Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence (Ratification of Convention) Bill

Michelle Thomson Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 16th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Michelle Thomson (Edinburgh West) (Ind)]

I aim to be fairly brief today. I commend and thank my hon. Friend the Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford) for bringing the Bill forward. She spoke most eloquently.

I want briefly to reference the speech I made last week and to give some thanks, first, to the Speaker’s Office and, you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for being very supportive of me, and to my friend and colleague, the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Roger Mullin), who has been a great support to me.

[Roger Mullin (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (SNP)]

I am undeserving of any praise, but I want to say that the hon. Lady inspired my wife, three days ago, to talk for the first time of her sexual abuse at the age of only six years. It is a great tribute to the hon. Lady that she has done so much for so many people. [Applause.]

[Michelle Thomson]

I thank the hon. Gentleman very much for that. But, of course, I made my position very clear: it was not about this individual here; it was about women more widely, and indeed men, who have also been affected by sexual or physical violence. I spent most of last weekend personally answering the literally hundreds of emails I got, and it was truly humbling, because people, for the first time, were writing their own stories and sharing their own stories. One phrase jumped out at me. Somebody said that they recognised that “black burden that shadows a survivor’s back.” We need to keep that at the forefront of our minds at all times.

That is why we have debates about this issue—about legislation and so on. It is about our driving need for change and leadership, and I commend the hon. Member for Salisbury (John Glen) for offering his perspective on that. It is leadership and the driving need for change that we must keep at the forefront of our minds all the time.

I again challenge the Minister that while warm words about a spirit of intent are incredibly welcome, we are looking for hard, specific dates by which something will be done, because we need to send a message that resonates with the wider world that these things are unacceptable. Our culture, in many areas of the UK, is completely unacceptable. If there is one thing I learned last weekend from reading all these emails, it was the extent to which these stories go unheard.

Again, I say thank you to everybody who has supported me—I wanted to put that officially on the record. Finally, I thank all those agencies that—day in, day out, week in, week out, month in, month out—give their support to people who are in the most difficult circumstances.

UN International Day: Violence against Women

Michelle Thomson Excerpts

Thursday 8th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Michelle Thomson (Edinburgh West) (Ind)]

I am going to relay an event that happened to me many years ago. I want to give a very personal perspective to help people, both in this place and outside, understand one element of sexual violence against women.

When I was 14, I was raped. As is common, it was by somebody who was known to me. He had offered to walk me home from a youth event. In those days, everybody walked everywhere—it was quite common. It was early evening. It was not dark. I was wearing— I am imagining and guessing—jeans and a sweatshirt. I knew my way around where I lived— I was very comfortable—and we went a slightly differently way, but I did not think anything of it. He told me that he wanted to show me something in a wooded area. At that point, I must admit that I was alarmed. I did have a warning bell, but I overrode that warning bell because I knew him and, therefore, there was a level of trust in place. To be honest, looking back at that point, I do not think I knew what rape was. It was not something that was talked about. My mother never talked to me about it, and I did not hear other girls or women talking about it.

It was mercifully quick and I remember first of all feeling surprise, then fear, then horror as I realised that I quite simply could not escape, because obviously he was stronger than me. There was no sense, even initially, of any sexual desire from him, which, looking back again, I suppose I find odd. My senses were absolutely numbed, and thinking about it now, 37 years later, I cannot remember hearing anything when I replay it in my mind. As a former professional musician who is very auditory, I find that quite telling. I now understand that your subconscious brain—not your conscious brain—decides on your behalf how you should respond: whether you take flight, whether you fight or whether you freeze. And I froze, I must be honest.

Afterwards I walked home alone. I was crying, I was cold and I was shivering. I now realise, of course, that that was the shock response. I did not tell my mother. I did not tell my father. I did not tell my friends. And I did not tell the police. I bottled it all up inside me. I hoped briefly—and appallingly—that I might be pregnant so that that would force a situation to help me control it. Of course, without support, the capacity and resources that I had within me to process it were very limited.

I was very ashamed. I was ashamed that I had “allowed this to happen to me”. I had a whole range of internal conversations: “I should have known. Why did I go that way? Why did I walk home with him? Why didn’t I understand the danger? I deserved it because I was too this, too that.” I felt that I was spoiled and impure, and I really felt revulsion towards myself.

Of course, I detached from the child that I had been up until then. Although in reality, at the age of 14, that was probably the start of my sexual awakening, at that time, remembering back, sex was “something that men did to women”, and perhaps this incident reinforced that early belief.

I briefly sought favour elsewhere and I now understand that even a brief period of hypersexuality is about trying to make sense of an incident and reframing the most intimate of acts. My oldest friends, with whom I am still friends, must have sensed a change in me, but because I never told them they did not know of the cause. I allowed myself to drift away from them for quite a few years. Indeed, I found myself taking time off school and staying at home on my own, listening to music and reading and so on.

I did have a boyfriend in the later years of school and he was very supportive when I told him about it, but I could not make sense of my response—and it is my response that gives weight to the event. I carried that guilt, anger, fear, sadness and bitterness for years.

When I got married 12 years later, I felt that I had a duty tell my husband. I wanted him to understand why there was this swaddled kernel of extreme emotion at the very heart of me, which I knew he could sense. But for many years I simply could not say the words without crying—I could not say the words. It was only in my mid-40s that I took some steps to go and get help.

It had a huge effect on me and it fundamentally—and fatally—undermined my self-esteem, my confidence and my sense of self-worth. Despite this, I am blessed in my life: I have been happily married for 25 years. But if this was the effect of one small, albeit significant, event in my life stage, how must it be for those women who are carrying it on a day-by-day basis?

I thought carefully about whether I should speak about this today, and it was people’s intake of breath and the comment, “What? You’re going to talk about this?”, that motivated me to do it, because there is still a taboo about sharing this kind of information. Certainly for people of my generation, it is truly shocking to talk in public about this sort of thing.

As has been said, rape does not just affect the woman; it affects the family as well. Before my mother died early of cancer, I really wanted to tell her, but I could not bring myself to do it. I have a daughter and if something happened to her and she could not share it with me, I would be appalled. It was possibly cowardly, but it was an act of love that meant that I protected my mother.

As an adult, of course I now know that rape is not about sex at all—it is all about power and control, and it is a crime of violence. I still pick up on when the myths of rape are perpetuated form a male perspective: “Surely you could have fought him off. Did you scream loudly enough?” And the suggestion by some men that a woman is giving subtle hints or is making it up is outrageous. Those assumptions put the woman at the heart of cause, when she should be at the heart of effect. A rape happens when a man makes a decision to hurt someone he feels he can control. Rapes happen because of the rapist, not because of the victim.

We women in our society have to stand up for each other. We have to be courageous. We have to call things out and say where things are wrong. We have to support and nurture our sisters as we do with our sons. Like many women of my age, I have on occasion encountered other aggressive actions towards me, both in business and in politics. But one thing that I realise now is that I am not scared and he was. I am not scared. I am not a victim. I am a survivor.

Oral Answers to Questions

Michelle Thomson Excerpts

Monday 5th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. One in 10 18 to 24-year-olds is still unemployed, and we want them to have the opportunity to take up these jobs. That is one reason why, alongside other initiatives such as the apprenticeship levy, we are encouraging businesses to participate more in local employment and work more with local young people to make sure that they can take those jobs.

[Michelle Thomson (Edinburgh West) (Ind)]

The UK relies on more than 80,000 seasonal workers to pick its fruit and veg every year, with the Financial Times recently suggesting that 98% of those workers come from within the EU. Will the Government commit to protecting access for seasonal workers from the EU to safeguard our agricultural sector going forward?

[Amber Rudd]

The hon. Lady has raised an important question, and I know that the National Farmers Union met my colleague the Minister for Immigration recently to discuss exactly that point. We are aware how necessary it will be to ensure that we have some sort of seasonal scheme in place, and we are looking carefully at it.

Devolution and Growth across Britain

Michelle Thomson Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Michelle Thomson (Edinburgh West) (SNP)]

Mr Deputy Speaker, thank you very much for giving me this opportunity to give my maiden speech—and, indeed, for reminding the House that I should be heard uninterrupted. That makes me feel a little more at ease. Within this speech I intend to give the House a sense of who I am, both as the new Member for Edinburgh West and also as the shadow Business, Innovation and Skills Minister. However, before I do so, I must add my own tribute to Charles Kennedy, who was a politician I greatly admired, including for his wit.

Edinburgh West’s boundaries, like those of many other constituencies, are not strictly limited to the area in its name. They extend from the beautiful South Queensferry, with its iconic rail bridge, through Kirkliston and Ratho and into the city, encompassing Edinburgh airport, the headquarters of the Royal Highland Society and the Royal Bank of Scotland, and then into the west end of the city, past Edinburgh zoo—is it too early in my speech to get three for the price of one in panda jokes? Passing parts of Stenhouse, Carrick Knowe and Corstorphine, Edinburgh West includes Murrayfield, a beautiful place as well as the home of our Scottish rugby. On the other arterial route into town, it includes Barnton, Cramond and parts of Blackhall, as well as Drylaw, Pilton and Muirhouse.

For many, Edinburgh West is a place of comfortable living, and visitors would need to look hard to recognise the innocuous building in Drumbrae as a food bank, one of several in my constituency. It is easier to sense the daily struggle for many in Muirhouse, where chronic underemployment and social deprivation is apparent.

Throughout the constituency, as in many other areas, small businesses are endemic. Small and medium-sized enterprises form around 99.3% of Scottish businesses, and “small” businesses, meaning those with zero to 49 employees, form about 99.1%. They are indeed the backbone of our community.

Interestingly, though, Edinburgh as a whole demonstrates the parallel worlds of wealth alongside poverty. I am constantly reminded of the danger warnings from the world-renowned economist Stiglitz that an unequal society not only limits our ability to compete, but is

“both a cause and a consequence of volatility”.

My predecessor, Mike Crockart, was considered to be a hard-working MP, and many years ago we worked together as colleagues in Standard Life. I have to say that we often found debates about politics a lot more interesting than the debates about pensions. Despite a robust campaign, he was unable to resist the swing away from the Liberal Democrats, and the Scottish National party came from fourth in 2010 to first in 2015. I wish him well in his future career.

Let me say a little about myself. I started life as a professional piano player, and then spent many years delivering large-scale business and IT change in financial services. I then set up my own small business. Politics was always an interest, but it became a passion as I became involved in our debate about independence. I and many other business owners investigated the business case for independence, having gone through the numbers, having gone through the economics and having looked at the status quo and asked how we could grow our economy in new emerging markets. We looked at the risks, looked at the opportunities and concluded that that was the right way to go. I was joined by literally thousands of business owners in coming to that decision. Of course, we know that the strong economy that we all seek—we want targeted growth by the use of effective economic levers—underpins the public services from which we all benefit.

We have touched today on the forthcoming Bills, and I will personally watch with interest. My driver in this debate is about the ambition that must underpin what we want to achieve. I will therefore be watching to see whether there is an appropriate level of ambition and vision. Will the enterprise Bill provide measures that really encourage and support small businesses? Will it start to take steps to address the chronic lack of available liquidity for those businesses? Will the full employment and welfare benefits Bill really aim to deliver full employment, or will it focus on yet more cuts—the self-same cuts that mean we have to support people, whether through housing benefit or working tax credits? I have to say, that does not make sense to me.

Will the housing Bill simply tinker around the edges of English planning laws, or will it really support affordable housing and new jobs to help the sector recover from what has been a very difficult time? Will the national insurance contributions Bill provide real reforms to incentivise business and, if not, will the Government devolve national insurance to Scotland so that we can do so?

Will the European Union Referendum Bill pander to the Eurosceptics, or will it allow the framework for a proper realisation of the benefits to business of the free movement of goods, services and people? We know that the EU is the main destination for Scotland’s international exports. The Daily Telegraph recently quoted Giles Merritt, head of the Friends of Europe think-tank in Brussels, as saying:

“Everybody is very aware that Britain is the next big problem on the horizon. The mood is that we’ve got to save the British from themselves”.

It may be that the austerity agenda will drive all that is presented to the House. The need for cuts was sold as being to decrease the debt and the deficit, but during the last Parliament, the Chancellor failed on all of his own measures. Arguments against austerity were trodden underfoot by what Paul Krugman, the Nobel prize-winning economist, calls “a bogus narrative”, and the Office for Budget Responsibility notes that the UK is the only country where the deficit has been reduced not by growing but by cutting. Growth must now be the focus, and it begins at the bottom in a virtuous cycle, as people spend money in their local communities and in their local businesses.

Much more importantly, will the Scotland Bill really offer the sort of power we need to grow our economy, to invest, to create jobs and ultimately to provide more sustainable and worthwhile wealth? To what extent will it support our drive for a culture of investment, innovation, research and development and increased productivity, for a renewed focus on manufacturing and new infrastructure, and for all the ambition the SNP promotes? We seek “powers for a purpose”. We seek to make a difference and to link the policies of economics, labour and welfare for better outcomes. Surely that is what good government must be about.

I fear that the Scotland Bill provides little of what we seek. It falls comprehensively short of fully implementing the Smith commission’s recommendations, which themselves fell short of the vow promised during the referendum.

The UK Government must honour the Smith commission promises in full. It is important to emphasise that the commission, which was a response to support for independence in the referendum, is a floor on new powers, not a ceiling. Those are the minimum powers, and we need an appropriate response to the number of new SNP Members we see here on these green Benches.

It is time for thought-leadership about our business and how we do business. We will seek to make progressive business alliances that encourage ambition, aspiration, investment in infrastructure and innovation. To do that, we must rebalance our focus on to smaller businesses, as it is them that will fuel growth. We must also seek to combat the relentless navigational pull of London, and to that end we do indeed support devolution for cities across the UK and putting power back in the hands of those who understand best what is required.

Business is and always was an enabler for society. It is time to look afresh at our definitions of success and how we create the conditions for success. Crude measures of growth by GDP per capita are outdated. The leading economies use the so-called “happiness indices”, which provide a link with an holistic, embracing, rounded society of which business, innovation and the supporting skills form a part. I look forward to taking part in driving positive change for my constituents in Edinburgh West, for business, innovation and skills in Scotland, and across all of these isles.