International Women’s Day

My Lords, it is a real pleasure to take part in today’s debate, which celebrates the economic, political and social achievements of women. As always, this debate, which marks International Women’s Day and links women around the world together, has drawn on the enormous experience and insight across your Lordships’ House. I join the congratulations to my noble friend Baroness Miller of Hendon on securing this debate and on her thoughtful speech, which was delivered in her customary no-nonsense and humorous way. You never quite know where this debate is going to go; I really did not think that today we would hear about crocodile dung and asparagus as means of contraception. As we heard from a number of noble Lords, there is much to celebrate. The noble Baronesses, Lady Gale and Lady Coussins, for instance, reminded us of the very positive part women play in conflict resolution. I love the idea in my noble friend Lady Byford’s speech of a cow being given to a needy family and then its first offspring being given to another needy family: that is true female solidarity. The noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Crosby, spoke of a new kind of women’s leadership developing, and the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, spoke of the part that women entrepreneurs play. We also heard about women in business from the noble Baronesses, Lady Gibson of Market Rasen and Lady Prosser, and the noble Lord, Lord Parekh. The noble Baroness, Lady Gibson, painted a colourful picture of the advances of women in Bolivia. However, there are still women in our country and throughout the world for whom life is a struggle, as illustrated by all noble Lords who mentioned the pay gap; I hope we are addressing this through the Equality Bill. The noble Baroness, Lady Rendell, gave a moving speech on female genital mutilation. She never misses a chance to raise this in everybody’s mind, and we thank her for doing so because it is truly gruesome. This theme was picked up by many others. My noble friend Lady Seccombe movingly told us that every minute a woman dies needlessly in childbirth; thoughts echoed by the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, the noble Baronesses, Lady Goudie and Lady Tonge, and many others. I apologise if I have not mentioned any other noble Lords. All contributions were worthy of mention, but if I do not start the main part of my speech now I am going to run out of time. One statistic which horrified me when I was doing my research was from a report by Kristof and WuDunn on turning oppression into opportunity for women worldwide: women between the ages of 15 and 44 are more likely to be maimed or killed by male violence than by war, cancer, malaria and traffic accidents combined. We should all keep that thought in the forefront of our minds. One of the challenges of this annual occasion is how to approach the subject in a new and interesting way. A particular problem when I was writing this speech at some unearthly hour this morning was what to include, because there is so much to talk about, especially as I have been privileged this past year to meet some truly amazing women from many countries, each with remarkable stories to tell. I decided to concentrate on three areas where I have a particular interest. In doing so, I declare an interest as the co-chairman of Women in Public Policy, as has already been mentioned, a member of the advisory council of women2win and a trustee of UNICEF UK. As my noble friend Lady Verma reminded us, education is at the heart of all that we aspire to in raising the well-being and status of women. The charity Plan—it was mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe of Idlicote, and the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia—is working to highlight the situation of girls and women in developing countries who, because of their gender and age, are prevented from reaching their full potential. It reminds us that girls have enormous untapped potential and that educating them is the key to achieving millennium development goals. I am proud that my party, in its programme of direct social action, has played a small part in helping in Bosnia and Rwanda. In Bosnia, my noble friend Lady Warsi led a team of MPs, candidates and volunteers that helped a community devastated in the genocide. As part of that project, in conjunction with Microsoft, they put a computer suite into a school—Microsoft provided the computers, and our team did the decorating. A haulage company gave its services free to transport toys donated by Mothercare and the Early Learning Centre to a school for children with special needs. All that helps the lives of women and children in their communities. Sometimes the problems that we face seem insurmountable, but small acts repeated by lots of different people in lots of different places can start to build unstoppable momentum. We should pay tribute to charities, businesses and individuals who give their time and money to help make the world a better place. One such individual is Lynne Franks. I met Lynne when we were both speaking at the Women in Business conference in May last year, which brought together a spectacular array of talented and influential women from the Arab world; I agree with the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, on the achievements of women in the Arab world. Lynne invited me to a breakfast hosted by the charity V-Day UK, to meet women from the Democratic Republic of Congo. From a debate in your Lordships' House on the Congo in which I had spoken, I knew that life was tough for women and children in the DRC, but reading about it in a briefing paper was as nothing to hearing first-hand the horrors that women and young girls are subjected to on a daily basis. Lynne Franks had discovered that, on 19 November 1909, the then Archbishop of Canterbury and the churches had held a mass rally for the Congo at the Royal Albert Hall, and she determined that she would repeat that 100 years to the day later. On 19 November last year we commemorated the 100th anniversary of the great Congo demonstration, this time with the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Winchester, who is deeply committed to the plight of the people of the DRC, officiating. Yet again the stories of the degradation of women and children were harrowing—the grandmother raped who did not make it to hospital; the four year-old girl raped who did and, thank God, survived. From all that, there is a ray of hope. Eve Ensler, the celebrated author of "The Vagina Monologues", told us of the City of Joy, a special facility being built by V-Day and UNICEF in partnership with the Panzi Hospital Foundation for the survivors of sexual violence. It will provide medical services, education, leadership skills, information on income generation and lessons in self-defence, and will train those women to become community activists. Most of all, the City of Joy will provide women and girls with a place to heal emotionally and to rebuild their lives, and then they will return to their homes to lead and mend those communities. The City of Joy opens on Monday—on International Women's Day—and I am sure that everyone in your Lordships’ House will wish it well. That is a supreme example of women supporting women. Closer to home, many of us speaking in the debate have encouraged and mentored other women to play their part in political or business life. One of the things of which I am most proud is my time as vice-chairman of the Conservative Party, with responsibility for candidates. In a few weeks we will face a general election. Whatever the outcome of that election, my party will look and sound very different indeed. If the British people put their trust in us, and we win by just one seat, we will have around 60 women MPs, compared with the 18 we currently have. I hope that I will be able to take a particular pleasure in some of the election results as I will remember the part I played in helping to persuade some remarkable and able women that my party really had changed and was serious about putting in place support and mentoring of women—alongside new ways of selecting candidates—which played to women’s strengths. But enlightened men have been vital in this journey; men such as my right honourable friend Iain Duncan Smith, who first tasked the party with looking more like the country it aspired to lead, and then my right honourable friend David Cameron, who took action immediately he became leader to promote candidate diversity. With determined women and enlightened men there is hope that one day we will live in a world where women are valued and play their full and rightful part in politics and business. What a better world that would be.