Draft Financial Services Bill (Joint Committee) Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateStewart Hosie
Main Page: Stewart Hosie (Scottish National Party - Dundee East)Department Debates - View all Stewart Hosie's debates with the Leader of the House
(13 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberThe hon. Gentleman is rather intemperate. Here we are having a good and important debate, and I anticipated an informed intervention from him. Instead, he merely wishes to curtail debate on equality. That says something about these new Conservatives, the partners of the Liberal Democrats—
I am all in favour of gender balance on Committees, but the hon. Gentleman is a member of the Treasury Committee, which has only one lady member. I do not recall him ever making the point that he or his Labour colleagues—all of whom are men, of course—should be replaced by women.
The hon. Gentleman is not an hon. Friend of mine—to use the parliamentary language—so he is not privy to the debates and discussions in the parliamentary Labour party. However, I assure him, and the House, that this is an issue that I have raised. It is one of the traps that the House has set for itself, in the same way as it has with this motion. How do we achieve gender balance? I intend to make some suggestions about what we can do if the amendment is passed, and why that is so important.