International Women’s Day

Maria Miller Excerpts

Thursday 5th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right, and I am sure that she enjoyed the recent film “Hidden Figures”, which celebrated some of those workers—the fantastic female mathematicians who contributed at NASA. I know that she, like me, enjoys Lego, and will celebrate the new women scientist Lego sets. She is absolutely right, and we need to give girls and women the message about the great achievements and inventions of women that unfortunately have not been celebrated as much as they should have.

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

On celebrating women’s achievements, does my right hon. Friend share my concern that around the country, we have too few sculptures and statues of women? I am proud that Basingstoke has recognised Jane Austen by having the first ever sculpture made of her and put in the centre of our town. Should not more constituencies and Members of Parliament do something similar?

[Elizabeth Truss]

My right hon. Friend is completely correct. In fact, I also recently saw the film “Emma.”, which is based on my favourite Jane Austen novel. She is right that we need more statues of women. Of course, we recently unveiled the Nancy Astor statue in Plymouth. We should have more statues of women in our public places, and we should celebrate the great women who have helped to make our country what it is.

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[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin) with her passion and her verve and her ability to speak Malawian—if that indeed is the language that they speak in Malawi.

I wish to start my contribution by thanking the Leader of the House, who has done something very important today. He has allowed us to hold this debate in Government time. I hope that that is a trend for the future, because, while I have huge respect for the Backbench Business Committee and the work that it does, this debate should be held in Government time as it shows a recognition of, and a respect for, the importance of the things that come out of this debate.

I look forward to International Women’s Day every year, but I would like to share with the House that this is not only for the opportunity to celebrate the achievements of women, but because as well as being the birthday of the hon. Member for Glasgow North-East, it is the birthday of my youngest child, James. Year after year, that has caused enormous conflict in my household. This year, he is now 18 and an adult. I hope that Members and others can forgive me for not supporting the rally on Sunday, as I will be taking him out for a slap-up meal and perhaps a pint of beer to celebrate the fact that he is now a fully-fledged adult.

When we celebrate International Women’s Day, it is important to acknowledge that many young men, and older ones too, struggle with discrimination—ageism, perhaps because they are also LGBT, or because they may be disabled—but this does not take away the importance of having this opportunity to celebrate women and girls, their contribution and the challenges that they still face, both here and across the globe.

My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) has demonstrated that International Men’s Day provides a great opportunity for men to talk about the issues that they face. I hope that the respect for this particular event, International Women’s Day, and the debate around it is seen for the opportunity that it is—to debate the achievements of women. And celebrate them we should. My right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes), the new Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee —on which I congratulate her—is absolutely right that we should celebrate. We should celebrate the record numbers of women in work, the record numbers of women in Parliament, and now the record number of women who are graduating from our universities with the best degrees. More women than men are actually now graduating with science-based degrees, which is showing some progress, the foundations of which were sown very early on in 2010 when the Conservative Government was first formed. Some of that real progress is due to the very hard work of hon. and right hon. Members sitting in the Chamber today.

But many of the women who we are inspired by as constituency Members of Parliament do not sit on these green Benches and do not fill the history books; they are women who do extraordinary things day in, day out to make our communities better places in which to live. I would like to give the House three examples from my part of Hampshire. Diane Taylor, the mayor of Basingstoke, is an extraordinary woman of compassion and of support for our community. Catherine Waters-Clark set up the fantastic local charity Inspero and has taken it to being an award-winning charity in a handful of years. And most of all—I think other Hampshire Members may agree with me on this—I pay tribute to Olivia Pinkney, who is our chief constable in Hampshire and is one of a very small number of female chief constables in the whole country. On a day like this, we should remember those inspiring women, who have pushed the barriers, gone that extra mile and made our communities even better places in which to live.

Let me touch on the role of Parliament. As a legislative body, we have a duty to scrutinise the effectiveness of Government policy to ensure, as the Minister said in her opening statement, that everybody has the opportunity to live the life they choose—that people are carried by their ideas, character and talent, and not held back by their gender. Of course, she is entirely right. It is right that we now have a Select Committee to scrutinise those policies formally every week of the year, but International Women’s Day gives us another channel of scrutiny and another way in which to throw a sharp light on the issues that women need us to address.

The number of events in Parliament has grown organically every year that I have been here, and this year there has been an opportunity to take part in some extraordinary events, including a fantastic exhibition in the Upper Waiting Hall called “Motherworks”, masterminded by Fiona Freund and showcasing the dazzling capabilities of working mums. With the all-party parliamentary group on women, peace and security, I have been able to meet incredible women on the frontline of fighting for women’s rights in countries such as Syria and Nigeria. I have been privileged to be able to launch Birmingham University business school’s fathers in the workplace toolkit—because if we do not get it right for dads, we will never get it right for mums—and last night to have been at the launch of Plan International UK’s call for action for young women living in conflict areas.

Does Parliament actually have an opportunity to do a bit more? There is a strong argument that the parts that make up International Women’s Week, as I think it has become, would be stronger if we tried to knit them together to demonstrate this Parliament’s significant commitment to International Women’s Day. Perhaps we could bring events together in a more coherent programme, and—as we are now no longer members of the EU—use it as an opportunity to be keep in close contact with some of our colleagues across our neighbouring European countries. We have inspiring women in Parliament, in business, in medicine and in teaching, and International Women’s Day is an opportunity for us, as a body, to play our part in showcasing their talents in order to inspire the next generation. I hope that, as parliamentary colleagues, we might think about how we can make this event an even more significant part of the parliamentary diary. We could continue to support the excellent work of 50:50 Parliament, as I know many of us do, and we could involve more young people—and perhaps some old people as well—in thinking about being a Member of Parliament as part of their life work.

So where does the challenge really lie? Today—indeed, this week—is all about celebrating women, but it is also about being honest about the challenges still faced. I agree with the Minister that there should be intrinsic equity for men and women, but there is not because of the attitudes and culture that still prevail in this country and across the globe. It is important that the Government recognise that, because it is the reality of women’s lives. The Minister’s vision is inspiring, but the reality can sometimes be less so. One of the strengths of having a Women and Equalities Committee is the work that we are now able to do to amass the evidence and see what needs to be acted on. I will focus the remainder of my comments on three specific challenges that I passionately feel need addressing.

The first challenge is that although we may have record numbers of women in work, too many still do not reach their full potential. As a country facing challenges with our productivity levels, we have to take that very seriously indeed. I welcome the Government’s commitment to improving childcare—the 30 hours of free childcare for three and four-year-olds, and the commitment to more investment in wraparound care, are hugely important—but there are three elements that we have to fix if we are going to enable women really to reach their full potential at work as we need them to do.

First, there is a lack of quality flexible working, despite the Government’s policy to encourage businesses in that area. Secondly, we need to tackle the fact that women are being discriminated against simply because they are pregnant or new mums. Many hundreds of women are being put in a position where they feel they need to leave their work simply because they are pregnant, and that situation has actually worsened over the last 10 years, according to the Government’s figures. The third element that I really want the Government to think about in this respect—unsurprisingly, just a few days after the conviction of Harvey Weinstein—is that women are still today suffering sexual harassment at work, only to see it covered up through the use of pay-offs and non-disclosure agreements to exit them from their workplace, leaving the offending individuals in place to continue to abuse others. This is not right and it has to change. Women trust us to get it right, and at the moment we are not. We need to make all jobs flexible by default unless there are business reasons not to do so; to adopt the same protections that are in place in Germany for pregnant mums and new mums to stop women being forced out of work when they are pregnant; and to outlaw the use of non-disclosure agreements to cover up allegations of sexual harassment.

The jailing of Harvey Weinstein does not solve the problem. We have to change the way in which our employment tribunal systems work for the better in order to remove the disincentives to bring forward strong cases in the first place. We also have to stop NDAs being used to cover up allegations of sexual harassment or discrimination, to put in place standard confidentiality clauses and to strengthen corporate governance. Members of the Select Committee in the last Parliament will remember the importance of insisting on the reporting up of sexual harassment cases to board level, in order to ensure that those leading our companies and institutions are aware of what is going on. I just remind colleagues of the excellent publications that the Select Committee has already produced; those reports are evidence-based, and the Government should be able to get some good ideas from them.

In short, we need to reshape jobs and the workplace because most jobs and most workplaces are still shaped around a model that has existed for hundreds of years and that too often did not fit women; and as a result, it is not working for women. I am mindful of the time, so will briefly mention the other two areas that I wanted to cover, the first of which is digital abuse.

I wholeheartedly applaud the Government’s real commitment to online reform, and the online harms White Paper was a real step in the right direction, but now we need to see the legislation. Yes, it is important to put in place a duty of care on digital platforms, but the legislation also needs to consider sexual abuse images. At the moment, we have a patchwork of legislation in areas such as upskirting and revenge pornography. We need legislation that can stand the test of time and does not need updating every time a digital platform finds a new way of abusing women through the use of sexual images. Deepfake is a very current example, and of course the issue of anonymity cannot be neglected either.

Last, but by no means least, I turn to Parliament itself. Back in 2016, when we took evidence in the Select Committee from party leaders about their aspirations for the role of women in Parliament, I was heartened that all the party leaders agreed that the House of Commons would be a better place if we had as many women here as men. We have a duty to make this place the best legislative body it can be, yet still only one in three parliamentarians is female—and, yes, the problem lies with the Conservative party. We have record numbers of women MPs. I applaud the Labour party for achieving 51% female MPs. Now we really have to examine things on the Conservative Benches as to how we can achieve a similar situation.

How confident are we that Parliament is as appealing a workplace as it can be to women? How can we make sure that it becomes a more appealing workplace for women? These are the issues that we need to think about and have to tackle. Retaining Members of Parliament—this applies to all parliamentary parties—is something we are failing to do at the moment. At the last general election, all parties lost good women who decided that this was not a place where they could work and balance their caring responsibilities. That should concern us all deeply. It is a problem for MPs to solve, not for those on the Treasury Bench to solve. It is our responsibility. With that in mind, it is crucial that this, as a place of work, works for everybody. I am delighted to be a member of the new Administration Committee, and I look forward to seeing how some of these issues can be addressed through the work of that Committee.

The Government have an ambitious policy to eliminate the gender pay gap—to level up our country, giving everybody the opportunity to be the best they can be, regardless of background. I was born in a council house and went to my local comprehensive school in south Wales, and I am proud to be the 265th woman ever to be elected to this place. The Government are right in their ambition to level up. That levelling up goes for women, too, both in work and in this place, to give everybody the opportunity to live the life they choose based on their talents, ideas and characters, and not to be held up or held back simply because they are a woman.

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[Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)]

It is an honour to close this debate, and I thank every Member who has attended to raise issues, highlight successes and reflect how much women have contributed and will continue to contribute to our country and the rest of the world.

There have been some fantastic speeches—too many for me to mention them all, so I will highlight just a few. My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham) made the local connection with Florence Nightingale—a personal heroine of mine, as a fellow nurse—and her groundbreaking work. Today we find ourselves following the strict hand-washing rules that she set out many years ago. The hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Apsana Begum) made a fantastic maiden speech. It is such an honour that she chose this debate to make it in. We can already see that she will be a force to reckon with in this place and will keep the east end firmly on the map.

My constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Caroline Ansell), highlighted what a hard-working local MP she is by bringing up Langney Primary School and its equality day. As she pointed out, she is Eastbourne’s first woman MP—again. The hon. Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield) talked about the effect that misogyny can have and the piranha tank of social media, which, to be fair, we have all experienced. My hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price) highlighted how few men have come to support this debate; we hope to see more next year. However, as she pointed out in her rather sassy speech, we could do just fine without them. I note, however, that the male members of the Whips Office—who are here to support me, I think—have appeared on the Bench.

Like many hon. Members, my hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley (Mrs Drummond) highlighted the plight of human rights defenders in other countries who find themselves in prison for doing the simple things that we take for granted in this country. The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson) asked a number of questions, particularly about Iranian prisoners. This morning the Leader of the House announced that there may be some positive news on that, but I hope the hon. Lady does not mind if I speak to the Foreign Secretary and get back to her about the particular Foreign Office issues that she raised.

There are so many great advocates for equality of opportunity and treatment of women in this Chamber, and I thank them all for their excellent work. As the Minister for Women and Equalities said in her opening remarks, the theme for International Women’s Day is “Each for Equal”, through which women want to achieve a gender-equal world. We are making progress right here in Parliament. We all have our own views about the result of the general election a few short months ago, but we have all mentioned how delighted we are to have more women MPs in this place than ever before. There are now 220 women MPs in Parliament—34% of the total, up from 22% in 2010. Although that is not the height of our ambition for the number of female MPs, it shows that we are making progress.

I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) that although we have made progress in getting more female candidates, we have more work to do in retaining excellent female MPs. We lost far too many from all sides at the last election. As my right hon. Friend rightly said, all MPs have the responsibility to play our part.

I am proud to stand at the Dispatch Box as an example of what the Prime Minister has named “the people’s Government”—a Government more reflective of the people they serve—and the second female in my family to have worked in the House of Commons. My aunt worked as a waitress in the Members’ Dining Room back in the ’60s, when there were just 26 female MPs and someone from my background would never have made it as an MP. I am standing at this Dispatch Box today only because I am covering for the feisty and inspirational Minister for Equalities, my hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden (Kemi Badenoch), who is on maternity leave. Before entering this place, she worked in engineering, as a financier and in journalism—a really positive role model for our young women of today, demonstrating that this Government come from all walks of life.

International Women’s Day is primarily a day of celebration, and we have heard speeches that offer a huge amount of hope for the future, and demonstrate that in many areas we are making real progress towards a fairer society. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke and the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Bradford West (Naz Shah), pointed out, it is right that this is debated in Government time. However, we have also heard appalling details of inequality from a number of speakers and clear evidence of the prejudices that women and girls still face.

We were all moved, as we are every year, by the speech from the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips), and it is tragic that the number of women killed by domestic violence has increased this year. The Government are serious about tackling this and I am pleased that only this week, we reintroduced our landmark Domestic Abuse Bill, which includes a number of changes to the Bill that was introduced in the last Parliament. Those include a new duty on tier 1 local authorities in England to provide support to domestic abuse victims and their children in refuges and other safe accommodation, and we continue to progress the non-legislative work to support the Bill as it comes forward.

The shadow Minister touched on finance around the Bill. The Government have committed £100 million of funding to combat violence against women and girls, including £20 million for domestic abuse, and are piloting an integrated domestic abuse court to support victims. The Government are also taking seriously the need to help victims of domestic abuse, female genital mutilation, forced marriage and stalking. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) on her work on FGM when she was a Minister. She is right—it is child abuse and it is illegal.

There were questions from a number of Members on the Istanbul convention, and I reassure them that the Government remain committed to ratifying the convention as soon as possible. The Domestic Abuse Bill contains the necessary measures to satisfy the convention’s requirements in respect of ensuring that the criminal courts in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have the required extraterritorial jurisdiction over certain violent and sexual offences, as required by article 44. The Northern Ireland Minister for Justice has also announced her intention to bring before the Assembly legislation that would criminalise psychological violence in Northern Ireland, as required by article 33. Had the general election not come late last year, we would be far further down the line in ratifying the Istanbul convention. I hope that Members will agree that the Government are absolutely committed to making sure that that happens.

I recognise that Members have identified a range of issues that negatively impact on women in the workplace. We are developing further guidance to support employers to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace. I am proud to say that this week the whole Whips Office took part in Parliament’s Valuing Everyone training, which covers sexual harassment in the workplace. If right hon. and hon. Members have not undertaken the training I urge them to do so, as we all have a responsibility to do our part in calling it out and preventing sexual harassment in the workplace. There is a waiting list for the training, so please do put your name forward as soon as possible.

The Government are also serious about tackling the gender pay gap, which a number of Members mentioned. This Conservative Government brought in the regulations back in 2017. The gender pay gap is at a record low of 17.3%. Reporting for this year is due in March and April and I hope that we will see a further improvement. I remind Members, however, that equal pay has been a legal requirement since 1970. Last year, we made a commitment to review the enforcement of the equal pay legislation, and I hope that we see an improvement from companies around the country as the figures on the gender pay gap are published.

[Mrs Miller]

My hon. Friend is making a really strong speech and I congratulate her on that. The hon. Member for Bradford West (Naz Shah), who spoke for the Opposition, said that equal pay should legally be a matter for the Government, but it already is. We already have that legislation, so does my hon. Friend agree that it is a matter of enforcement? That is the role of the Equality and Human Rights Commission and it should be doing more of it.

[Maria Caulfield]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that intervention. She is right; it is already law and we need to enforce it to ensure that it absolutely happens.

The Government continue to show leadership in multiple forums such as the United Nations, the Commonwealth, the G7, the G20, the OECD and the Council of Europe, as well as in our bold initiatives such as the international LGBT conference, which we are proud to be running in May.

I personally welcome one of the Prime Minister’s top priorities that girls around the world should receive 12 years of quality education, tackling the obstacles that girls and young women face across the world, which was so eloquently highlighted by my hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley. The Government are also committed to creating a society that works for everyone. The female employment rate is at a near record high of 72.4% and just under 2 million more women are in work since 2010. We continue to support families with childcare costs, and the Government have invested £6.6 million to support carers to remain in or to return to work. The Government will be bringing forward a plan for social care this year to introduce a dedicated entitlement to leave for unpaid carers of one week per year alongside existing employment rights.

I am proud to have been part of the debate that has taken place here today. I thank every Member of the House who has participated. It is evident that there is more to be done at home and abroad, but we know we are going in the right direction. As we mark International Women’s Day this week, it is right that we celebrate our achievements and look at how far we have come. With more women in work than ever before, including more at the very top than ever before, we can be proud of the progress of the past 12 months. Britain has long been a world leader in championing equality of treatment and opportunity, both at home and abroad.

Fifty years ago, the introduction of the Equal Pay Act in the United Kingdom turned on its head outdated ideas of what a woman’s role can be. Today women are competing alongside men in all sorts of arenas that were once considered the sole preserve of men, whether they be engineers, para commanders or, indeed, darts players. Mr Deputy Speaker, as this may be my one and only appearance at the Dispatch Box, I am going to be cheeky and use an excellent example from my own constituency of Lewes. Lewes football club—I declare an interest as a community shareholder—has led the world in being the first ever football club to pay its female footballers the same as its men.

I am proud of all the progress we have seen, and now that the UK has left the European Union I am determined that it will continue to blaze a trail for the empowerment of women and girls and to celebrate their successes all over the world. I strongly believe that greater freedom to pursue our own future as a country will be better for all of us and that when we break down barriers that people face in the workplace, society and different parts of the country will benefit.

It is clear from what we have heard in the House today that we all share the commitment to change and to working together to ensure that no one is held back because of their sex or any other factor. In this country, whoever we are and wherever we come from, we will have the opportunities to challenge outdated ways of doing things, set new records and fulfil our full potential, inspiring the next generation of girls, whose success simply cannot depend on anything other than their skills, ambition and determination.

With that, Madam Deputy Speaker, I wish everyone a happy International Women’s Day this Sunday.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered International Women’s Day.