Bell Ribeiro-Addy
MP for Clapham and Brixton Hill · Labour · United Kingdom
“The hon. Member will know that, with the extreme heat and reduced rainfall, a lot of water companies are introducing hosepipe bans to mitigate the risk of drought. Does he agree that that seems a bit redundant, given that artificial intelligence data centres use between 11 million and 19 million litres of water a day?”
“This Bill seems inspired by the belief that hostility towards asylum seekers will deter them, whereas hostility towards migrants will not deter those we need economically, but we cannot have it both ways. There is a deeper problem with the Bill’s logic on citizenship provisions.”
“This appears to be blurred with a separate Bill that stops citizenship being restored after the first successful appeal, letting this Government sound tougher than they are while avoiding scrutiny of a power that is already used disproportionately against black, Asian and migrant-heritage citizens.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. First, I will acknowledge that although I disagree with the premise of this petition, I recognise the strength of feeling among the hundreds of thousands of people who signed it.”
“The petition that we are debating today raises the issue of asylum seekers being held in hotels and temporary accommodation. I certainly agree that that is unacceptable; I have seen for myself the diabolical conditions in such accommodation.”
“Automatic deportation for custodial sentences introduces double jeopardy; a wrongful sentence can now also mean unjust deportation. The deportation system is already a mess and is run by the Home Office, which is now asking for sole control of it, without oversight.”
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“I put it to the Minister that there are some people among us—I will name the Prime Minister again—who were not born in this country. The Prime Minister has committed an offence, I would say. Should he be deported if he was somebody who needed to register for citizenship here? The Government have at times stated that they would want to do that—to see anyone who has committed some sort of offence removed from this country. I think that is absolutely disgraceful. The Government must implement Wendy Williams’s review in full if they want to move past the Windrush scandal.”
“If it was serious about its commitment to change, it would enact in full the recommendations of the lessons learned review, it would invite Wendy Williams back in 18 months’ time to reassess its progress against those recommendations, and it would do more to implement change. One of the clear recommendations, already mentioned today, is not deporting people who came here at a very young age. The Government repeatedly do that. They even want to do that to people who have been born here but do not have a certain type of immigration status at the time of being accused of a crime. When people have been here since a young age, no matter what offence they may have committed, the reality is that they are a product of British society. Where on earth are we sending them if they have already paid their dues in prison?”
“Attempting to deport mothers and grandmothers of people who are British citizens and have been in this country for over 25 years—what part of that is rooted in humanity? It is only recently that the Government have changed their rules on citizenship fees for children who were born in this country or have lived here their entire life. The fees have now been reduced for those who cannot afford them, but what part of denying people who were born here access to the rights they deserve was rooted in humanity? It seems that the Home Office, rather than enacting genuine change to apologise and atone for the Windrush scandal, would rather gesture towards change but continue with the same culture and practices.”
“That was an assessment of immigration policy from 50 years ago, but it feels like a similar assessment could be made of immigration policies today. Wendy Williams boils down the 30 recommendations in her “Windrush Lessons Learned Review” to three main factors, one of which is that the Home Office must recognise that migration and wider Home Office policy are about people, and that, whatever the objective, they should be rooted in humanity. What part of the Rwanda policy would the Minister say is rooted in humanity? What part of splitting up families would the Minister say is rooted in humanity? What part of the recently announced deportation flights to Nigeria and Ghana, which, during Pride month, will attempt to deport LGBT asylum seekers, is rooted in humanity?”
“It adds insult to injury that the Government continue to deny the existence of institutional racism, which members of the Windrush generation and their descendants continue to experience. If the Government really want to honour the Windrush generation, they ought to complement that, starting with just immigration policies. Instead, they choose to push on with their hostile environment and the shameful Nationality and Borders Act 2022, as if they have learned nothing from the Windrush scandal. A leaked Home Office report concluded recently that the deep-rooted racism of the Windrush scandal lies in the fact that between 1950 and 1981, every single piece of immigration or citizenship legislation was designed at least in part to reduce the number of people with black or brown skin who were permitted to live and work in the UK.”
“The Government estimate that there are up to 15,000 people eligible to claim Windrush compensation. More than three years after the launch of the scheme, just 26% of that number have applied and only 11% have received compensation. At least 23 people have died waiting. The compensation scheme is a scandal in itself, as my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton outlined. The Government’s failure to deliver compensation to victims of the Windrush scandal shows that it was a mistake to entrust the scheme to the Department that administered the Windrush generation’s suffering in the first place. The Windrush monument is a nice gesture, but an even nicer one would be justice. Take the scheme out of the Home Office’s hands and transfer it to an independent organisation that will properly deliver the compensation that those people deserve.”
“Next year, when we celebrate the 75th anniversary of the docking of the Empire Windrush, I sincerely hope the Government will plan nationwide celebrations that are suitable for the commemoration of a day of such national significance. I also sincerely hope that those celebrations will be a vast improvement on the £1 million act of gesture politics that was unveiled at Waterloo station this year. Although I commend Basil Watson’s artistry, it would have been nice if the Government had properly consulted Windrush campaigners and organisations, including the Windrush Foundation, to discuss its design and location. If the Government truly intend to honour the Windrush generation, they will take meaningful steps to fix the Windrush compensation scheme.”
“I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Kate Osamor) on securing this vital debate. The Windrush generation have given the UK so much. When they docked in Tilbury, they brought not just extra hands to rebuild this country, but dance, art, writing, cuisine and music, which transformed British culture. Areas across the UK such as Brixton, which partly falls in my constituency, were completely reshaped by the Windrush generation and became central hubs of British culture. For the past five years we have had the opportunity to celebrate Windrush Day and recognise the contributions of that community up and down the country.”
“In its efforts to pursue a hostile environment, the Home Office routinely tears families apart and breaks human rights and equalities legislation. It is reported to be sending another deportation charter flight to Nigeria and Ghana. In Pride month, it will deport LGBT asylum seekers fleeing homophobia as well as grandmothers and mothers of British children who have lived in this country for more than 25 years. Given that the Home Office repeatedly gets it wrong and ends up having to take people off such flights, will the Deputy Prime Minister tell me how many people have been removed from that flight already and when the Home Office will stop these inhumane deportation charter flights?”
“Policing confidence is at an all-time low under this Government. The Minister may say that the Mayor of London should consider his position, but perhaps the Government should consider theirs. As he says, this is the first time that the Metropolitan police has been under special measures, and that has been under the Government’s leadership. We on this side of the House have consistently called for reform and an overhaul of the vetting and training of officers, and the Government do not listen. At what point will they accept responsibility for their failures?”
“They are willing to risk peace in Ireland, to further damage living standards across the UK and to break the law in order to cling to office. To paraphrase one of their own, Winston Churchill, never in the field of international relations has so much been put at risk to the detriment of so many for the interests of so few. If it is not already abundantly clear, I am firmly against this ridiculous Bill.”
“The Foreign Secretary called herself a patriot and said that her party was the party of the Union, and firmly in belief and support of the Union, but the Conservative party can’t be serious. We have a disastrous Brexit that they are now trying to fiddle with, a shoddy Government generally, shocking legislation that is just making nationalists’ arguments for them, hostility to greater devolution, and ignoring of the views of people across the nations of this country. This Government are not a defender of the Union; they are probably the biggest threat to the Union of the United Kingdom that there has been in recent years. They are unwilling to face reality or to come clean with the people of this country.”
“Ministers know full well that the majority of people in Northern Ireland voted against Brexit, by a much bigger margin than the Vote Leave campaign achieved, and they continue to elect a large majority of MPs and MLAs who oppose Brexit and support the protocol—but then this Government and their predecessors have never been over-concerned with democracy in Ireland. The reality is that the claim on which the Conservatives fought the election—that they would get Brexit done—was a great deception. Six years after the referendum vote, the Conservatives have gone through three Prime Ministers, and may soon be on their fourth, but still have not got Brexit done; we would not be here if they had.”
“The potential consequences of the Bill include, but are not limited to, the possibility of an all-out trade war with the EU, no trade deal with the United States, severe disruption to our trade when the economy is already suffering from Conservative economic mismanagement, and instigating political turmoil once more on the streets of Northern Ireland. The claims that the economy in Northern Ireland is suffering as a result of the protocol are completely false. North-south trade in Ireland is actually booming. It is the economy here that is suffering, because of Brexit.”
“The Conservatives can keep trying to spin it however they like, but the bottom line is that the withdrawal treaty is an international treaty, and the unilateral abrogation of such a treaty, or any part of it, is a breach of international law. In addition to undermining any reputation for straight dealing the Government may still have, this also tarnishes the reputation of the country. It drives a coach and horses through the entire agreement that we have made with the European Union and it undermines the Good Friday agreement, with all the potentially serious consequences that that entails. It insults our intelligence when the Foreign Secretary claims that this is to protect the Good Friday agreement; it does the very opposite and she knows it.”
“This Government are making a habit of breaking the law. Only last Friday, the Home Secretary was found to be in breach of the law, and not for the first time, in relation to the Equality Act 2010 and the mistreatment of refugees. Overnight, we learned that the Prime Minister intends to be in breach of World Trade Organisation rules in order to slap tariffs on steel. Here we are today with the Foreign Secretary telling us earlier that this Government will rip up the Northern Ireland protocol that they negotiated and voted for. This is clearly another breach of the law and a shameful hat-trick from the holders of three of the foremost senior offices of Government.”
“Friend agree that the situation is absolutely disgraceful and the Home Office needs to take care when it issues visas for families? It needs something in place to attempt to find the many young people who might have already moved into Europe and might be at the mercy of people traffickers.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for giving way and for making such an important speech on what is happening at the moment. My office is dealing with similar cases and there is very little we can say to sponsors who are desperate to bring people over. I am glad to see that the guidance on unaccompanied minors has been updated, but does my hon. Friend agree with me that it might have already left some young people at the mercy of people traffickers? We have had various other situations as well. If it had happened once or twice, we might have thought it was an error, but when a family attempts to bring their entire family and the Home Office leaves off the visa for the youngest person in the family, that obviously means that the family will not travel. I started to believe that there was something sinister at play here. Does my hon.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for giving way and for making such a brilliant speech on an issue that has affected so many of our constituents. At the end of last year, I met my constituents who are victims of the Football Index collapse, and they shared with me details about the impact that the collapse has had on them financially. However, what they spoke about in most detail was the emotional impact and the damage to their mental health. Some felt ashamed or guilty for getting family members to invest and lose money in Football Index as well. Securing redress for the victims of the Football Index collapse is about more than just financial redress; it is also about giving them justice, given the emotional and psychological damage that the whole incident has caused. Does my hon. Friend agree?”
“Just last month there was a national outcry when it emerged that a black teenager had been strip-searched by police at school, having been falsely accused of possessing cannabis. There has been a string of revelations about the racism and misogyny that still blight UK policing, clearly exemplified by the vile racism and misogyny uncovered at Charing Cross police station and the already record low confidence in policing.”
“The Trade Union Act 2016, the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act and everything in between, and now this Bill, have all but eradicated what was already a severely restricted right to picket. Our unions are part of the last line of defence against this Government’s attack on working-class people, and I cannot believe that the Government would stoop so low. It is wrong that the Bill extends stop and search powers and introduces serious disruption orders when existing stop-and-search powers are already a key component of the racially unjust criminal justice system. Marginalised communities are already disproportionately likely to face criminalisation and harassment.”
“This country’s tradition of dissent has paved the way to our rights and freedoms, and those protests are the reason why someone of my class, race and gender has the rights that I have; but this Bill contains measures that would have outlawed the protests that won votes for women and trade unions. Given the Government’s trajectory, there is no doubt in my mind, at least, that these measures will be used against pickets in industrial disputes. According to the Bill, there will be a defence when it comes to trade disputes, but that defence will not be available to stop the new serious disruption prevention orders applying to individuals who take part in more than one protest within a five-year period, even if they have not been convicted. That obviously targets union officials who regularly attend and organise pickets.”
“Restricting protest, expanding discriminatory stop and search, introducing jail sentences and unlimited fines for demonstrating close to national infrastructure, and introducing new offences of locking on will not help my constituents to pay their bills, or, indeed, address many of the issues about which they will tend to protest. This is yet another Bill that seeks to stop people making their voices heard, and it disadvantages our poorest and most marginalised communities. Laws are not reasonable or fair if rights are protected only for those who agree with the Government, and curtailed for those who wish to challenge the Government. I agree with the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mhairi Black), who said last week that we were sleepwalking into fascism.”
“Given all the crises that we are facing in our country, it speaks volumes that the first Bill of a new Parliament is yet another piece of authoritarian anti-protest legislation. The message from this Government is clear: their top priority is making it harder to protest against the cost of living crisis, rather than helping people through it. The Government have already introduced some of the most serious and sweeping restrictions on the right to protest with their Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, and this Bill takes the assault on our rights one step further by reviving many of the failed measures that were rightly thrown out in the other place.”
“As Amnesty International has pointed out, “these authoritarian provisions…are similar to repressive policies in countries the UK regularly criticises—including” —yes— “Russia, Hong Kong, and Belarus”. The message to the public is very clear: we must put up with it, or shut up. This continuous attempt to criminalise dissent is a threat to everyone who wants to stand up for what they believe in, and to anyone who believes in building a better society. The way in which the Government continue to push this agenda makes it clearer than ever that we must oppose this Bill today, and oppose all further attempts by them to proceed with this authoritarian way of running the country.”
“The Bill targets, in particular, the activism of groups who have already been mentioned many times: groups such as Extinction Rebellion, Just Stop Oil, Insulate Britain, Kill the Bill and the Black Lives Matter movement. All those groups have used disruption to draw attention to major injustices such as the climate crisis, attacks on our civil liberties and institutional racism. Rather than taking action to address those injustices, the Government want to stop people speaking out about them. We must remember that today’s protests are signposts for tomorrow’s progress. How does it make sense for the Government to support protests around the world while cracking down on the right to protest here?”
“I have no issue with evidence-based stop and search. If there is a reason to stop somebody, that is absolutely fine. Unfortunately the police continue, again and again, to stop and search people from certain communities. All that that does is go further down the route of making confidence in policing extremely low, which does not do anything to solve crime. When it comes to misogyny, I think about the horrifying treatment of those who attended the vigil in my constituency last year to commemorate Sarah Everard and other women who had lost their lives to violence. That made it clear that women opposing violence against women were not safe from male violence, even from those who were tasked with protecting us from it.”
“This is not the first time this has happened; nor will it be the last. Under occupation, Palestinians’ human rights are abused, and as we have seen, they cannot even bury their dead with dignity. Does the Minister understand that until we have a lasting peace, we will not tackle the situation at its root? Does she understand that although the UK has committed to a two-state solution, we cannot have two states if only one is recognised? Perhaps she would like to reconsider her answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford East (Imran Hussain) and tell us when exactly she will recognise the Palestinian state.”
“The export support service is clearly not working. In 2016, the Vote Leave campaign promised us tariff-free trade with the EU with minimum bureaucracy, not another support scheme. We find ourselves in a bureaucratic nightmare with freight delays and red tape blocking what was once hassle-free trade. SMEs in my constituency simply cannot afford the legal advice that is needed to navigate all that red tape. That is no surprise because HMRC data has shown that British trade with the EU has fallen significantly. Can the Secretary of State tell us when the Government will finally deliver on hassle-free, tariff-free trade like we were promised, or will she finally admit that this was never going to happen and that this trade fiasco is going to be the norm for us from now on?”
“T5. Since February 2020 my local borough of Lambeth has seen a 14% drop in dementia diagnosis. That means people are not getting the support that comes from diagnosis. We also know that so far none of the announced £8 billion backlog funding has been dedicated to addressing the stagnation of diagnosis rates. Can the Secretary of State explain what exactly he is going to do to make sure that people get diagnosed on time?”
“(Urgent Question) : To ask the Secretary of State to make a statement on the recent report concerning the Metropolitan police’s handling of the strip-search of Child Q.”
“The Minister may be aware that during the statement on the commission on race and ethnic disparities last week, the Minister for Equalities said: “We have systems in place to ensure that when things go wrong we can right them. What we cannot do is stop any bad thing happening to anyone in the country at any time.” —[ Official Report , 17 March 2022; Vol. 710, c. 1075.] I have to ask: what on earth are this Government here for? I simply do not accept that. Finally, in the words of Child Q herself: “I need to know that the people who have done this to me can’t do it to anyone else ever again”. Can the Minister assure Child Q and our constituents of that?”
“Does the Minister accept that this is not an isolated incident—that between 2016 and 2021 the Met carried out over 9,000 strip-searches on children, some younger than 12, and that over 33% of all strip-searches were carried out on black people, despite only 13% of Londoners being black? Given that this happened in a school, what discussions has his Department had with the Department for Education on this serious breach of safeguarding and the questionable presence of police officers in our schools? Will he finally accept that the Met police have an issue with institutional racism and misogyny and take steps to ensure that any new commissioner is committed to rooting it out?”
“They walked into her place of safety at the request of people who were meant to keep her safe, stripped her naked while she was on her period and forced her to remove her sanitary towel, spread her legs, part her buttock cheeks and cough, to look for drugs they never found. We should remember that this comes on top of a string of incidents, from the abuse and strip-search of Dr Duff, the rapist and murderer Wayne Couzens, the vile racism and misogyny uncovered in Charing Cross police station, the brutal handling of the vigil in Clapham Common, and the record low confidence in policing, particularly by minority communities, who are evidenced as being over-policed as citizens and under-policed as victims. Does the Minister understand that there is no apology that could atone for the perverse racist degradation of this child?”
“Does the Minister understand why black, Asian and ethnic minority people across the country will not be encouraged by what she has said today? It simply looks like more smoke and mirrors, more warm words and nothing that will solve the racism we face daily.”
“Unfortunately, I find what the Minister has said to be smoke and mirrors. We started with a report that began on the premise that there is no evidence of institutional racism when those who contributed to the report and those who it is meant to support have widely rejected that idea as completely false. Why would the Minister not take the question back to the drawing board? What on earth is moral history meant to be when people have called for the teaching of black history? How can the Government claim that there is no evidence of institutional racism given the case of Child Q and everything we have heard about police institutions, educational institutions and health institutions? Claiming that those institutions do not fail people will not help us to start from a place where we can fix things.”
“Whenever I speak about this Government’s treatment of refugees, I am reminded that he said: “The way a Government treats refugees is very instructive because it shows you how they would treat the rest of us if they thought they could get away with it.” My advice to this Government would be to be more like the British people in their treatment of refugees, before the British people see them for who they really are.”
“Even in the light of all that, the Government persist with their anti-refugee Nationality and Borders Bill. We have to conclude that, like Pavlov’s dog, Ministers’ reflexes take over when they hear the words “migrants” and “refugees,” and their reflexes are distasteful and objectionable. They are not the reflexes of the people of this country, who are empathetic, charitable and giving. As we have already heard, yesterday we marked eight years since the death of the late, great Tony Benn.”
“There have been attempts to push back refugees in the channel, refugees have been kept in buildings that are not fit for habitation and some have contracted serious disease in unsanitary conditions. We have seen others, including British citizens, wrongly deported from this country. It should never be forgotten that this Government and their predecessors are indelibly stained by the continuing Windrush scandal. They are also yet to provide an adequate response to the many hon. Members who have raised the situation of African and Asian students in Ukraine who face discrimination while fleeing the war. Many might ask what that has to do with us, but this Government would surely like to send a message that no race or nationality is more worthy of safe passage or refuge than any other. The Government’s responses to date are woefully lacking.”
“None of them states, “You can let in some people who want to come, depending on the generosity of your own citizens.” That is not international law. The legal position is that refugees have the right to seek asylum and that states are obligated to grant it, where appropriate. That does not mean directing people to non-existent processing centres in Calais or to a secretly located centre somewhere in Lille. It does not mean denying refuge to people from a war-torn region because they do not have relatives here. I know the visa scheme has since been extended, but it is a visa scheme, which is not how the asylum system has worked. I am sorry to say these failings have become customary under this Government and their predecessors. The Government have failed to meet either their legal or moral obligations since they took office in 2010.”
“The response of the Government in no way reflects this generosity of spirit or this international solidarity. Worse, Ministers seem to believe that the appropriate response to justified criticism is to attack, or that the response to serious shortcomings is self-congratulation. It is simply not enough compared with our counterparts across Europe. My hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy), the shadow Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, was right to be critical of the latest Government plan. As she said, it is not a plan but a press release. It is a DIY refugee scheme. I remind Ministers that we are a signatory to international treaties governing the treatment of refugees.”
“As Russia’s unjustifiable assault continues, it is important that we in the international community do everything in our power to bring this unprovoked invasion to an end. Equally, while we wait for that time, we should be doing all we can to support those most affected—those who are fleeing. We have heard a great deal of criticism of the Government’s response to the Ukrainian refugee crisis. Unfortunately, the overwhelming bulk of that criticism is fully justified. The Government’s response has been late, half-hearted, partial and discriminatory. We can rightly be proud of the response of the British public to the crisis, however. So many of them have opened their hearts and their purses, and now we hear that hundreds of thousands have even offered to open their homes.”
“In 2022, if your organisation continues to preside over under-representation and a gender pay gap, it is simply just trash. If you are not actively a part of the solution to end gender inequality, you are simply just another part of the problem.”
“When the majority of women in the world are of colour, a women’s movement that does not recognise the impact that racism plays, and the fundamental role it has in increasing inequality among women, is not truly a movement that represents all women, and it is not worth what it says it is worth. That is not acceptable. The idea that we should fight for women’s equality but make concessions for a certain group of women first, and then later we can get to this other group of women, has been the bane of the women’s equality movement, and that absolutely has to change. We have to demand equality for all women and we have to do it right now. In this country at the moment the equality we seek for women does not have to be so hard.”
“Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Apsana Begum) was right to say that no one could claim to support standing up for all women if we allow a heinous piece of legislation such as the Nationality and Borders Bill to go ahead, which will only worsen the situation for some of the most vulnerable women in the world. Finally, I worry about a movement for women’s equality and a feminism that does not represent all women, of all classes, nationalities and races. I was sad to hear black women speak of being feminists but not being able to call themselves such because they do not believe that movements for women’s equality typically represent their experiences as black women.”
“Their choice has been to discriminate against women every single day, and they should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves. It is right that we have discussed domestic gender inequality, as that is obviously extremely important, but we must remember that we are celebrating International Women’s Day, which is a day for all women, wherever they are in the world. Our minds rightfully turn to the plight of women in Ukraine who are facing Putin’s aggression: those women we all saw this morning in the maternity hospital; those left behind in the country, as so many women often are in this situation; and those who have fled and are currently being denied asylum by countries such as ours, alongside refugees from other countries who are also fleeing war and persecution. My hon.”
“Change does not come just because time goes on; it is something that people have to make happen. Because of the work of women in this House and across society, enforcing equality has never been easier, as we have best practice, policy and legislation—all these different things—at our disposal. In 2022 the under-representation of women in senior roles and a gender pay gap is a choice. So I will not applaud all the colourful social media bits that have been put up by different organisations, and the events and seminars for women that have gone by in past days. I will not applaud those organisations for saying that they are trying, because they are just failing. The ones that continue to preside over these situations have made a choice.”
“The representation of women in senior positions, right across society, is still woefully low. I am proud to be part of a parliamentary Labour party that is 51% women. I will not pretend that that happened overnight, but when the time came, we did not wait for attitudes to change and we did not rest on platitudes. We took action to increase representation, and the result is someone like myself, who is the product of an all-women shortlist. This is a parliamentary party that reflects society not only in its make-up, but in the quality of debate and in the policies that are put forward. So to all those in organisations across the country who are wringing their hands and saying, “Oh, it’s so hard. What do we do on women’s equality?”, I say, “You are just making excuses”.”
“This year, as on every International Women’s Day, organisations have taken to social media to share their commitment to gender equality and to breaking the bias, which is this year’s theme. In response, the “Gender Pay Gap Bot” Twitter account tweeted the pay gap of those organisations. Some organisations could hold their head high, such as Contact Company, Abbeycroft Leisure, St John Ambulance and a few others, but unfortunately these organisations were in the minority. In 2022, we still live in a society in which 83% of the UK’s most popular jobs have a gender pay gap. Recent Labour party analysis shows that, at the current rate of progression, the gender pay gap will not close until 2059. We need urgent action to change the system and address pay inequality, which is not just plain wrong but leaves so many women vulnerable to abuse.”
“It is a pleasure to participate in this debate and to celebrate the trailblazers who made it possible for so many women to come through these doors and sit on these Benches: the women who fought, protested, sacrificed and put their lives on the line in their effort to secure gender equality and to grant women the right to go to school, to work, to vote, to open a bank account in our own name, which is such a simple thing, and so many other rights that we could not bear to live without. I argue those women would want us not just to celebrate but to continue agitating, because there is still a long way to go and more to be done if we are to get to a state where women can truly be considered equal to men.”