International Women’s Day

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Thursday 2nd March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

It is an honour to follow that passionate speech by the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq). The theme for this year’s International Women’s Day is “Be Bold for Change”, so that is the theme of my speech.

In medieval times, a women who killed her husband was guilty of not only murder but petty treason, because she had betrayed someone superior to her. Her punishment was to be drawn and burned alive. In comparison, a husband who murdered his wife was hanged. Why was the woman’s crime worse than the man’s? Because she threatened the established social order, in which each person had, and knew, their place. By killing his wife, the man did not threaten that order.

The law was changed in 1828, and four years later the Reform Act 1832 gave the vote to 300,000 more people, but none of them were women. Between 1870 and 1904, women’s suffrage was debated 18 times in this House. In every vote on the matter from 1886 onwards, a majority of MPs were in favour of allowing women the vote, but we did not get it until 1918.

I shall read out some of the arguments that were made against women being given the vote—arguments that we probably still hear when we are going about our business, delivering public service. They included that women are by nature subordinate to men; that men are made for public life and women for private; that allowing women to vote would, heaven forbid, allow them to think that one day they could become MPs—an idea that was self-evidently absurd; that only men should legislate for women because only men know what is good for women; that we have no grievances, and if we do, they can easily be put right by men; that politics would get women over-excited and lead to nervous breakdowns; and that if women had the vote, they would be pestered on polling day.

Political parties had their own motivations. For the Labour party, votes for women would just enfranchise more of the propertied classes; for the Conservatives, women voting would lead to socialism; and for the Liberals, women were too conservative by nature, so the Liberals would lose elections.

Not everything has changed, but some things have. I want to put on record the women we must acknowledge who came to this place before us. The first female MP to take her seat was elected in 1919. We got our first female Cabinet Minister in 1929, our first female Prime Minister in 1979, and our first female Speaker—the legend that is Baroness Boothroyd—in 1992. Yesterday, in 2017, when my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Trudy Harrison) was sworn in, we got our 456th female MP, finally surpassing the number of male MPs currently.

It has taken us close to 700 years to reach this stage, and we still have a long way to go. With only 30% of our MPs being women, we are behind Italy, Germany, Norway and Rwanda. I want to send out a message today to any young girl or woman who is listening and wants to enter politics. I want her to hear loud and clear that everyone in this House will welcome her wholeheartedly.

We have moved on from the medieval age; we are now in the technical age. We are among the first generation of parliamentarians who have had to deal with modern technology and the access it gives the public to their politicians. Those of us who use social media know what it is like occasionally to go on to Twitter and Facebook and see a barrage of abuse from trolls. These faceless and nameless cowards need to be called out and challenged. When the Minister responds, will she say what more can be done to put pressure on social media companies and search platforms to encourage them to take down the hate and abuse that is focused on women just because of their gender, faith or heritage? It would be a grand day if, when all the women in this House saw a fellow female parliamentarian being abused just because of who she was, we all went on to social media and drowned out that hate.

I shall finish by thanking some of the female leaders in and around my constituency. Five of the eight East Sussex MPs are women: my right hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd); my hon. Friends the Members for Eastbourne (Caroline Ansell) and for Lewes (Maria Caulfield); the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas); and me. We have a female chief executive of the county council, Becky Shaw, and a female police and crime commissioner, Katy Bourne, as well as dozens of fantastic female councillors at county and district level who have mentored me and are inspiring leaders in their communities. They are the ones who show, each and every day, that politics is very much the business of women.