Jo Cox Civility Commission

Baroness Goudie Excerpts

Thursday 18th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goudie (Lab)]

My Lords, I would like to pay my respects to Jo Cox’s family and all her friends. I thank my noble friend Lady Royall for arranging to have this debate today and the work of the Jo Cox Foundation, because without the work that it has been doing, we would not be here today, communities would not be in the situation they are in, and we would not be training women to come into public life. More and more we need to do this, and more and more we need to work with schools and other institutions so that young people know, like the Girl Guides and others, that every door is open to them—and I mean every door is open to them.

I was lucky to be brought up being told that every door was open to me, but not everybody has that opportunity. They might be bullied in every way: being bullied at school, being bullied at work, being bullied somewhere. When somebody is bullied, they go into their house, they go into a room and they never come out of it again. That is where we have all these problems, in many ways, in the community. It is part of our role to stop that happening.

I first met Jo when she was working at Oxfam and then, when she came to the House of Commons and I was here, she introduced me to the work they were doing on Syria and the White Helmets, on which we worked together. I still work with them, but we miss Jo deeply. I also went, just after Jo died, to Trafalgar Square when we had a memorial outside and I brought home, as my noble friend Lady Royall has seen, one of the placards that we had that day. I brought it home, got it cleaned and had it framed. I have that on my desk, and it reminds me every day about what we should be doing and why we should be doing it.

It is so important to ensure that women, who make up 50.7% of our population in this country, are in public life. What percentage of them are not in public life because they are not persuaded to be there or, when they have thought about it, they are told it is not for them, or they try and they are bullied? We have to insist that women are selected at every level. Otherwise, we will not have the right form of communities, and their children will not do this either. For example, there should be more women magistrates. There is a big shortage of magistrates, and women and young girls should be taught about the magistrate system so that in later life they apply to be trained.

The situation for MPs, councillors and other people in public life has now gone beyond the question of being bullied due to the rhetoric that we are seeing outside. We have not taken it seriously enough, and we now have to take it seriously. If necessary, as the Jo Cox Foundation has said, we have to pass stronger legislation. Councillors should not have stuff thrown at their doors, eggs thrown at their cars, their children interfered with or taunted at school and university, and so on. It is vital that we follow the recommendations of the recent report by the Jo Cox Foundation and More in Common, because we want a society that is together and is going to thrive. If we do not thrive, our country will not thrive.

That is why it is important too that we encourage women in public life to apply to be on boards at every level, whether it is at local or international level. We need to take men with us as well. This is about men and women working together in communities to stop what we have been seeing over the last couple of years, including what we are seeing in the media and on the web. It is disgraceful, and we must do everything we can to stop it happening. This abuse must cease. Thank you again for having this debate on the report; we must continue to build on it and to have further reports.