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Women, Justice and Gender Equality

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs. Moon). We were standing by the statue of Emmeline Pankhurst this morning in the sunlight, laying down flowers to mark what is an important day—international women's day. I was pleased to be there to lay down flowers on behalf of the Conservative party to mark that day. Much progress has been made since the suffragette movement called almost 100 years ago for full and equal voting rights for women. Politicians today can celebrate a great number of things. Conservative Members will be celebrating the fact that the first ever female Member of Parliament sat on the Conservative Benches. That lady represented Plymouth, Sutton and has not been mentioned this afternoon, although other ladies have been mentioned at length. At the risk of incurring comments from Madam Deputy Speaker, the first female leader of a political party in this country was a Conservative, Baroness Thatcher, who became the first female Prime Minister. I was inspired by Baroness Thatcher to do what I am doing today. At the time I was inspired, I was living in the constituency of the hon. Member for Bridgend. When it comes to women in this place, it is to do with quality as well as quantity. We have talked about many issues in the debate, and I should like to focus on one issue in particular but, before I do so, I think that hon. Ladies should reflect on one point. A number of us in the Chamber are new Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Justine Greening). We joined the House in 2005. When I was sworn in at the desk down there, I was the 277th woman Member of this House. Many of my constituents find it shocking that, in the 90 years that women have been able to be elected to this place and to take their seats, we have yet to reach 300. While we may make party points about how many women there are on the Labour Benches and on the Liberal Democrat Benches, and how many women there are in the Labour party and in the Liberal Democrats, all of us have failed to get 300 women into this place. We should work together to do more to solve that problem.