International Men’s Day

Philip Davies Excerpts

Thursday 17th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered International Men’s Day.

Before I start, may I thank the Backbench Business Committee for finding time for this debate, and particularly for finding a date as close as possible to International Men’s Day, which actually falls on Saturday? This was the closest sitting day on which the debate could have been held, so I am very grateful to the Committee.

A few people have said that they cannot be here today. In particular, I said I would pass on the apologies of my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), the Chair of the Women and Equalities Select Committee, who wanted to be here, but could not be for reasons beyond her control. I also thank the House of Commons Library, which has put together a fantastic brief for this debate. I urge all right hon. and hon. Members to read it, as it is illuminating on the subject of men’s issues. I also want to plug Incommunities, the social housing provider in my constituency, which has been celebrating International Men’s Day and last week held a “dads and lads” day at its premises. It was very successful. Finally, I want to thank the many people who have been in touch with me to tell me their story or to put forward their perspective on their life and problems. I am grateful to them for taking the time to do so.

The aims of International Men’s Day are admirable. Its objectives are: to promote male role models; to celebrate the contribution that men make; to focus on men’s health and wellbeing; to highlight discrimination against men and the inequalities that men and boys face; to improve gender relations and promote gender equality; and to create a safer world for everyone.

The UK theme for the day is “making a difference for men and boys”. That covers issues such as the high male suicide rate; the challenges faced by boys and men at all stages of education, including attainment; men’s health, particularly shorter life expectancy and workplace deaths; the challenges faced by the most marginalised men and boys in society—homeless men, boys in care and the higher rate of male deaths in custody, for example; male victims of violence, including sexual violence; the challenges faced by men as parents, particularly new fathers and separated fathers; and male victims and survivors of sexual abuse, rape, sexual exploitation, domestic abuse, forced marriage, honour-based crime, stalking and slavery.

I want to put on record the support I received from the Prime Minister, who wrote to me last month to say:

“I recognise the important issues that this event seeks to highlight, including men’s health, male suicide rates and the underperformance of boys in school. These are serious matters that must be addressed in a considered way. As I said on the steps of Downing Street on my first day as Prime Minister, one of the challenges we must confront is that white working-class boys are less likely than anyone else in Britain to go to university. I know that you held a debate in Westminster Hall last year on international men’s day, and I note that you are hoping to hold a debate in the Commons Chamber this year. Of course, this is not a matter for me as Prime Minister to decide, but I will watch with interest to see if your request is granted.”

Let me provide a bit of background. As I said in last year’s Westminster Hall debate, I wanted the men’s day to be the start of us dealing with some of the forgotten men’s issues—and there are plenty of them, far too many for me to cover in my speech today. I outlined some of the issues at the start, but I will not have time to deal with them all today. For example, I will not have time to mention the underperformance of boys in school or some of the male health issues. One thing we seldom, if ever, hear about in this place is the part-time gender pay gap. I have not heard it noted before, but when it comes to part-time workers, women are paid 6% more than men on average. I shall not have time to concentrate on all those issues, so I shall concentrate on just a few—male suicide, domestic violence, homelessness and injustice for fathers.

There is a very great difference—I fear that the Minister rather got this mixed up at the last questions session—between men raising issues, about which there is clearly no problem either in this House or in the wider world, and the raising of men’s issues. That is very different. Although we might get a lot of the former, we seldom get much of the latter, and that is what I want to focus on today.

I shall start with male suicide. According to the Library, in 2012 more than 4,500 men felt they had no choice but to take their own life. In 2013, the figure was nearly 5,000 men, while in 2014—the latest figure for which information appears to be officially available—it was 4,630 men. In fact, over the last 30 years, according to the Office for National Statistics figures, supplied to me by the Library, 134,554 men have taken their own life. The Campaign Against Living Miserably commissioned a poll that found that four in 10 men had considered suicide, with two fifths never talking to anyone about their problems. Half of those who did not seek help did not want people to worry about them; a third felt ashamed; nearly 40% did not want to make a fuss; and 43% did not want to talk about their feelings.

I want to put on record my congratulations to the Health Committee on embarking on its suicide prevention inquiry. It is looking at suicide across the board, but it is clear that this is an issue that affects men much more than women. The figures show that 75% of those who took their own life in 2014 were men and 25% were women.

[Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)]

Although I may not agree with the general thrust of the debate, I think that the hon. Gentleman is making an important point in this respect. May I ask whether he has disaggregated the figures that he has given? In Northern Ireland, for example, more people have committed suicide since 1997 than died in all the 30 years of the troubles, and the vast majority have been men. There were clearly specific issues and reasons behind that epidemic of suicides. Has the hon. Gentleman done any disaggregation to establish whether, for instance, people from former industrial areas who no longer have access to the role model of a miner or shipworker are affected in this way? He is on to something important, and I hope that we do not lose it in the generality of his introduction.

[Philip Davies]

That is a good point. The reasons for these suicides are many and varied. I suggest that the hon. Gentleman contacts CALM, the Campaign Against Living Miserably, which has members who are real experts in this field, and also consults the Library briefing, which is also very illuminating. As he says, many factors are involved when people take their own life, and each one is an individual tragedy.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate, and on the powerful speech he is making. The House will have been shocked by the figures that he has just revealed. Is he confident that the Department of Health realises that this is a serious public health issue, which urgently needs to be addressed by general practitioners and hospitals up and down the land? That must be one of the main reasons why men are losing their life: it must be one of the main causes of avoidable deaths in this country. That such a large number of people should lose their life in an avoidable way is tragic, regardless of whether they are men or women.

[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Debates such as this are important because they highlight the problems and urge that more be done, and I also commend the Select Committee for looking into this issue.

I appreciate that the Committee’s inquiry is ongoing, but I had a look at some of the evidence that it has received so far. I was struck by, for instance, evidence from the British Transport police relating to the suicides with which they deal. They dealt with 388 fatalities in, I believe, the last year, of which 305 were suspected suicides; 81% were men and 19% were women, but this is not just a gender issue. According to the evidence, 57% of those people had a known mental health history, 22% had been reported missing, 11% had previous convictions—one person had a “suicidal” marker on the police national computer—4% were current in-patients in mental health units, and 2% were absent without leave from mental health units. Wider issues therefore need to be considered, but they are all tragic cases. It is clear that many of the people concerned had a known mental health history, but it is also clear that many did not, and we must not forget those people.

I do not want to pre-empt the Select Committee’s inquiry, but one point made in CALM’s submission is very pertinent to the debate. It said:

“Despite the evidence that the risk of suicide is disproportionate to men as a whole when compared to women, research is often gender neutral or narrowed beyond gender (e.g. by sexual orientation or age). As a result, there is no specific research carried out on men and societal and environmental factors. Broader, gender specific research could reveal hidden causes of suicide that have not yet been explored. For instance, there could be great benefit in researching the impact of testosterone reducing drugs on the rates of suicide in men, however the current lens of research funding and its gender neutral approach does not provide a platform for such research.”

I hope that the Government will take that on board. A message should go out from the House today. If anyone is feeling suicidal, we should say, “Please speak to someone. Don’t suffer alone, as too many men often do.”

I want people to be in no doubt that there are male victims of domestic violence and abuse, despite what people may think and despite the stereotypes that surround the issue. The notion that in every case of domestic violence or abuse the perpetrator is a big burly wife-beater is just that: a notion. According to a report from the Office for National Statistics, “Focus on Violent Crime and Sexual Offences”, which relates to the year ending March 2015 and was released in February of this year,

“The Crime Survey England and Wales estimates that 8.2% of women and 4.0% of men reported experiencing any type of domestic abuse in the last year (that is, partner / ex-partner abuse (non-sexual), family abuse (non-sexual) and sexual assault or stalking carried out by a current or former partner or other family member). This is equivalent to an estimated 1.3 million female victims and 600,000 male victims.”

It also confirmed that, specifically for partner abuse, 6.5% of women and 2.8% of men reported having experienced any type of partner abuse in the last year, equivalent to an estimated 1.1 million female victims and half a million male victims. The pattern is consistent at all levels of domestic violence. In other words, for every three victims of domestic abuse, two will be female and one will be male.

[Stephen Pound]

I did not want to interrupt the hon. Gentleman’s flow because I appreciate that what he is saying is very important, but at the beginning of this section of his peroration he rightly said that any person, male or female, who may feel suicidal, lost or alone should seek help. The Samaritans are available every day of the week, 24 hours a day, and their phone number, 116 123, is one that we should all be familiar with. The Samaritans are there for people in precisely these circumstances, and I hope the hon. Gentleman will forgive me for intruding on his flow.

[Philip Davies]

I do not need to forgive the hon. Gentleman; I welcome his intervention and am grateful for that public service announcement.

According to the ManKind Initiative, 20 organisations offer refuge or safe-house provision for male victims of domestic violence in the UK. There are a total of 82 spaces in the country, of which 24 are dedicated to male domestic violence victims only. For female victims, there are nearly 400 specialist domestic violence organisations providing refuge accommodation for women in the UK, with about 4,000 spaces for over 7,000 women and children. I suspect there are not sufficient spaces for female victims of domestic violence, but if there are 4,000 spaces for female victims of domestic violence, it follows that the 24 dedicated spaces for male victims of domestic violence clearly are not enough, when men make up a third of cases of people who suffer domestic violence.

What about the Government’s recent policy announcement to spend another £20 million on providing spaces, not for domestic violence victims generally, but specifically for female victims of domestic violence? The Government must not forget male victims of domestic violence either, and must provide suitable funding for them too, because they are getting forgotten about.

It is worth pointing out that according to the ManKind Initiative, male victims are over twice as likely as women—29% compared with 12% for women—not to tell anyone about the partner abuse they are suffering. Only 10% of male victims will tell the police compared with 26% of women, only 23% will tell a person in an official position compared with 43% of women, and only 11% will tell a health professional compared with 23% of women.

[Mr Hollobone]

My hon. Friend is making a very good point and I am sure the House will recognise that domestic violence against men is probably far more underreported than domestic violence against women, although of course all domestic violence is abhorrent. Another problem for men who have been abused is that all too often they are denied the right to see their children once the relationship breaks up, because the system is still biased—sometimes for understandable reasons, sometimes not—in favour of the woman, and this compounds the problem for vulnerable men who have been victims.

[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend is right, and we must not forget fathers in the whole issue of bringing up children. As he says, in some cases it is perfectly right that the father, because of their behaviour, is denied access to the children, but in many cases it is not, and this is a massive problem for many people and is clearly one of the causes of the high suicide rate among men. It is not something that can be swept under the carpet. We must make sure that, where appropriate, fathers are given every assistance to have access to the children.

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

The hon. Gentleman will no doubt correct me if I am wrong, but I believe the criteria for deciding who has residence and contact in relation to children is the same in England as in Scotland, and it revolves around the best interests of the child, rather than the parents’ interests.

[Philip Davies]

I do not have time to have a philosophical debate—[Hon. Members: “It’s a legal debate.”] Well, it is a question of what is considered to be in the best interests of the child, and my point is that children having access to their fathers is in their best interests more often than the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) indicated that the courts sometimes think. Children want access to their fathers, and in many cases they need such access. The whole point of being in this place is that when we think the law is wrong, we can do something about it.

[Joanna Cherry]

Is the hon. Gentleman aware of any empirical research that shows that the legal system in Scotland or England is biased against fathers? I am not aware of any.

[Philip Davies]

The hon. and learned Lady is trying to pretend that there is not an issue. I urge her to read the Library briefing, which she clearly has not done. Perhaps she will do us the courtesy of reading it before she—

[Joanna Cherry]

rose—

[Philip Davies]

I am not giving way to the hon. and learned Lady again. If she does not think that there is an issue—[Interruption.] Does the hon. Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound) want to participate in the debate?

[Joanna Cherry]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker.

--- Later in debate ---

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

That is not a point of order, as the hon. and learned Lady knows. The hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) has not allowed her to intervene, but she has successfully put her view on record none the less.

[Philip Davies]

I am grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I did allow the hon. and learned Lady to intervene twice, but it was a shame that in both those interventions, she had nothing to say about looking after the interests of fathers or about the rights of men. Instead, she tried to make this into some kind of gender-bashing exercise, which did her no credit whatever. If she does not think that fathers have problems getting access to their children, sometimes unfairly, all I can suggest is that she gets out more—[Interruption.] Perhaps she might get out more in her own constituency.

[Mims Davies (Eastleigh) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. I shall be keen to bring up some issues from my constituency precisely because I have met people at my surgery who find it easier to approach a female MP who will perhaps give them a more empathetic hearing, and who have not felt able to talk to anyone else about the access to their children that they feel is being denied to them.

[Philip Davies]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Natascha Engel)]

Order. I must point out to the hon. Gentleman that he has now been on his feet for 20 minutes, which is the amount of time allowed for opening speeches. I am going to have to put an informal time limit on Back-Bench speeches in order to get everyone in, so I should be grateful if he would come to the end of his remarks.

[Philip Davies]

I am grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I have been trying to take interventions, but I will obviously abide by your ruling. I am also grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh (Mims Davies) for her intervention.

I shall now canter through a few other issues that I said I would touch on and therefore must. On homelessness, according to St Mungo’s, 85% of rough sleepers are men. That is clearly an issue that needs to be addressed. With regard to injustice for fathers, Erin Pizzey, the founder of the first women’s refuge in the UK, has said:

“There are a lot of reasons why fathers are not with their children, not least that women won’t let them”.

When the Minister for Vulnerable Children and Families, my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Edward Timpson), was introducing legislation in 2014, he said—[Interruption.] The hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West wanted some evidence, but she cannot even be bothered to listen to it now. The Minister said:

“We recognise that the court should already take account of the importance of a child’s relationship with both parents, but there is currently no legislative statement to that effect. We want to reinforce by way of statute the expectation that both parents should be involved in a child’s life, unless the child is at risk of harm or it is not in the child’s best interests.”––[Official Report, Children and Families Public Bill Committee, 14 March 2013; c. 289.]

The hon. and learned Lady wanted some evidence; there it is.

One of the aims of International Men’s Day is to improve gender relations, which I absolutely support. As I have said before, I want to be very clear that I do not believe there is an issue between men and women. I would actually rather we did not have to be here having this debate, and that we did not have separate international women’s and men’s days. The problem has been stirred up by politically correct people who want to make it a war on gender. In so many ways, considering men and women separately as though they lived in complete isolation is absolutely ridiculous. Neither group is isolated. Both sexes have mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, uncles and aunts, grandmothers and grandfathers, sons and daughters, husbands and wives, and boyfriends and girlfriends. Every woman has related male parties and therefore a vested interest in men’s issues. That is an unavoidable fact. Some issues affect men alone or more than women and vice versa, but both men and women have an interest in such issues and in working together without politically correct gender splits. If we were able to do that in this House, that would be much better.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Natascha Engel)]

I have just done a quick calculation and if everybody, including the Front-Bench speakers, takes about eight minutes, we will get everybody in. If anybody speaks for much longer than that, we will have to start cutting the limit, but if we stick to eight minutes, that should be fine.

--- Later in debate ---

[Philip Davies]

I thank everyone who has participated in this debate. We have heard some fantastic speeches. The hon. Member for Coventry North East (Colleen Fletcher) made a fantastic speech. I was very interested and pleased to hear about the excellent work of It Takes Balls to Talk. My hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford) made a typically fantastic speech, even though he had to admit that Australia was ahead of us in some ways. I am sure it was a painful thing for him to have to admit, but we are grateful to him for pointing it out.

The hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier) made a terrific speech highlighting the work that Breathing Space does in her area. I am delighted that she has had the opportunity to mention that. Likewise, my hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh (Mims Davies) made a passionate and impressive speech, and again I am delighted that she was able to highlight Men’s Sheds and Movember, even though I will not be participating in the latter—much to everyone’s relief.

I am sorry that the hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire (Ms Ahmed-Sheikh) rather trivialised today’s debate by talking about women instead of men. I am sure the fact that she thinks international men’s day is every day is very little comfort to the 134,554 men who have committed suicide over the last 30 years. I found that regrettable.

Finally, I am pleased that we agreed on one thing—equality. I believe in gender equality, and I very much hope that after this debate, men and women will be treated equally by the courts when they get sentenced.