Menopause (Support and Services) Bill

Nick Smith Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 29th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

What a brilliant and important debate we have had today on women’s health. It has been fantastic, has it not? I want to pay tribute to my butty, my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris). She has done some fantastic campaigning on this issue.

I would like to look at the issue of menopause and employment. About 14 million workdays are lost each year in the UK due to the menopause. A TUC survey found that nearly nine in 10 women say it has affected their working life. How a woman experiences the menopause in work can be dramatically shaped by what her employer does. Here is one story from a woman called Barbara, who spoke to the Wellbeing of Women charity. She said:

“My memory was shot to pieces… I felt hot and sweaty all the time… I didn’t want to speak up in meetings for fear of”

embarrassment about how she looked. She also said:

“Overnight, I felt I’d lost all my confidence in my ability to do my job.”

When Barbara went to her employer, she thought it said the right things, but did not understand what support was needed. There are too many stories like this. About 900,000 women have left their jobs because of the menopause. Something has to be done.

Some women have more severe symptoms than others, which is why employers must be proactive and flexible. As my hon. Friend said, a tick-box exercise will not work. This is why organisations such as the Wales TUC have produced fantastic resources for union reps to give advice on what they can do. There are already some companies doing good stuff. Santander has started training managers to better understand the menopause, and places such as Sainsbury’s have brought together colleagues to tackle this topic, while HSBC has introduced menopause champions to encourage more conversations at work.

It is fantastic that more and more women are speaking about the menopause. When Andrea McLean shared her experiences on “Loose Women”, she said that

“within 24 hours, 10,000 women got in touch”.

Workplace wellbeing for women needs a helping hand today. We must send a message to employers that they need to put menopause policies and support in place, and to do it now. We all need to play our part so that women like Barbara are given the respect and the dignity they deserve. Parliament needs to support this important Bill today.