International Women’s Day

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Thursday 11th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con) [V]]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) on securing this debate, and I agreed with every word she said. As for the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips), I just hope that, when she is on her feet next year, she will be speaking for a much shorter period of time and there are not so many women killed at the hands of man. As for my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom), with your permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to send her a virtual hug for her brave speech.

It is with a heavy heart that we are recognising International Women’s Day today, and the mood of the House has once again been dictated by the actions of men, not by the achievements of women. That is the reality of our day-to-day lives. It is the actions of men that dictate our lives and our choices, and for the next few minutes I want—I choose—to celebrate some phenomenal women in my constituency, particularly Helen Taylor-Thompson.

Helen Taylor-Thompson lived in the village of Nutley and, unfortunately, I had to attend her funeral last year. When Helen was around, she was wonderful in providing me with cups of tea and bits of cake. The reason why she is so important is that, at the age of 19, she signed the Official Secrets Act and began working for the Special Operations Executive, but she did not stop there. Later on, she raised over £3 million and set up the UK’s first hospice caring for people with AIDS-related illnesses. It was the hospice where the late Princess of Wales hugged or shook hands with a Mildmay patient, helping to break the taboo and stigma around HIV and AIDS. I wonder whether, if Helen Taylor-Thompson had been a man, all us would know her name, but she was a woman, and I want to put her name on record today.

When we celebrate the phenomenal vaccination programme, I hope that we do not whitewash the roles of women. I want women like those in my constituency to be recognised, including Charlotte Luck, the practice manager of the Meads medical centre, for having done so much work in ensuring vaccines are rolled out efficiently, and Dr Susie Padgham, a GP based at Saxonbury House surgery in Crowborough, who at one point was provided with over 1,000 extra vaccines and was able to get patients vaccinated in a short period of time. I hope that their stories are heard too.

I can speak about the progress of women and the fear and prejudice that we face, but I want to talk about the plight of Uyghur women, who are living the nightmare of “The Handmaid’s Tale”, and in particular the brave woman Rahima Mahmut, who is a Uyghur survivor. We should carry her on our shoulders as she fights for the plight of women—women who are forced into being sterilised or having abortions and who have their children removed, all because they are Uyghur and based in Xinjiang. I hope that we can do much more within our power to support them.

It is a pleasure to speak in the debate, but it would be far more powerful if we had more than just three minutes to talk about the phenomenal progress that women have made and the work that we have to do.