Commemoration of Matchgirls’ Strike

Mary Kelly Foy Excerpts

Wednesday 16th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Uma Kumaran]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. As neighbouring MPs, we are struggling together to get our voices heard in this place and make sure those women are recorded in history. He is a powerful advocate, and an ally in the fight for improved conditions for workers. Many descendants of the matchgirls live in my hon. Friend’s constituency today, and some even work in the Tate & Lyle factory that he is proud to represent. I take this moment to pay tribute to our joint predecessor, Lady Brown of Silvertown, who held a debate about matchgirls over a decade ago.

The history I am talking about belongs to all of us, and we have a responsibility to keep telling it. I am sad to say that the Conservative Benches are completely empty this evening. Conservative Members might try to talk down our trade unions when they are in the Chamber, but we on the Labour Benches are so proud of our industrial heritage. As such, I ask the Minister whether the Government will look at how that history is taught in schools, so that working-class stories such as those of the east end matchgirls and so many others that we have heard about today are finally heard, and that these people’s contribution to Britain is finally recognised.

[Mary Kelly Foy (City of Durham) (Lab)]

This is an important debate, and I thank my hon. Friend so much for securing it. The matchgirls’ strike played a really important part in the whole of labour history and the struggles of women. In Durham, we had the Durham Women Against Pit Closures, who sustained the miners in their strike. They joined the picket lines and were key figures in their areas, and they are still around today—we saw them last week at the gala. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is so important that the struggles of women of the past are remembered, and that they empower women of the future?

[Uma Kumaran]

I could not have put it better myself. Durham is rooted in the fight for workers’ rights, and I am proud that that tradition is still continuing. My hon. Friend has long been a powerful advocate for working people’s rights and union voices in Britain. She has made a powerful point, and I thank her for her intervention.

As we honour these women and celebrate how far we have come, we also know that—in the words of another incredibly powerful woman—great is the work yet to be done, particularly for women in today’s workforce who still struggle disproportionately with low-paid and insecure work. There are 3.9 million working women in the UK who are in severely insecure work—insecure work that creates a culture of fear and uncertainty, isolates employees, and so often leaves young women struggling financially.

Young women are more likely to work in sectors with high job insecurity. They are paid less, work fewer hours, and face last-minute shift changes. All that puts them under greater financial and emotional pressure. Young women are paid less, and are stuck in roles that are far below their potential. Over time, this chips away at their confidence, their mental health, and any sense of self-worth. When they do not feel safe to speak up about poor treatment, they start to believe that being treated unfairly is just part of the job. What is worse is that many young women do not even know their rights at work. I have worked with the Young Women’s Trust, which has told me that nearly half the women it surveyed did not know their rights in insecure jobs.

This follows women throughout our lives. When women return to work after pregnancy, their wages stagnate and they are crippled by the costs of childcare. Women are still struggling today, and that must change—which is why I was so proud to be a member of the Bill Committee considering this Labour Government’s Employment Rights Bill, a Committee to which the Minister was integral. We are delivering the biggest upgrade to workers’ rights in a generation, rolling back Tory attacks on workers’ rights to have their voices heard at work, cracking down on fire and rehire practices, banning non-disclosure agreements that prevent people from speaking up about harassment and discrimination, delivering sick pay for 1.3 million of our lowest earners, enhancing workplace protections for pregnant women and new mothers, and taking on the gender pay gap. In all those ways, we are boosting living standards and workplace protections for millions.

Now, 137 years on from the matchgirls’ strike, those landmark reforms will deliver rights and dignity to a new generation of women and working people, but we must ensure that young women know their rights and that those rights are enforced. We must therefore give the fair work agency the power and resources to do its job well and ensure that the workers most at risk of exploitation and discrimination are helped to access their rights, so that our economy can finally gain from the skills and talents of young women.

I have covered a lot of ground today, and it has been a bit of a history lesson: the story of the matchgirls, pride in Britain’s working class history, pride in the story of my constituents in Stratford and Bow, and the security and dignity of young women in today’s workforce. If Members want to learn more, I encourage them to visit the Upper Waiting Hall off the Committee corridor, where the Matchgirls Memorial is hosting an exhibition right here in Parliament.

I want to thank the brilliant women in my team who have helped me to put this speech together, and who have been integral to the work we have been doing to shine a light on this subject. I pay tribute to Anna Gorrell, Niamh O’Brien and Sameeah Ahmad. Let me also thank Barbara Plant of the GMB, who is in the Gallery today, and Penny Robinson from GMB London region, who have played an integral role in helping me along my way as a Member of Parliament.

I want to end by honouring the inspiring legacy of the women and girls of the matchgirls’ strike of 1888 by ensuring that the names of the strike and union committees are recorded in Hansard, and that their contribution to the fight for the workers’ rights that we all enjoy today is remembered.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Justin Madders)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford and Bow (Uma Kumaran) on securing her first Adjournment debate. She has chosen a topic extremely well and, as she highlighted, it is really important that we draw attention to the incredible courage of the women who participated in the matchgirls’ strike. It is important that this House acknowledges and recognises this very important piece of British history.

As my hon. Friend touched on, these young women, many of whom were teenagers, worked in absolutely appalling conditions. We have made great advancements in working conditions in recent decades, but it was a particularly horrendous set of circumstances, even for the time. Women working at the match factory suffered from what was described as phossy jaw, a painful and disfiguring disease caused by exposure to white phosphorus. They endured 14-hour working days in overcrowded and poorly ventilated conditions, and their strike was a watershed moment. It garnered widespread public support, and ultimately forced Bryant & May to concede to their demands. It is right that the names of these courageous women are included on the parliamentary record, and I thank my hon. Friend for doing that.

As hon. Members will know, the matchgirls’ strike took place a year before the more famous London dockworkers’ dispute of 1889, which was so formative in the growth of trade unions, including of course today’s GMB union. For the record, I draw attention to my proud membership of the GMB. The organised female workforce showed those working on the docks just what was possible when workers stand up for their rights; they showed that insecurity and unfairness at work never have to be tolerated.

The labour movement is a living, breathing one and we can take inspiration from each other, including those who have gone before us in the struggle for improved working conditions. I was pleased to be able to visit the exhibition on the Committee corridor mentioned by my hon. Friend, and I highly recommend that other Members take the time to visit it and learn more about the history of these struggles. The legacy of these women is wholly remarkable. They were part of a trade union movement that achieved so much, as we can see when we look back now: discrimination protection, paid holiday entitlement, paid maternity leave, and the right to request flexible working. So many advances have come from those beginnings.

However, as has been touched on, there are still many issues of unfairness that need to be addressed today. A recent survey by the Young Women’s Trust found that 67% of women said they had faced discrimination, 37% believe they have had to endure unsafe working environments, 26% have experienced sexual harassment at work, and 50% had not received pay when off sick. I am pleased to say that we are hoping to address all those matters. My hon. Friend raised an important point about young women’s awareness of their rights at work, and it is crystal clear that we need that in order to be effective in enforcing our rights. I hope that we, as a Labour Government, will be able to trumpet that.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Leigh Ingham) spoke with great passion and made the important point that the courage that these women showed was instrumental in and inspirational to the formation of the Labour party. It was not yet formed at the time of the strike, but the growth of the trade union movement and the belief that Governments at the time were not representing the interests of working people led to the formation of the Labour Representation Committee and then the Labour party itself.

We are proud to be a part of that tradition. As a Labour Government, we want to continue the work done by the matchgirls and ensure that workplaces are safe for women. The Employment Rights Bill is helping us achieve exactly that by tackling non-disclosure agreements used to cover up sexual harassment, in a development that only this week has been called world leading. We are strengthening dismissal protections for pregnant women and new mothers, and expanding gender pay gap action plans. As has been touched on, the pivotal role that the fair work agency will have in ensuring that existing and new rights are enforced cannot be overstated.

The Employment Rights Bill also addresses insecure work such as exploitative zero-hours contracts and the heinous practice of fire and rehire. We know from research that women are more likely to be in insecure work, with an estimated 650,000 women on zero-hours contracts, compared with 519,000 men. So the struggle continues: the work never ceases but the determination of this Government to address workers’ rights and improve protections in the workplace is undimmed.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford and Bow for her assistance on the Employment Rights Public Bill Committee. She has carried on her keen interest in this area, helping to push for improved rights at work, as well as rightly celebrating those who have had to fight for their rights in the past.

The Government’s plan to make work pay is delivering real change for millions of people. The work this Government are doing on our transformative agenda, which is led of course by a woman—the Deputy Prime Minister—shows that we are staying true to the spirit of the matchgirls and the trade union movement, and we are renewing our country so that it once again serves the interests of working people. The Employment Rights Bill is a generational leap forward in workers’ protections, and I believe it will be one of the proudest achievements of this Labour Government.

I will turn to my hon. Friend’s points on education. She will know that the Department for Education provides a statutory national curriculum that sets out the subjects and broad content to be taught in maintained schools across England. Within that framework, schools have a degree of flexibility, especially in subjects such as history. There are parts of the history curriculum that lend themselves to teaching about the matchgirls’ strike. In key stage 1, there is teaching about

“the lives of significant individuals in the past who have contributed to national and international achievements”,

during which

“aspects of life in different periods”

can be taught. In key stage 3, there is the theme of ideas, political power, industry and empire in Britain between 1745 and 1901. It can also be taught as part of any local history content in the curriculum, which is particularly pertinent in my hon. Friend’s area.

By coincidence, when I spoke to my parliamentary assistant just before I entered the Chamber, he told me that he was informed of the matchgirls’ struggles during his education, and I hope that that is repeated up and down the country. Oak National Academy offers a resource on the matchgirls’ strike for year 8 pupils, and resources are also available from the Historical Association, English Heritage and the National Archives.

Turning to my hon. Friend’s points on commemoration, this country has a long and well-established tradition of commemorating its national and local individuals through statues and memorials, which serve as a long-lasting reminder of individuals and their efforts for this country and help to bridge the gap between the past and the present. As she will know, it is not normal practice for central Government to fund such monuments, but there is a long history of memorials and statues being funded by public subscription, and the Government support that approach.

Experience has shown that investors, including from the private sector, are often happy and willing to fund new memorials. Many organisations—public and private— are rightly able, subject to the relevant permissions, to freely propose, fund, develop and deliver memorials marking a variety of incidents and historical moments in a way that they are best placed to deem appropriate and sensitive. Many successful memorials are created by a wide range of authorities and organisations, which are able to respond sensitively to the particular circumstances that they seek to commemorate.

[Mary Kelly Foy]

Will my hon. Friend congratulate those from Redhills in County Durham, the home of the Pitman’s Parliament—and where I have my office—which has been given money for a huge refurbishment to make it into a living heritage site? The Redhills building will provide young people with an education about what happened in the past, but will also, by showing them how to live out their heritage of the struggles of the mining communities, empower them to go on and fight as the men and women in the north-east did before them. It will be open to the public in the autumn, but I want to congratulate them on the wonderful thing they have done.

[Justin Madders]

I am certainly happy to join my hon. Friend in congratulating Redhills on that achievement. If it is opening in the autumn, I hope it will be ready for when I come and visit her in her constituency. Perhaps those involved would like to work to that as a target.

As we know, a great many people and organisations are interested in establishing memorials, and as a general rule it is for those groups to work with the relevant local planning authority and other organisations to identify a suitable site and obtain the necessary planning permissions. That said, the Government provide indirect assistance through the memorial grant scheme, which is administered by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. The scheme makes grants towards the VAT incurred by charities and faith groups in the construction, repair and maintenance of public memorial structures, including war memorials. The scheme has a fixed budget of £500,000 a year for this spending period. I urge my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford and Bow to correspond with the DCMS if she wishes to seek further advice on the commemoration process.

In conclusion, I once again thank my hon. Friend for bringing this important debate to the House, and for providing the opportunity for the names of those truly courageous and inspirational matchgirls to be forever immortalised in Hansard. That is a fitting tribute, which my hon. Friend has delivered for this House today.

Question put and agreed to.