Menopause

Debate between Eddie Hughes and Peter Dowd

Thursday 26th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of the menopause.

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) this important and timely debate in October, which is World Menopause Awareness Month. Regrettably, she is unable to attend or open the debate, so she has asked me, as a member and the treasurer of the all-party parliamentary group on menopause, to open the debate in her place. I am pleased and privileged to do so. I hope to do justice to her work, and that of the APPG and its supporters in this vital area affecting the lives of millions of women.

[Eddie Hughes (Walsall North) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman says that this affects millions of women but, as the husband of a menopausal woman, I feel it is incredibly important that men, in their role as colleagues, friends or family members, have a deep understanding of the challenges of menopause, so that they can best support the women in their lives. Does he agree?

[Peter Dowd]

The hon. Member is absolutely spot on. That is why the APPG is working across so many areas to develop people’s understanding of menopause—not just women but, importantly, men as well.

The days of whispering the word “menopause” and keeping the changes in women’s bodies a secret and just getting on with it, so to speak, are thankfully beginning to be a thing of the past. The “Manifesto for Menopause” was launched last week at a celebratory breakfast in Parliament to mark World Menopause Day. Alongside the publication of the group’s “Manifesto for Menopause”, the reception featured new findings from a recent survey by Menopause Mandate of over 2,000 women. It found—it is important to get this into context—that 96% of menopausal women’s quality of life suffered as a result of their symptoms and almost 50% took over a year to realise that they might be peri or menopausal.