International Women’s Day

Siobhan Baillie Excerpts

Thursday 9th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dame Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered International Women’s Day.

May I say how great it is to see you in the Chair for this now annual event on the Floor of the House of Commons, Madam Deputy Speaker? I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting us this time, and also members of the all-party parliamentary group on women in Parliament, who yet again proposed the debate.

It is a great privilege to be able to open today’s debate. I will start by recognising the incredible achievements of every single female Member of Parliament in the House of Commons and every female parliamentarian, not just in this Chamber but at the other end as well. I have been fortunate to have so many women helping me throughout my life: family, friends, work colleagues and fellow parliamentarians. I would particularly like to say how inspired I am by my colleagues on both sides of the House—their tenacity, their ability to make change happen and their resilience, getting anything that gets in their way out of the way so that they can get things done. I salute them all for what they have already achieved, and for what they will go on to achieve in the future.

I pay a particularly fond tribute to two women in my party: my right hon. Friends the Members for Epping Forest (Dame Eleanor Laing) and for Maidenhead (Mrs May). Both have gone out of their way to make sure that they encourage women in my party to be the best they can be. It would not be proper to not also remember the late Cheryll Gillan. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] On the Conservative side of the House, she was the mother of our party, and we miss her greatly. She was an amazing colleague.

[Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Dame Maria Miller) is one of my inspirations in this House, but I think it is really important that we are able to talk openly about how much respect we have for colleagues across the House. I can see a number of women on the Opposition Benches whose work I have followed, not only since I have been in this place, but before I became an MP. I remind everybody that, as much as we see the ding-dongs on the tellybox, a lot of us get on and are trying to make big changes here together.

[Dame Maria Miller]

That is an excellent friend— I mean that is an excellent comment from my hon. Friend, and she is absolutely right. I should at this stage point out that there are a couple of us on the Government Benches who have not slept overnight, so please forgive us, Madam Deputy Speaker, if we stumble over our words. [Interruption.] No, a lot tamer than that; we flew back on the red-eye from the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women.