Women in the House of Commons

Debate between Maria Miller and Tulip Siddiq

Thursday 7th December 2017 Westminster Hall

[Tulip Siddiq]

I thank my hon. Friend. People would stare at me because they were not used to seeing, for a start, women under 5 feet, or loud-mouthed women of colour working in Parliament. I went on to work as a researcher, a press officer and a special adviser, and then left Parliament and came back as an MP.

In every layer of the party that I have described, whether special adviser, press officer or researcher, I always stuck out like a sore thumb. It fills me with a lot of pride and a sense of joy when I walk down the corridors now and see the difference in Parliament. Again, I will emphasise that we have not reached where we need to be, but there is no doubt about the big difference in Parliament now from what I saw 17 years ago.

My worry about the report is that the burden of progress seems to have been entirely assigned to political parties and that certain courses of action that could help, such as quotas and targets, are ruled out entirely out of hand. That concerns me. At a time of such major constitutional upheaval for the country, I feel that this place could show its determination to truly equip Britain for the future by putting women on an equal footing, and at a time when we are led by a female Prime Minister.

The recent oral evidence given before the Women and Equalities Committee revealed that entrusting political parties with that task will produce limited results. The Government should take the matter away from party bureaucracy, with all the delays and compromises that such a route entails, but their response to the report clearly rejects the imposition of targets, so I want to make a few alternative suggestions.

First, the prevailing culture in Westminster deters women from joining. Authorities must be up front about that and willing to take action when required. Secondly, outreach programmes must be considered as an apolitical way of making Westminster more attractive not only to women but to black and minority ethnic communities. Thirdly, Parliament must be proactive about ensuring that equal representation is enshrined in the new democratic contests that take place—that is not only parliamentary elections, but mayoral or police and crime commissioner ones. We need improvement at all levels, in different kinds of elections.

Parliament needs to be proactive in fostering an environment that does not put people off even before they have contemplated a career in public service. I am sure everyone in the Chamber will join me in expressing the horror that we felt about the accounts of harassment. Clearly we must deal with the aspects of this place that create a hostile environment for women. All parties working together on something we all care deeply about will deliver a confidential and independent complaints service and a procedure for victims to have their voices heard and their complaints dealt with properly. I hope that extends to people who visit the parliamentary estate, as well as those who work here.

When dealing with the cultural problems of the Commons, we must also look at the behaviour of Members in debates—Members of all political parties, I accept, not just one—and the bureaucratic structures that discriminate against women. As the Committee’s report notes, a 2015 survey from the Administration Committee explored experiences of working in Parliament, finding that

“the unappealing culture of Westminster…deterred women from standing as parliamentary candidates.”

Whether that is hon. Members barking like dogs at women who are speaking in debates, or the centuries-old voting systems that prevent new mothers from representing their constituents, the authorities must accept the fundamental link between the prevailing culture of the Commons and the continued under-representation of women within it.

As an MP for a London constituency, I often speak at schools, including all-girls schools, where women will ask me whether it is uncomfortable being a young woman in politics. I always hesitate, because I do not know whether to tell them the truth and deter them from joining politics or to say, “Hand on heart, I believe this place is welcoming for young women.” I do not want to feel like that. When I go into a school and am questioned about whether I would encourage young women to come into politics, I want to be able to say with a clear conscience, “Yes, this is a welcoming place. Yes, here you won’t face any discrimination. Yes, it’ll be as easy for you as it is for the male student sitting next to you.” That is the problem I face in schools. We need to talk about this problem but at the same time, if students from Hampstead and Kilburn are listening: I do not want to deter you from coming into politics.

I also want to pick up a little on intersectionality. We are talking about women, but we cannot separate that from the fact that there is more discrimination against women of colour. That must be part of the debate if we want to secure equal representation in Parliament. We now have 51 BME MPs in the Commons, since the 10 who were elected at the 2017 general election. That increase is welcome, not least because it includes my hon. Friends the Members for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill), the first female Sikh MP, and for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova), who is registered blind as well as being a woman and a woman of colour.

We have come far, but I still want to make another point. Especially in the context of this Parliament’s make-up, I want to look at an important part of Parliament: Select Committees. There are 28 departmental and specified Select Committees in total. Only nine of the Chairs are women, and not a single Chair of a Select Committee is from a BME background. To me, in a Parliament like this, that is really shocking.

The number of BME MPs make up 7.8% of the new Parliament, which still does not reflect the population at large, where the figure is 14%. I come back to that Select Committee point, however: it is not just about having MPs in Parliament who are BME, but about what positions they hold. Are they party leaders, or in the Cabinet or shadow Cabinet? Are they the Chairs of Select Committees? The answer to the last question is: no, there are no BME Chairs of Select Committees.

To go back to the report, the rejection of quotas for women was disappointing, and so was the omission of a formal response to the Committee’s recommendation for Parliament to lead outreach initiatives. The Committee provided the Government with an opportunity to think boldly and to deliver an apolitical advocacy programme that could sell the virtues of life in Westminster to under-represented groups. By encouraging the political participation of traditionally marginalised and hard-to-reach groups, we can help to bring that focus to the forefront. In the end, diversifying candidates diversifies policies.

[Mrs Miller]

As a fellow colleague on the Select Committee, I thank the hon. Lady for her contribution to the work that we do. The educational outreach that Parliament does is fantastic, so one could argue that we already have an apolitical programme that hopefully is encouraging young people to be MPs in future. What the Committee suggested was really just an extension of that, was it not?

[Tulip Siddiq]

Yes, and I pay tribute to the right hon. Lady as Chair of the Committee. The Committee works very well together and constructively, and its members are from all political backgrounds—people have different viewpoints, but we do a good job. She is absolutely right. What we want is an extension of something that already exists. We do not think it is a huge ask. I fear that, given the progress required, until statutory enforcement is seriously considered even for just an interim period, we will not achieve our goals.

I will not take up too much more time because I know that lots of Members want to contribute to this important debate. Speaking as an ex-councillor, representing constituents at ward level provided me with experience and the belief that I could go on to do that on a constituency-wide basis. As such, the Committee’s recommendation that the Government update the Sex Discrimination (Election Candidates) Act 2002 to allow all-women shortlists for all elected mayoral and police and crime commissioner posts seems like a sensible proposal. The Government say that the evidence base for taking such a step is as yet under-developed. Since 2002, only two of the Labour party’s 18 elected Mayors have been women. The Select Committee report shows that, in every major party, less than 40% of councillors are women. The evidence base seems to be the opposite of underdeveloped.

The Government leave the door open by saying that they will consider the issue further. I hope they will do just that. In all the three areas that I have discussed, I truly hope that the Committee’s report will prompt the Government to take the lasting top-down steps required to deliver the equal representation that we are all hoping for.

I will be a bit cheeky and follow the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), who paid tribute to the Prime Minister. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle), because if it was not for her encouraging me to stand, and if it was not for the informal networks that are created among women who came to the House before I did, who told me over and over that I could be the MP for Hampstead and Kilburn, I would not be standing here today.