Office for Students: Appointment Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
Paula Sherriff
Main Page: Paula Sherriff (Labour - Dewsbury)Department Debates - View all Paula Sherriff's debates with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
(6 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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Joseph Johnson
The board is representative of a broad range of higher education providers, as it is required to be under the terms of the Higher Education and Research Act 2017. It contains a vice-chancellor of the University of the West of England; a former vice-chancellor of BPP University; the chair of council at an arts college, the Rose Bruford College; and a senior figure from an Oxford college, who happens to be the bursar and also a director at the Oxford Centre for Higher Education Policy Studies. It is well representative of the excellent diversity of our higher education system.
Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)
May I gently remind the Minister that abuse comes to all candidates, not just Conservative ones? I truly want to believe that this House takes allegations of sexual harassment and inappropriate behaviour in the workplace seriously, but how can I when the Minister is continuing with the appointment of this misogynist man who thinks that it is appropriate constantly to tweet about women’s breasts, anal rape and masturbating over images of starving children?
Joseph Johnson
I do not see why we should take lessons from the Labour party on these matters. Let us take, for example, the case of the shadow Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), who made some extraordinarily intemperate and misogynistic comments about my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Ms McVey). They were too vile to repeat, but typical of what the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) described as the persistent,
“low-level, non-violent misogyny”
at the top of the Labour party.