Parliamentary Candidates: Barriers for Women Debate
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Rebecca Pow
Main Page: Rebecca Pow (Conservative - Taunton Deane)Department Debates - View all Rebecca Pow's debates with the Department for Education
Parliamentary Candidates: Barriers for Women
Rebecca Pow Excerpts(6 years, 7 months ago)
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Mims Davies
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. In fact, I will come to that later in my speech, when I talk about the joint work of the all-party group on women in Parliament and the all-party group on women and enterprise. Unless we show that this is a worthwhile career for the other side of the country—male and female, north and south—we will absolutely be doing down the opportunities for everybody.
Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making her case very passionately. She is number 380, so I beat her by one—I am the 379th woman elected to Parliament, which is something I am very proud of. Does she agree that we want to encourage women from all walks of life? We talk very much about how things fit in for young women with children or babies, but I am particularly aware that women who have had a career and brought up their children have an awful lot of expertise to offer as they get older. I do not know if I have a lot of expertise, but I put myself in that category: my youngest was 16 when I came here and has just left school. I feel that many women do not use all the knowledge and experience they have gained through their career; indeed, some of them start to wind down when they hit their 50s. Does my hon. Friend think there might be a way to encourage those women in particular to get involved?
Sir Roger Gale (in the Chair)
Order. I gently suggest that interventions should be interventions, not speeches.