International Women’s Day — House of Commons, 2022-03-10
Topic: Civil Rights
Daniel Rayne Kruger (Conservative, Centre-right): It has been humbling and very disquieting to listen to the accounts that we have heard of abuse, hatred and discrimination, and, of course, violence and murder. I pay particular tribute to the family of Ellie Gould and to their friends, the family of Poppy Devey Waterhouse, who have been in the Public Gallery this afternoon—Ellie was a girl from a family of Wiltshire people who was murdered very young, as was Poppy. I pay tribute to their campaign for the law to change and I look forward to the conclusion of the Wade review, which is looking into the circumstances of those murders. I want to speak, first, about the economy in which women find themselves and, secondly, about the politics of gender. We have heard that behind every great woman is a great man, and I am proud to stand behind so many great women on the Government Benches, and opposite so many great women as well. I am the son and grandson of full-time working women, who are also mothers—very good mothers, I emphasise—and I spent 10 years working with my wife for the charity that we founded together. We worked in prisons, including in Holloway prison before it was thankfully sold off, disbanded, closed down, and I am very glad that my children have such role models in their mother, grandmother and great-grandmother I echo the point that the hon. Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth) made about the way that opportunities have opened up for girls and young women in our time. Of course, women have all the legal rights that they need and, increasingly, equality is becoming a reality, but there is so much more to be done, as we have heard. Perhaps just as worrying is that the idea that women can have it all often just means that women must do it all —that they must continue to do all the work that they were doing before. That presents very difficult choices, not just for women. I also made the World Book Day costume for my daughter; I advise my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman) just to use cardboard boxes. That is what I did; it is so much simpler than sewing something together. My daughter wanted to go as the "Boy in the Tower", which was a very easy costume to put together—I recommend it My simple policy point is that we need a more balanced economy. We need work to be closer to home. We need men and women to be able to mix the work that they do for pay in the commercial economy with work that they do with their children and elderly parents and work in the community. That would be better for everyone—for children, older people, our neighbours and ourselves Let me move on to the difficult topic. I regret the suggestion from Opposition Members that International Women’s Day is somehow not a moment in which it is appropriate to discuss what actually a woman is. I wish that this was not a controversial topic, but the fact is that it is, and surely this is a time and a place in which that topic can be discussed. I notice that the leader of the Scottish Government has today announced an official apology to the victims of the Witchcraft Act—the victims of the hunt for witches back in the early modern period in Scotland. I hope she would also extend some sympathy to the victims of today’s witch hunts. Women—mostly women, but also men—are vilified, cancelled, professionally destroyed or physically threatened for their beliefs. They are people who simply believe in a biological difference between men and women. I pay particular tribute to the hon. Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield) and the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) for their courage on this topic. I call attention to the interim report from Dr Hilary Cass, which is just out, which highlights the vertiginous increase in young teenage girls presenting as trans. I am afraid I do not believe that we have suddenly discovered a whole new population of trans people who were repressed or denied. I fear that, by telling people that they can change sex, we are further confusing a lot of very confused young people at the most confusing time of their life. Just as great a concern is the biological males deciding in adulthood that they want access to women-only spaces. I echo the points made by my hon. Friends the Members for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) and for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price). I hope there is some value in a man saying that. I think that trans activism is a new form of misogyny. It involves the essential denial of reality. I think we need a legal definition of what a woman is. A woman is an adult female. It is a biological and immutable reality and it is time to recognise that in the law.