International Women’s Day

Maria Miller Excerpts

Thursday 9th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dame Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered International Women’s Day.

May I say how great it is to see you in the Chair for this now annual event on the Floor of the House of Commons, Madam Deputy Speaker? I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting us this time, and also members of the all-party parliamentary group on women in Parliament, who yet again proposed the debate.

It is a great privilege to be able to open today’s debate. I will start by recognising the incredible achievements of every single female Member of Parliament in the House of Commons and every female parliamentarian, not just in this Chamber but at the other end as well. I have been fortunate to have so many women helping me throughout my life: family, friends, work colleagues and fellow parliamentarians. I would particularly like to say how inspired I am by my colleagues on both sides of the House—their tenacity, their ability to make change happen and their resilience, getting anything that gets in their way out of the way so that they can get things done. I salute them all for what they have already achieved, and for what they will go on to achieve in the future.

I pay a particularly fond tribute to two women in my party: my right hon. Friends the Members for Epping Forest (Dame Eleanor Laing) and for Maidenhead (Mrs May). Both have gone out of their way to make sure that they encourage women in my party to be the best they can be. It would not be proper to not also remember the late Cheryll Gillan. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] On the Conservative side of the House, she was the mother of our party, and we miss her greatly. She was an amazing colleague.

[Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Dame Maria Miller) is one of my inspirations in this House, but I think it is really important that we are able to talk openly about how much respect we have for colleagues across the House. I can see a number of women on the Opposition Benches whose work I have followed, not only since I have been in this place, but before I became an MP. I remind everybody that, as much as we see the ding-dongs on the tellybox, a lot of us get on and are trying to make big changes here together.

[Dame Maria Miller]

That is an excellent friend— I mean that is an excellent comment from my hon. Friend, and she is absolutely right. I should at this stage point out that there are a couple of us on the Government Benches who have not slept overnight, so please forgive us, Madam Deputy Speaker, if we stumble over our words. [Interruption.] No, a lot tamer than that; we flew back on the red-eye from the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women.

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

I am moved to intervene because the right hon. Lady mentioned Cheryll Gillan. While there might have been many things we disagreed on, there were many things we did agree on. She did incredible work on autism and championing neurodiversity. Also, when I joined the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, she was a very supportive member and helped to show me the way. She is much missed across all Benches.

[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.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the right hon. Lady for bringing this debate forward. Unfortunately, I have a meeting today so I cannot make a speech.

This is not just about the politicians across the world; it is also about the likes of my mother, who is 91 years old —soon to be 92—and still gets up to make fresh scones, drives a car and looks after my brother, who is disabled. It is also about my wife who runs the home, volunteers at an animal shelter and cares for the grandchildren, giving childcare to help make ends meet. I am a grandfather of three beautiful and wonderfully sassy granddaughters, who I believe will change the world, and I am the proud employer of six fiercely strong, independent and intelligent women. My point is clear: does the right hon. Lady not agree that on this day, and indeed every day, we have much to be thankful for with all the women in our lives who have shaped us and who continue to shape our world and make it a better place?

[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.

[Hannah Bardell]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Dame Maria Miller]

Will the hon. Lady forgive me if I do not? I do not want to incur the wrath of Madam Deputy Speaker.

The point of gender sensitivity is to create environments in which both men and women can operate equally. There are seven key aspects, which include: the numbers and positions of women; the legal and policy framework of the legislature; mainstreaming of gender equality; the culture, environment and policies of Parliament; the role of political parties; and the position of parliamentary staff. All those aspects can tell us a lot about how men and women are faring in their Parliaments. The House of Commons conducted a gender-sensitive audit in 2018, which was welcome, but that feels like a long time ago. Some colleagues were not even here. Our audit of how Parliament works for people today, not three or four years ago, should be foremost in our minds.

It is clear that there is more to do. I refer to the Fawcett Society’s report “A House for Everyone: The Case for Modernising Parliament”, published in December, which I am sure colleagues are familiar with. It brought into focus the problems around retaining female parliamentarians, which I know concerns colleagues on both sides of the House. The number of women in Parliament taken as a snapshot is all well and good, but Fawcett’s work reveals that, because women face disproportionate challenges, they tend to stay in Parliament for one fewer term than men. That means that those women do not get the opportunity to reach the seniority or level of experience of their male counterparts.

On what we do next, the all-party parliamentary group on women in Parliament will produce a workstream to ensure that we have a clear plan to get an equal Parliament by 2028, to coincide with the centenary of the Equal Franchise Act 1928. When that work plan is put into place, I hope that we can share it in Parliament through further debate.

It is a great pleasure to open the debate. On behalf of those colleagues who are still at CSW in New York, I wish a happy International Women’s Day for yesterday to everyone in the Chamber and those who are watching at home. I encourage everyone to ensure that the legacy from our time in Parliament is encouraging and achieving the objective of having more women on the green Benches, to make this place a fairer and even stronger parliamentary democracy.

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[Jackie Doyle-Price]

The hon. Lady makes her point very powerfully. The way the media reports these things is like a soap opera, not a crime. It is about creating a story out of someone being the victim of a hideous act of violence. She is quite right to highlight the fact that people say, “Oh, it’s a family man who has done this”, and “Well, they were feeling so diminished because they’d lost their job”. That happens, and at the same time we have female sex workers murdered every week of the year who do not even merit a mention. That just illustrates the pervasiveness of the culture in this country that still treats women as objects, and it is still very much a world that runs according to men.

I am standing here listening to myself, and thinking, “God, what happened to you, Jackie?” When I was growing up in the 1980s, I thought the battles of feminism were won. I never thought I would be standing here banging on about the rights of women, but as time progresses I just think we are going backwards. It is almost as if Parliament has passed these laws to establish equality, and that means it is all right—job done—but the job has not been done at all. In many respects, this has gone backwards. I do not want to be treated like a delicate little flower, but, because we have a law that does not do that and that establishes my rights, that has given a lot of men a behavioural excuse not to treat me with respect and not to recognise the fact that, being a woman, I do have vulnerabilities. I do have vulnerabilities, and I am quite happy to accept that. I know some of my male colleagues think that I do not, but I do.

[Dame Maria Miller]

Does my hon. Friend agree with me that one of the things the Government have done in the last 10 years, by making relationships and sex education mandatory for all school-age children, is to start to embed in the education of all our children in this country what a good relationship looks like, which is going to be very pertinent when it comes to the treatment of women in the future?

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

I agree with my right hon. Friend, but I have a word of caution on that, because it has to be with the right materials. I am afraid that we have a bit of a wild west out there, because we have had all kinds of organisations bidding for Government money to produce materials for this space, and I certainly feel that some of the materials I have seen are not appropriate to be shared with school-age children.

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[Dame Maria Miller]

Would my hon. Friend join me in urging Ofsted to do a deep dive on this issue, so that it can look at exactly the point she has made? It is an issue I have raised with Government Ministers and with Ofsted directly.

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

I think that point is actually a very good one. To guarantee the quality of these tools and the content there needs to be a degree of inspection. We know we will find bad actors everywhere in society, and perhaps in schools we need to make sure that we do have that protection.

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[Dawn Butler]

It completely is. Again, it is about language, and what it is designed for and to do.

[Dame Maria Miller]

The hon. Lady brings up the interesting issue of inequality in titles. I was very fortunate to be able to receive a damehood recently and I am greatly honoured to have it. But I note with interest that the spouses of those of my colleagues who have been knighted have a different title entitlement from that of my husband. Does the hon. Lady agree that her point about titles needs to be looked at on both sides of the coin—for men and for women?

[Dawn Butler]

Absolutely. We talk about equality and equity not only in actions, but in language. It all needs to be looked at, because certain systems and structures are designed in a certain way. As I said, it is to keep women exposed and vulnerable. For example, for sex workers, working alone is okay, but working in pairs is illegal. How on earth does that keep women safe? Just this week, during the debate on buffer zones around abortion clinics, many men were telling women how they should think, what they should do and who they should listen to about their bodies. Our structures are riddled with misogyny, racism and so much else, and it is time that we change how women are written about.

I have campaigned for many things in this House. I have campaigned on domestic abuse policy, and trying to allow 10 days’ paid leave for people, particularly women, when they leave abusive relationships. In those 10 days, it could save a life because that is when they are most vulnerable. You are not safe when you leave an abusive relationship; you become more vulnerable.

I have campaigned for changes in the use of language by the Met police, for instance, when they deliver briefings and press releases about missing and murdered women. I have also campaigned for changes in the judiciary, which is filled with many—please do not take offence at this, Mr Deputy Speaker—old white men with outdated views. I need to recognise the work of Judge Anuja Dhir KC, the first person of colour to become an Old Bailey judge. She is doing her very best to change how the judicial system works, but she is just one woman, powerful as she is. Today, I am campaigning for and championing the work of Level Up, and calling for a clause in the Independent Press Standards Organisation editors’ code on reporting fatal domestic abuse. The code needs to be one that journalists are legally bound to, not a voluntary code, and I will tell the House why.

The way in which the press report domestic abuse is often inaccurate and undignified, and prioritises sensationalist headlines over responsible reporting. There is often negative framing of victims, and when this goes viral it is amplified over and over again. That is extremely damaging because it reinforces negative framing around the victims, and what is seen as acceptable or “deserving” behaviour of the woman—as it often is—who is killed. Thus, “sexism”, “misogyny”, “extremism” or “terrorism” are never words used when describing violent men. Why not? We have an epidemic in our country of domestic violence, domestic abuse and violence against women and girls. Level Up introduced the UK’s first guidelines on this and the BBC, The Mirror, The Guardian and the Metro have all taken that on board, but more needs to be done.

The recent coverage of Nicola Bulley, Emma Pattison and Brianna Ghey shows us that the media reporting of women who are violently abused or killed is out of control. Emma Pattison was killed, along with her young daughter, by her violent husband and this was reported with the headline, “Did living in the shadow of his high achieving wife lead to unthinkable tragedy?” Another headline read, “Husband of Epsom College head who ‘killed her and their daughter before turning his gun on himself’ said he was ‘desperate to do more with his days’ after his business failed”. Why on earth would we accept our media reporting the murder of a woman and a young child in that way in our country? It is unacceptable and in this House we should be able to legislate against that, which is why we need a new, enforceable editors code.

It is not an isolated incident when a woman is killed every three days by a man. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) read out those names today and that list never gets shorter. This is an epidemic.

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[Anna Firth (Southend West) (Con)]

It is a true privilege to speak in today’s debate. This time last year, I could not take part because I had not yet made my maiden speech. It is a particular pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Brent Central (Dawn Butler), who made a fascinating speech. I really commend the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips), who is no longer in her place, for her contribution. Nobody in this place, particularly someone listening to it live for the first time, can fail to be moved by it. It is incumbent on us all to try to eliminate violence against women. I look forward to the day when we can come to this Chamber and have this debate and the hon. Lady does not need to read out that harrowing list.

I wish to start with three words: women, life, freedom. Many Members in this Chamber will know that those words are the strapline for the recent uprising in Iran. Yesterday was the first International Women’s Day since the brutal killing of Mahsa Amini, whose murder by the medieval regime was a lightning flash around the world. She has now become such a symbol of bravery, courage and hope.

The women of Iran have been the victims of systematic oppression for the past 44 years. It is not just about religious dress codes; women are banned from singing in places, from taking part in certain sports, and even from attending certain games in stadiums. In short, they are treated as second-class citizens. However, as we all know, it has become far, far worse than that in the 175 days since the recent uprising. Following the death of Mahsa Amini, 82 Iranian women have been murdered by the regime. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have been disproportionately targeting women—targeting their eyes, targeting their chest and targeting their genitals. Only this week, we heard horrifying reports of several schoolgirls being poisoned in revenge for their role in the recent protests.

I mention all of this because all that it takes for evil to prevail is for good men and women to stay silent. I am proud that, in this place, we are not staying silent about what is going on in Iran. It is a salutary lesson to consider that if any of us were to stand up and say these things in Iran, we would be in mortal danger. I have two young women who encourage me to join these protests. Every time, I think how lucky we all are that we can do this—that we can stand up for women. We could not do any of this if we were living in Iran. It is vital that we keep sending that message to the Iranian women that we stand with them, that this murderous regime has to go and that the eyes of the world are on them.

[Dame Maria Miller]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful point. It is a point that was made endlessly to me over the past three days in New York at the UN Commission on the Status of Women. The women who were there from Iran, from Afghanistan and from Ukraine need to hear vocal support from colleagues in Parliaments such as our own and at events such as the UNCSW. Does my hon. Friend agree that, when it comes to the agreed conclusions of that event, we need to be reflecting just the point that she has made: that the plight of these women cannot be forgotten.

[Anna Firth]

I absolutely agree with my right hon. Friend. It is so encouraging to know that those points have been reiterated in one of the highest commissions on the status of women, and it is extremely good to know that Iran has finally been taken off that commission. No such regime anywhere in the world has a place on any commission concerned with women’s right. I thank her for reminding us of that.

We are so lucky that we can stand for public office. Although I am privileged to be the first woman to have been elected as the MP for Southend West, I am not the first female MP for Southend. Of course, Lady Iveagh represented that seat between 1927 and 1935, so I have a proud tradition behind me. We have so much further to go, as we all know. Just 31% of MPs are women, and since 1918, more than 100 years ago, only 561 women—not even an entire Parliament—have been elected. I say to any women who are thinking of coming into public office, particularly if they are in Southend West: “I want to hear from you, and I would be delighted to speak to you.”

I am delighted that in Southend West, we have plenty of women putting themselves forward for election in May. I wish the very best of luck to Councillor Meg Davidson, Councillor Lesley Salter and—we hope—soon-to-be councillor, Cheryll Gardiner. I will be on the streets of Southend knocking on doors to support them, supported by the indefatigable deputy chairman Judith Suttling, who is still pounding the streets in her 80s and setting me a daunting and energetic example.

I will use the time that I have to celebrate the incredible work that women do in my Southend West community. I, alongside our local paper, the Southend Echo, will soon launch a new community champion scheme in Southend to highlight our unsung and hidden heroes. The first hero is not unsung or hidden, however. She will be none other than our one and only Jill Allen-King OBE, who has spent her life standing up for people who live with blindness and visual impairments.

For those who do not know Jill’s story, she lost her sight on her wedding day, aged just 24. Instead of collapsing in a well of despair, she got out there and has spent her entire life bringing to our community things that we now take for granted. Tactile paving—the little bumps on the pavement that we all see whenever we cross the road—is down to Jill Allen-King, as are the wheelchair-level buttons in buses, and she has done lots to get access to public spaces for therapy dogs. She has attracted the attention of well-known names, including Paul O’Grady and Michael Ball. Of course, she has her OBE, but this year, she has the Pride of Britain lifetime achievement award. Despite her blindness, she has been busy teaching Ashley Banjo from Diversity to do the cha-cha-cha.

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[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

International Women’s Day is a time to celebrate, and there is much to celebrate about being a woman in 2023. I always think at this time of my friends, many now spread across the country and some across the world, who I have spent time with in the past. They are now too busy with children, grandchildren, older parents and their own jobs to get together, but I know that they are always there for me, I know they are really proud of me being here, and I know that I would never have made it here without them.

This weekend, I am looking forward to joining Bristol Women’s Voice for a fantastic programme of events, in particular discussing social care and the role it could play in the Bristol economy if only it was run better. It will be chaired by my friend Diane Bunyan, who was Bristol’s first female Labour leader of the council only about 20 years ago. Many women have been at the forefront of Bristol’s long, radical history. I think of Dorothy Hodgkin, who was chancellor of the University of Bristol, Elizabeth Blackwell, who was the first woman to qualify as a medical doctor, the trade union activist Jessie Stephen and Mary Carpenter and Hannah More, who were involved in social programmes. Lady Apsley was Bristol’s first woman Member of Parliament. She was a Conservative who, after the death of her husband in 1943, won the seat. Three out of four of Bristol’s MPs are women. We allowed one man to take one of the positions, and I pay tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire) and for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy), who are supportive colleagues.

The reality is that, like the rest of the country, we are nowhere near economic or political parity. Often we hear about the challenges, and I will move between the challenges and the opportunities. We remember that some good historic achievements have been made recently, whether that is the Lionesses’ incredible success last summer, the next generation of young women and girls getting into sport, or Kamala Harris being the first female vice-president in US history. We await the first woman US president.

Women are redefining culture with historic firsts in film, television, comedy and sport. Taylor Swift became the first woman to win a Grammy for best music video with sole directing credit, and films and shows are demonstrating the varied and multiple lives that women can lead, including “Am I Being Unreasonable?”, which was filmed in my constituency of Bristol South. Labour has led the way in women’s equality since 1923, when Margaret Bondfield became the first female Cabinet Minister. It is important that we celebrate the centenary of that accomplishment and the legacy that Margaret left for all women who have followed in her footsteps.

I am appalled by the pictures, even in 2023, of international summits and events in the UK full of men with very little female representation. If we think about the women leading political movements—as we have heard again today, we think particularly of those women in Iran, and in Afghanistan and Ukraine, too—women have always been at the vanguard of social change. However, quickly, as that change starts to happen, we become relegated to a back room—often back to the home—and are rarely represented in those photographs or at those summits.

This week, I was proud to chair a session of the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly, which we held in Stormont on the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday/Belfast agreement. I was able to chair a session with some of the founding members of the Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition. Kate Fearon, Bronagh Hinds, Dr Avila Kilmurray and Jane Morrice were amazing activists well before the GFA, and they remain so today, many using that experience across the world. Women need to be represented in all aspects of politics, wherever and whenever. We are fed up with doing that service role and then not appearing in those photographs and leadership positions.

As chair of the women’s parliamentary Labour party, which makes up more than 50% of Labour MPs, I am proud to see the successes that Labour Governments have made in promoting equality, from introducing the Equality Act 2010 to championing all-women shortlists to increase female representation. Labour is the party of women and for women. I gently say to the hon. Member for Southend West (Anna Firth), who spoke about how lucky we are to be here and able to speak, that luck has had absolutely nothing to do with it. I take her point about recognising that privilege, but none of it has been luck; it has all been power that we have taken, and it always has to be underpinned by legislation, and I am afraid it is only Labour in government that has enacted that legislation.

[Dame Maria Miller]

The hon. Lady is rightly talking up her party’s role in all these issues, and I would expect her to do nothing less, but surely she would agree that this Government have done an enormous amount—more than any other—on the issues of domestic abuse and domestic violence and making women safer online, and I do not think she can simply ignore that. These are the issues of today, and this Government are tackling them.

[Karin Smyth]

I am not ignoring it, and I pay tribute particularly to the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) for the work she led in government, but we need to continue to use legislation to underpin, and it should be good legislation. I am not sure that in this week of all weeks we can be proud of what this Government have done. If we think about the trafficked women who are coming forward, that is deeply problematic, and it would be good if we could all work together to help those women.

People outside might not know this, but even on a very busy Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday in Portcullis House and so on, this place is overwhelmingly male. Although some great strides have been made in all these professions, we see that with journalists, lobbyists and even with the third sector people who come to see us. I think the environmental movement is overwhelmingly dominated by men. The camera people and the staff in most places are generally male. I had a message as we were sitting here today from my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) pointing out that yesterday at Prime Minister’s questions, all four leaders are of course male, but there were two questions from men for every one from a woman. That is the stark reality. As others have said, this place still remains 30% women.

We are celebrating how far we have come, but we recognise that more needs to be done. It is 52 years since that first women’s refuge was set up in Chiswick, and the issue of domestic abuse and violence, as we have heard again today, is still all too prevalent. Marital rape was only made illegal in the early 2000s, and the Office for National Statistics estimates that 1.6 million women experience domestic abuse in England and Wales in any given year. We know that, faced with the cost of living crisis and severe lack of funding, the number of refuge spaces in England is falling desperately short. Why, when this issue is affecting so many, is so little progress being made?

We need to work harder on this issue, and talking last week with those women from the Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition was certainly instructive. They were clear that they could only come forward, and that women in any conflict situation can only come forward, if there is an ecosystem of support that they can use, both statutory and non-statutory, operating behind the scenes, and that is sadly missing in many places today. We need to help fund those refuges, and they need to be places of safety for women to seek refuge.

We recognise the resilience and strength from women today, and we are so proud to be able to voice, on behalf of all those women, what they bring to us in our constituencies. To close, it is often our friendships with one another that prove to be our biggest strength. Outwith the fact that we disagree across the House, as is necessary, we are strong political women and we work together. It is a pleasure to be a part of this debate today, and when I look around the Chamber and up to the Gallery, I see the bonds of friendship that are made between colleagues who share the desire to make life better for women. Parliament will be safe in our hands.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dame Maria Miller]

I say an enormous thank you to everybody who has taken part in the debate. This debate always demonstrates how much agreement there is across the House; I always see more heads nodding on the Opposition side and the Government side in this debate than in any other. My final comment, therefore, is, “Let us not allow party politics to get too involved in some of these issues.” They are not about party politics; they are about changing the culture of our country, to make sure that women have the same opportunities and the same barriers as men—not different ones, but not bigger ones. The more we can keep the politics out of this, the more progress we make in that culture change. I think the vast majority of this debate has demonstrated how much agreement there is. I applaud that, and thank colleagues for taking that approach.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered International Women’s Day.