would see such a body as a very effective tool indeed. I was pleased to hear the personal commitment from the Leader of the House earlier today. Putting in place such a Select Committee and ensuring that people would be held to account would have just the kind of nudge effect that is so popular among modern-day economists. That would be an important way we could improve the processes of this place.

The all-party parliamentary group also recommended changes to the working practices of the House as an important way of encouraging more women to stand for elected office. Clearly, we have to create an environment that women want to work in—one where they feel their face will fit. When I was asked to consider becoming an MP in 2000, my reply was, “People like me don’t become MPs.” I was born in a council house, I went to my local comprehensive school in Bridgend in south Wales and I had been working for 15 years in business, where I was a working mum, with two small children at the time. But my party never saw any of those things as an obstacle. I believe it is less about those things being obstacles and more about the perception people have about this place—that is what we need to overcome.

[Mary Macleod]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that all parties need to do a lot more outreach to women right across this country to say that their country needs them? They need to take a role in public life, participate in our debates and really make a difference to the future of this country.

[Maria Miller]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about that. I hope I am able to say this without betraying any confidences from the evidence sessions held in her Select Committee, but I certainly had the overwhelming impression that recruiting women was not a problem in any individual political party; the problem was more to do with encouraging women to be interested in this as part of their career or part of how they could contribute something to the society in which they live.

[Mrs Gillan]

My right hon. Friend is making a powerful speech, and she has been a rich addition to the House. What has alarmed me is that the experience she reports in 2000 is the same as my experience back in the late 1980s and early 1990s. I came into this place in 1992 and am now the longest serving woman on the Conservative Benches. How are we going to make sure that our message goes out beyond this place that this is a very good place for women to represent their constituencies and a very good place for women to do business?

[Maria Miller]

My right hon. Friend asks one of the biggest questions to be answered in this debate today. It is not only incumbent on us in this place to deal with it—I know you take a deep interest in this too, Mr Speaker—but we also have to look at the way in which women who hold these jobs are represented. I know that one of the biggest concerns many women have about coming into Parliament is the problems that they can encounter in terms of the scrutiny of themselves and their personal lives. There are a great many questions to be answered in that regard, too.

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

One way in which women could be helped, particularly younger married women with families, is by our having a look at the crèche facilities in this place.

[Maria Miller]

I know that we have crèche facilities, although I am not sure that my 12-year-old would be too excited about going there. The hon. Gentleman raises an important point, which is that at the beginning of the next Parliament, when we start to think about the working hours of this place—I know that there are many different competing demands, with people living in various parts of the country—we have to ask ourselves the questions. If, as the Conservatives will, we have many young women coming into Parliament who may have not yet started their families, and if we are to encourage them to stay here for as long as possible, we have to address the sort of issue he is talking about. I want to encourage more women who have families into Parliament. At the moment, 40% of women MPs do not have children and that is not representative of our population as a whole. In addition, women tend to have shorter parliamentary careers than their male counterparts and tend to have older children, too, so there are some forces at play that he is right to pick up on.

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

The right hon. Lady is making an interesting speech. I wonder whether she shares my experience, which is that at surgeries or even when knocking on doors it tends to be the women who come forward to discuss things. I have had surgeries where the man has been brought along but does not open his mouth and the woman speaks on his behalf. I wonder whether it is a shared experience among women MPs that the level of engagement by women is very high indeed.

[Maria Miller]

The hon. Lady is making an important point. I wish to pay tribute to my local Basingstoke and Deane borough council, particularly its Conservative group, because more than a third of our councillors are women and that is well in excess of any other party. I think there is something else at play in what she says; perhaps as she and I are women MPs, women feel more empowered to take a more assertive position with us because they see women in their community taking a role that they can follow.

I believe that each party is doing good work to encourage more women to stand. I pay particular tribute to the work of Women2Win for my party, under the careful guidance of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and the noble Baroness Jenkin in the other place, and to my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton)—an extraordinarily dedicated group of colleagues, who have ensured that an extraordinary group of talented women are set to join us on these green Benches in May. More than a third of our candidates in winnable seats are women. I pay particular tribute to Suella Fernandes, who was selected for Fareham, in my home county of Hampshire, just a few weeks ago. With all her experience, I know that she will be an excellent addition to this place.

My right hon. and hon. Friends here today, many of whom have been MPs for longer than me, have noted many things about this place, but one thing that I was concerned about when I came here was the lack of visibility of the contribution made by the women who had already been in Parliament before me. Since that point, we have seen some progress, but we need to continue under your careful guidance, Mr Speaker, to make progress on that. We have seen the unveiling of the statue of Margaret Thatcher in Members’ Lobby and just this week we have seen an inspiring exhibition of photography and portraiture, which has really started to crystallise the contribution of the extraordinary women we have already seen in this place.

I know that you are one of our great supporters, Mr Speaker, but let us make sure, perhaps as a testament to this international women’s day, not only that we have an exhibition of women’s portraiture and photography in Portcullis House, but that those images creep their way down the corridors to the Palace of Westminster itself and on to the walls of our Committee Rooms, so that the next time I sit on a Delegated Legislation Committee, I do not have to endure two or three hours of simply looking at previous male colleagues on our walls. I think that is perhaps what would be expected, all these years on from the first woman having sat in the House of Commons.

I will close there, because I know that many hon. and right hon. Friends want to contribute to this debate. I look forward to an excellent discussion of the issues that really matter to women in Britain today.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Emily Thornberry]

I could not agree more with the hon. Gentleman. We have got ourselves into an odd place in which it is accepted that women have to limit the hours they work—that full time may mean just full time and not all the hours of overtime. In many workplaces, if a man wants to be able to get home at six o’clock to see the children there is in some ways more prejudice against him than there might be against a woman, as it would be accepted that she would need to get home. It would be to the benefit and liberation of us all if we looked again at our equal and shared responsibility for unpaid and paid work and allowed people to make choices that are appropriate for them and not based simply on gender. It happens too often and it continues to happen.

My stepmother was a great feminist in the 1970s who translated “The Little Red Schoolbook”, which was a great call to arms at that time. I remember her saying that she was doing that work not for herself—she did not expect it to work for her—but for me. I continue to work, not necessarily for me but for the girls at Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and for my daughters. We go down the generations, but although things improve we still have such a long way to go. We must not be complacent.

There is an area in which there is an element of complacency, with the greatest respect to the right hon. Member for Basingstoke, and that is equal pay. Work still needs to be done. The Equal Pay Act 1970, passed some 45 years ago, has run into the sand and we have a number of difficulties with it. First, it was based on the idea of individual women taking out individual complaints about their individual circumstances. They cannot be representative of a class of women or of an entire employment establishment; they do it on their own behalf. They can of course be bought off and there can be a gagging clause in any agreement that is made instead of their going to court, so there is therefore no end to it.

Increasing numbers of cases have taken years and years. The idea of the Dagenham work force going along to a tribunal, representing themselves and it not taking very long is long gone. It can take five years for the preliminary issue in the case to be decided. This process has become counter-productive. As we have established our law on the basis of a form of contract law, the European Court of Justice has said that women should not just get two years’ compensation but six years’ compensation for not being paid equally with men. That has had a chilling effect on employers, who will fight every single case.

In increasing numbers of cases, trade unions and employers come to a negotiated deal on equal pay between men and women only for the trade unions to be sued. We are getting mired in difficulties, but the gender pay gap remains stubbornly at about 10% for women on full pay and at 17% for women who work part time. We should not turn our backs on that.

[Maria Miller]

I reassure the hon. Lady that in no way should she sense any complacency from me on that issue. I was simply pointing out that disaggregating the data uncovers a slightly different issue. I recognise the problems with equal pay and other pay complaints that she has cited, but if we disaggregate the data we can see that the challenge for women over 40 is not focused on enough.

[Emily Thornberry]

There are other problems with the Equal Pay Act. The fact that there are fees has put women off taking cases; there has been a decline of 70% or 80% in the number of women taking cases on equal pay.

I have talked about settlements and about the need for six years’ compensation and its chilling effect, but in addition the Equal Pay Act was based on another way of working in another world. It does not comprehend outsourcing, agency working, bogus self-employment and all the things that have, in my view, often been used to circumvent equal pay. We need a new pay Act that would ensure that such difficulties are directly addressed.

All sorts of increasingly bizarre loopholes have developed in the law. For example, if a woman is replaced by a man and the man gets paid more, it would seem that she is not allowed to compare him with herself and to compare his level of pay to show that she has been discriminated against. In my view, that is nonsense. If a man is paid more than a woman it is a defence for the employer to say that that is not discrimination because it is owing to some other material factor—historical or mistaken. Obviously, that is also nonsense. There is even an argument, which has been upheld in some court cases although not all, that if a woman compares herself with a man who is employed by the same employer but works in a different building, it is not a fair comparison. That is obviously another piece of nonsense that needs to be swept away in a new equal pay Act.

The fundamental problem with the Equal Pay Act is that it is based on individual women taking complaints about their individual circumstances. We should accept, in clause 1 of a new Bill, that it is the responsibility of all of us to ensure that there is equal pay between the genders, so we need to work together to do something about it. A new Act should have a code of practice with some legal standing attached to it so that employers know that they will not be sued so long as the agreements negotiated with the trade unions are made within the code. Employers could volunteer to have proper pay audits, job evaluations and skills audits. If they out sourced that to recognised experts and acted on the basis of their recommendations, that would be a complete defence against any equal pay claim.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mary Macleod]

I completely agree. Only recently the Exchequer Secretary visited Chiswick to meet female entrepreneurs and women who were thinking about setting up a business, and they said exactly the same. They needed something more flexible and perhaps part time, but something they could establish for themselves in that way.

In my west London constituency, in Chiswick, Brentford, Isleworth and Hounslow, one of the most well-known female entrepreneurs is Cath Kidston, who opened her first shop in 1993 and now has 59 stores in the UK and 54 across Spain, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Thailand, Taiwan, Hong Kong and China. She started making wash bags and aprons because she had over-ordered fabric.

Another entrepreneur from Hounslow is Shavata Singh, who is now famous for doing the eyebrows of the stars. Almost every department store now has a Shavata concession doing eyebrows—if you ever need them done, Mr Deputy Speaker. She has now established her flagship store in Knightsbridge and is doing amazing work. Angela Lyons-Redman, of My Plumber, is based in Brentford and Chiswick. She left her job as a solicitor because she thought she could offer a better, faster service in the plumbing world—initially working from her bedroom, with a plumber on a motorbike—and now employs 38 people and several apprentices. She is doing a great job with that company.

Lorraine Angliss created Annie’s, a lovely, quirky and comfy restaurant in Chiswick and Barnes, and now has a sister restaurant in Richmond, and they are much loved by locals. Julia Quilliam set up a property business in Brentford, an independent family-run estate agent. Anila Vaghela, of Anila’s Sauces, which is also based in Hounslow, makes curry sauces. She set up the business in her 50s after being made redundant. She has won many Great Taste awards, and her sauces are all about love and harmony.

I have a range of other examples of great local female entrepreneurs, such as Charlotte who set up Badger & Earl, Maggie who set up Maggie & Rose, Anette who set up Chateau Dessert, Esther Gibbs who set up LondonMummy.com, Sarah who set up Sprinkled Magic, and Martha Keith. They have all made their mark by setting up their own business.

Martha Keith has an interesting story. When I entered this place, I wanted to encourage more women to set up businesses. I feel that in many sectors we just need to encourage more women. I attended a Commonwealth meeting of female parliamentarians in Edinburgh. We were a group of 15 women all standing together, and we all said that we got into Parliament because someone had tapped us on the shoulder and said, “Why don’t you do it? You’d be great.” It strikes me that we need to encourage women constantly. We know that they have the ability and the skills, but we need to encourage them to take that step.

[Maria Miller]

Does my hon. Friend agree that alarm bells should be ringing for the large corporations in this country that for whatever reason seem unable to retain the talented women she has just talked about? They should be looking at that very carefully, because in future they might see a real haemorrhaging of talent from their training programmes into self-employment.

[Mary Macleod]

Absolutely, and it is a real loss to their business when they cannot retain that talent. There is a simple and proven business case that shows that they need to keep hold of that talent. They have to look at every single part of the pipeline to ensure that women stay in their organisations. If they have a short time away from work because they are on maternity leave or have to look after young children, those companies need to encourage them and support them back into the workplace.

I met Martha Keith when I decided to conduct an experiment in west London by setting up three entrepreneurship workshops—I called it the start-up challenge—in Hounslow, Brentford and Chiswick. I leafleted the whole area, going from door to door to hand out a really positive flyer that said, “I believe you can do it, so please come and find out how. Let’s work together to make this happen.” We were inundated with women who wanted to find out more and see if they could do it. The inspirational part of those events was hearing the entrepreneur’s story; a women standing up and telling her story, explaining what she had done in her business—the good, the bad, the challenges and the obstacles—and how she eventually succeeded. The women listening realised that maybe they could do that too.

Martha Keith came along to one of those events. She had left a good job in GlaxoSmithKline to set up her own business, Love Give Ink, which makes brilliant stationary. I also introduced her to the Prime Minister when he visited Brentford, and he then used her as an example in his speech to the Federation of Small Businesses last year. She now employs several people, is doing a great job and has never looked back. People like Martha can make a difference not only by changing their own lives and contributing to the economy, but by doing something new and different or better than anyone else.

Creating opportunities for women and encouraging them to do something that will make a real difference to their lives is so important. The Government have helped with that, as we have heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Margot James), by clearly signposting businesses on the Great Business website, because we have so many great women in this country that we want to promote what they do by building on the Great brand; handing out 25,000 start-up loans, a third of which have gone to women; changing the tax code so that home businesses do not typically have to pay business taxes; introducing growth vouchers to help small businesses access specialist advice; and opening up the banking industry to challenger banks, encouraging crowdfunding and hopefully doing more on alternative finance.

It is great to hear that more women than ever before are starting up businesses. Some 20% of small and medium-sized enterprises are run either by women or by a team that is over 50% female, which is an increase of 140,000 since 2010. There are other things that we are doing to support women in their roles. For example, 2 million families will benefit from the new tax-free child care scheme. The increase in the number of free hours of early education for three and four-year-olds will make a difference, as will extending free early learning places to 40% of the most disadvantaged two-year-olds.

I urge the Government to continue doing all they can to support small businesses; to consider the contribution women can make to enterprise; to celebrate the contribution that women who have set up their own businesses make to the workplace; and to promote role models. If we talk more about role models, perhaps more women will get involved. It would inspire not just our generation, but the next generation of girls to feel that they can take the same route. By talking about all the great people who have succeeded in the world of enterprise and the women who have made a contribution to this country, I believe we can make that happen locally, nationally and across the world.

--- Later in debate ---

[Maria Miller]

I thank all right hon. and hon. Members who have supported and contributed to today’s wide-ranging debate. I particularly thank the Leader of the House, who earlier gave his personal support for the idea of establishing a women and equalities Select Committee, and Mr Speaker, for agreeing to consider the need to put women front and centre in this place through the portraiture that is on display. Those are practical changes, but the improved scrutiny can make a real difference. I also thank the Backbench Business Committee for its support and its understanding of the importance of holding today’s debate in this Chamber. As the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) said, it is our responsibility through debates such as this to shift culture, forge alliances and achieve policy changes. This debate, in some small way, will have contributed to the objectives she set, particularly in highlighting the issues that still need to be addressed. The debate has also demonstrated that women are here at the table participating, not observing, and determining the future of our country.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Rarely have I found it as difficult to sit in this Chair and say nothing as it has been this afternoon. I have achieved that, but I think I can preserve my impartiality while congratulating all those who have taken part in an excellent and essential debate—it is essential that it should take place in this Chamber.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered International Women’s Day.