International Women’s Day: Progress on Global Gender Equality - Motion to Take Note

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 3:18 pm on 8 March 2018.

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Photo of Lord Suri Lord Suri Conservative 3:18, 8 March 2018

My Lords, it is a privilege to speak on this topic. I thank my colleagues for securing the time for this debate. I am proud to support a Government who have taken unprecedented steps to secure gender equality, both in this country and abroad. Before I consider how foreign policy and aid policy can be used to best help women, I will touch on the recent celebration of the suffragettes. These were touching and sobering commemorations, and I am heartened at every new election when the number of women in the other place goes up. Much more work is needed to get this to the 50% that it ought to be, but I have confidence that the Prime Minister will pay attention to this. After all, she can claim a great deal of credit for setting up the body that has helped propel dozens of Conservative women into Parliament.

The Opposition recently hired as an adviser an activist who had a history of making disparaging remarks about various groups. I will not dwell on all of it, but I think there is one point that deserves refuting. She said on Twitter that the suffragettes were,

“white supremacists who were fighting for white women’s rights”.

This is simply wrong. One of my personal heroes is Princess Sophia Duleep Singh, the daughter of Maharaja Duleep Singh. She was a leading voice in the women’s tax resistance movement, which encouraged women to withhold tax until they were granted suffrage. The King at that time was known to remark, “Have we no hold on her?” She was no white supremacist. She was a principled woman, and I am glad that the Prime Minister referred to her at the Vote 100 commemorations a couple of weeks back.

Our aid budget is one of our most powerful international levers of influence. We are valued and respected for sticking to the spending guidelines, even in a time of austerity. I recently spoke on the importance of educating women in less developed states, especially in nursing. It has been shown time and time again that the single most effective policy to combat poverty, close gender pay gaps and boost economic growth is the education of women. If I could have my way, the aid budget would be focused on disaster mitigation and the education of women almost exclusively. However, in other projects there are a number of options to ensure that gender equality is consistently promoted.

Given the recent allegations that have affected the industry, it may be worth showing that British charities can be trusted to do the right thing in the workplace, which would also head off allegations of hypocrisy. What steps are the Government taking to make sure that the NGOs they work with have proper harassment protocols in place for when allegations are brought to them? Additionally, Ministers could urge the NGOs that they work with to ensure that their local hires are gender-balanced and that they train women when they cannot find women with the right skills profile. Of course, this may seem like an extra burden to put on NGOs, but now more than ever they need to show their commitment to gender equality.