International Women’s Day: Language in Politics

Ruth Jones Excerpts

Thursday 29th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow my good friend. my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones), and her powerful and passionate speech.

I am delighted to speak in this important debate as we approach International Women’s Day 2024. I do so as a daughter, mother and sister, the first woman to represent Newport West in Parliament, and a champion of the role women play in all and every part of our national life. I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Dame Maria Miller), for her opening remarks and for ensuring we could all be here today. I acknowledge and pay tribute to the speeches of all those colleagues who have spoken before me. The focus of the debate is important. We gather in the shadow of the plaque to our late friend, Jo Cox. We should all be a bit kinder, do a bit more and go a bit further in making our political discourse healthier, safer and more decent.

More than 100 years have passed since the first women won the right to vote and in 2028, we will mark the centenary of the equal franchise Act, the most basic but important Bill that gave equal voting rights to women and men. Since then, and particularly over the last 20 years, women’s representation in our politics has been transformed, and we have seen the positive impact that women in elected office can make. I pay particular tribute to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), the Mother of the House. She has made it her life’s work to empower women, to get many more of us here. As she leaves these Benches at this year’s general election, I thank her for all that she has done for more than 40 years as a Member of this House. I know that I speak for many others in doing so. I also thank some of the wonderful women on the Labour Benches who are standing down at the next election. My hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North East (Colleen Fletcher), my indefatigable right hon. Friend the Member for Derby South (Dame Margaret Beckett), and my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) will all be missed by Labour Members, and I believe by Conservative Members too.

I acknowledge the strong women I work with to serve the people of Newport West: Jayne Bryant, our local Member of the Senedd, who is a very good colleague, and the leader of Newport City Council, Councillor Jane Mudd, who is standing to be the first woman police and crime commissioner in Gwent in May. I also acknowledge the women members of Newport City Council, and of course my very good friend, my hon. Friend the Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden). With our United Kingdom in mind, I send my best wishes to Michelle O’Neill, the new First Minister of Northern Ireland, and to Emma Little-Pengelly, the Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland. It is not a surprise that two women are leading the way in getting the Northern Ireland institutions back on track. I know that we all wish them every success.

We all know that the presence of women MPs in the rooms, chambers, corridors and dining halls of power where decisions are made has undoubtedly transformed our laws and policies. Yet while women have been leading the charge on these significant reforms, they have also faced significant challenges, as the Fawcett Society noted in its brilliant briefing, especially black and minority ethnic women, disabled women and women with long-term health conditions. We need more women in elected office, but we will not get more women to put themselves forward if they know that they will be constantly attacked on the basis that they are a woman, a black or minority ethnic woman, or a disabled woman. We all have a responsibility to use temperate and respectful language, and must all regulate the language that we use and ensure that we do not use language that would incite hate, harm people or simply engage in the age-old race to the bottom.

How this place represents itself to the people will have an impact on the engagement of women, and the public more broadly, in politics. The last few weeks have shown that some people in this place have little regard for the impact that their words have on people outside in the real world, and we must not forget that. We can start by getting our own house in order. It is important to ensure that those working in this place, as in any other workplace, can do so without fearing for their safety, free from abuse and harassment, and that the overall culture is welcoming of people from diverse backgrounds and with diverse needs. That cannot be a difficult thing for each of us to work towards every day. We expect it of people in our constituencies, so we should lead by example.

The abuse that we get online merely adds to the deep-seated issues in Parliament regarding bullying, harassment and sexual abuse. I know that they are being addressed with urgency by Mr Speaker, but we must keep going.

[Alex Davies-Jones]

My hon. Friend mentions some of the issues being tackled by Mr Speaker, but they are also being tackled by you, Madam Deputy Speaker. You are also standing down at the next election. We should also pay tribute to you for leading the way for women in our own party, and across the House.

[Ruth Jones]

I thank my hon. Friend for that positive and opportune intervention. I did not want to embarrass you, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I thank you for your calm nature last week when you took on the issues that arose. The calm and peaceful way in which you dealt with it all was an inspiration to us all.

Online abuse affects when women in public office speak and what they speak about. Online abuse, particularly abuse that is misogynistic and racist, has a detrimental impact on the mental health and wellbeing of women in public life, particularly ethnic women MPs, reflecting on the emotional toll that it takes on them, their families and their staff. It is deeply unfortunate that online abuse spills out into reality, causing real concerns about physical safety, with such abuse often including threats of violence. Even though women make up over half of the United Kingdom’s population, as the right hon. Member for Basingstoke said, we make up only 35% of the House of Commons. There is so much more to do.

[Katherine Fletcher (South Ribble) (Con)]

We are talking about the importance of language in debate, but does she agree that we also need to start thinking about images, especially with changing technology? Several Members present were with me last night at a debate about deepfakes and artificial intelligence, hosted on the Committee corridor by Glamour and my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), the Chair of the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee. It strikes me that a lot of the themes of today’s debate around the use of language, and how off-putting it can be, can also be applied to stuff that is generated very realistically and very quickly. Does the hon. Lady agree that we should not forget that while we debate language, and women in politics?

[Ruth Jones]

I absolutely agree. Being a luddite, I may not be as familiar as lots of other people in the Chamber with AI and other online issues, but deepfakes are deeply troubling. I thank the hon. Lady for highlighting that really important issue.

I acknowledge that the Conservative party has had three women leaders. Although the last two did not last very long, the Conservatives have done more than we have, and in due course I hope that Labour will elect its first woman leader. In August 2022, just 36% of the 19,212 elected councillors across the UK were women. Fewer than 5% of councils have achieved gender parity, so the need to empower and support women is clear to all of us. The issue will not be solved overnight, but we need to start making progress. It will not be addressed by one party, but by all of us working together, and it will not work unless every man in this place, and in our country, recognises the role that they have to play too.