Charlotte Nichols
MP for Warrington North · Labour · United Kingdom
“Does the Minister accept that although people co-infected with HIV and hepatitis C represent only around 7% of those on infected blood support schemes, they make up roughly 14% of those receiving special category support, because of the disproportionate harm caused by early hepatitis C treatments?”
“I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman’s points, and those of the victims whose voices he is bringing to the fore. Does he agree that both the proposals by the Government and the amendment to the Victims and Courts Bill that was agreed to in the other place, which says that victims will have the right to access a transcript of the jud…”
“In the spirit of cross-party consensus, I commend both the hon. Member on securing this debate and the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) on her campaigning work in this area.”
“The violence against women and girls sector has not had the opportunity to come together to discuss it, and the Government’s framing and narrative has been to pit survivors and defendants against each other in a way that I think is deeply damaging.”
“I thought long and hard about speaking today. I will allow right hon. and hon. Members from the legal profession to make the legal arguments better than I can, and will allow Members who rightly have procedural or rights-based concerns for defendants, which I share, to raise them. I trust that those points will be satisfactorily covered.”
“Shamefully, the tariffs have not been uprated in line with inflation since 2012 and have no eligibility for non-contact sexual offences, which can cause significant and lasting harm.”
The complete record
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“I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention, again, and echo her remark about enjoying a debate that, from the call list at least, seemed as though it would not be as lively as it has been. I thank her for that. As I said earlier in my speech, the economic forecasts that relate to the future of Scotland are the basis on which I made those remarks. About 350,000 people in Scotland earn less than the real living wage. They deserve a better system than the one that the Tories trap them in and they deserve the genuine action that the SNP has refused them. The Labour party offers a better, fairer and more credible system than either of them—and I am really pleased to see the hon. Member for Glasgow East enjoying my speech and agreeing with me so strongly!”
“I am interested in how a policy that, as the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire said, affects only a very small number of people can be unsustainable. We know that all money put into early years represents a saving over a child’s lifetime, particularly for those children who are in the sharpest financial straits because of their family circumstances. Those are, of course, no fault of the child, so how can this be a matter of fairness? To pick up on the point about the rape clause—non-consensual sex is rape—how can it possibly be fair that at a time when we have a conviction rate of less than 1.6%, women are being asked to re-traumatise themselves, not only through the justice system, but in accessing the support that their families need?”
“I send solidarity to my fellow gingers in the Chamber and beyond who will no doubt be struggling with the heat today, as I am. NHS staff are justifiably angry. The Minister can tone police my hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Dr Allin-Khan) all she likes, but frankly she will get shorter shrift if she speaks to the exhausted, demoralised and underpaid NHS staff in my area. Rather than clutching her pearls, will the Minister please turn her attention to delivering the much-trailed pay rise that she has failed to announce today—one that fairly reflects the contributions of NHS staff, redresses years of real-terms pay cuts, and addresses the number of NHS key workers who are still shamefully paid below the real living wage?”
“Owing to our proximity to both, a large number of my constituents work at Manchester airport and Liverpool John Lennon airport, or otherwise rely on them for their livelihoods, and that includes our local taxi trade. The business rates relief for airports and ground handlers in England was welcomed by the sector and is a much needed boost for everyone, as is the Chancellor’s extension for a further six months. However, those payments, capped at £8 million last year and £4 million this year, barely touched the sides for some airports, yet the Minister repeatedly assures us that the Government are helping the sector. When will the Minister step up and provide real assurances that our aviation industry will be given the support it needs?”
“I am interested in the specific examples that the hon. Gentleman is giving, because surely this Bill would actually promote and protect the right of people to make exactly the kinds of abhorrent remarks that he is talking about, making Jewish students less safe on campus. How does he reconcile this aspect of his speech with his support for the Bill?”
“As Tyrone Mings rightly said, this Government do not “get to stoke the fire at the beginning of the tournament by labelling our anti-racism message as ‘Gesture Politics’ & then pretend to be disgusted when the very thing we’re campaigning against, happens.” This Bill is yet another dog whistle from a Government who are unleashing forces that they will not and cannot hope to control. Let us scrap it and move on to things that really matter to our constituents.”
“Friend the Member for Coventry North West said, this is about creating a better culture of debate, so what is the purpose of this Bill? What free speech does it extend beyond the limitations in existing legislation? It does not do that, as those restrictions on absolute free speech remain in place. This was never a policy designed to address the problems in the university sector, and it is revealed as even more cynical and shoddy today as we condemn the racist abuse of our national footballers by the kind of vermin who have received tacit endorsement from the very highest levels of government.”
“Rightly, we do not have an absolute right to freedom of speech in this country, be it in respect of our libel laws, the criminalisation of hate speech, the Government’s push to have universities adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism or universities’ statutory duties under the Prevent strategy. Even in this Chamber, as was rightly mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North West (Taiwo Owatemi), we do not have freedom of speech, whether that is in the fact that when we say “you” in the Chamber, Madam Deputy Speaker, we refer to your good self, or that when my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel) accidently named me earlier, he got a little ticking off for it. As my hon.”
“Communities, including university communities, are not obliged to welcome violent, degrading or dangerous lies from genocide deniers or virus deniers. This Government’s lack of commitment to free speech is made clear by their planned crackdown on protests in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. This is a tawdry piece of vice-signalling to groups who wish students were not so in favour of social equality. This is a bad Bill that offers nothing to students or to society. This is a matter not of cancel culture but of consequences culture. This Bill and the rhetoric around it are nothing more than imports from Trump’s playbook in the United States, in furtherance of this Government’s nonsense culture wars.”
“We are not obliged to accept their bile or their attempts to fundraise and recruit when given a platform. When Nick Griffin was given a seat on a “Question Time” panel, the British National party reported 3,000 new membership applications and raised thousands of pounds. That platform did not allow his views to be challenged; it validated them and grew the cancer of extremism that he represents. What academic merit is there in the denial or distortion of the holocaust, or in the kind of ideology that saw a Member of this House killed? How many more people have to be murdered before we realise that these are not ideas that can be debated away? My grandfather Edward Nichols, of blessed memory, did not go to fight Hitler in the marketplace of ideas. That generation had the right idea, and we must do so too.”
“The star of David around my neck was a gift from my friend and comrade Ria on the occasion of my bat mitzvah. It was bought from a market on the site of the former Jewish ghetto in Poland, and I wear it proudly—not only as a symbol of my faith, but as a reminder of the millions killed because they were like me. Even if Ministers try to row back from their declaration of guaranteeing platforms for holocaust deniers, will they now come up with an official list of what hate speech is protected and what is not? Will their hierarchy of hatred allow denial of the Srebrenica genocide, the 26th anniversary of which was yesterday, or will they accept that giving fascists the legal protection to demand restitution from the courts is a terrible idea? Fascists incite hatred and oppose our right to live in a non-violent democratic society.”
“University students have never had such a raw deal as they do today. Sky-high tuition fees lumber them with decades of debt. Living costs soar, along with private sector rents. Thousands suffered lockdowns and virtual learning last year, without a reduction in what they were charged, and sexual harassment and assaults on university campuses are at shocking levels. But what is the issue that the Government choose to legislate on? Giving peddlers of hate speech the right to sue universities or student unions if their events are cancelled. The Minister for Universities, the hon. Member for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan), admitted that this would include Holocaust deniers and, in her words, views that would be “hugely offensive” and “hugely hurtful”.”
“Research from the TUC has found that one in four pregnant women and new mums experienced unfair treatment or discrimination at work during the pandemic, including being singled out for redundancy or furlough. The imminent tapering off of furlough prompts serious concern about unequal redundancies. Will the Minister follow Labour’s lead and, instead of the Government simply extending their ineffective and complicated laws, make things simpler and more robust for mothers and businesses alike by introducing a German-style ban on making a pregnant woman or new mother redundant from notification of pregnancy to six months after they return to work?”
“The pandemic is not over, and learning to live with the virus means putting in place measures to reduce risk. Flamefast, based in Woolston Grange in Warrington North, manufactures CO 2 monitors that alongside measures such as air filtration and improved ventilation can help dramatically to reduce the risk of indoor transmission of the virus. Why has the Secretary of State ignored calls from the Labour party to put in place measures such as air filtration, improved ventilation and CO 2 monitoring to reduce the risk in indoor confined spaces, particularly in hospitals and care homes, for the most vulnerable in our communities, which could help to save lives and to give a vital boost to our manufacturing sectors?”
“The Conservatives have made it clear that they are not a party interested in supporting LGBT people. Last November, the Conservatives ended the £4 million funding for anti-LGBT bullying in our schools, in a move that echoes Thatcher’s section 28. This year alone, we have seen their whole LGBT advisory panel disbanded, with members citing a hostile environment for LGBT people. I commend the principles of those advisers but, I am afraid, in this Pride Month, what Ministers should instead feel is shame.”
“If so, what funding is being committed to achieve those outcomes? If not, what plan is the GEO following? It is absolutely unacceptable that the Government have failed to bring forward legislative proposals to ban conversion therapies. It was promised under the previous Prime Minister in 2018 and then delayed and delayed and delayed. Now fears are growing that it will not be a comprehensive ban after all. Labour is clear: we will support a ban on all harmful conversion practices for LGBT people. Anything less will be just another broken Tory promise. We must hope that the current Minister has not converted her party away from its previous commitment and we will be scrutinising the legislation closely when it is finally brought forward. That is not an alarmist view.”
“Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton, that can manifest itself in many ways, including turning to drugs and alcohol to try to bury the hurt and trauma, as facing up to it without support can be too painful to bear. Unfortunately, unlike with other equality groups, we do not have enough data to assess the impact of the pandemic on LGBT people. Have Ministers asked those questions, or sought to find out over the past year? What will they now do to reach out to LGBT people to ascertain the facts? There is also some confusion as to what plan the Government are working on to end LGBT inequality. Will the Minister confirm to the House today whether the LGBT action plan—published in 2018 and endorsed by the Prime Minister during the general election campaign—is still the work plan being followed by the Government Equalities Office?”
“That is not yet the case throughout the world, however, and it is another reason why the Government should not cut our aid budget. We are waiting for Ministers to publish the HIV action plan that would set out action to end new cases of HIV in England by 2030 and specifically what that says about increased testing for HIV and the availability of PrEP. All those issues lead to disproportionately high levels of poor mental health among LGBT people, with half saying they have experienced depression. That has been an even greater challenge during lockdown, particularly among younger people, who in many cases have been confined with people—sometimes including family—who are unaware of or hostile to their sexual identities. As we heard in the incredibly powerful and courageous speech by my hon.”
“The Government have promised to open three new clinics to reduce waiting lists by 1,600 by next year, but that will still leave more than 10,000 people, so what more will the Minister do, or will he blame that on the previous Health Secretary? Instead of taking action to end unlawful wait times and to update the Gender Recognition Act, the Government waste time and resources on stoking division within the LGBT community. Last month marked 40 years since the first HIV cases were reported and, as we mourn and remember the members of our community who did not make old bones due to the AIDS pandemic, and the many elders whose support and wisdom my generation grew up without, we are all glad of how far we have moved on since then. In the UK, with our medical resources, HIV is no longer a death sentence.”
“What will the Minister promise to do about it? Trans people face daily discrimination, and it is vital that steps are taken to provide the equality of services and support that people need. Specialist health needs are often best addressed by trans health services offered by the NHS Gender Identity Development Service, but figures obtained by the BBC show that more than 13,500 transgender and non-binary adults are on the NHS GIDS waiting list in England. The average wait for a first appointment is 18 months, according to the national LGBT charity, the LGBT Foundation. That is in breach of patients’ legal entitlement under the NHS constitution to have their first appointment in a specialist service within 18 weeks of referral.”
“Here in the UK, we have seen hate crimes against LGBT people surge in recent years. Reported hate crimes have almost tripled, from 6,655 in 2014-15 to 18,465 in 2019-20, and 80% of LGBT people do not report hate crimes. Behind those statistics, there are people hurting now. Although we are privileged in this place, even being an MP does not shield us from this. Since being elected, I have received a number of hateful communications sent to my parliamentary office based on my sexuality, and LGBT MPs receive disgusting abuse online and in person, as has sadly been raised by a number of hon. Members during this debate. The rise in hate crime is deeply concerning, yet the Government seem complacent and would rather spend hundreds of millions of pounds on a royal yacht than use it to crack down on hate crime.”
“In more than half of the world, LGBT people may not be protected from discrimination by workplace law, and most Governments deny trans people the right legally to change their name and gender. What more can Ministers do to change this, particularly in the Commonwealth, where these rights are still criminalised in a majority of countries? It is all very well for Government Members to laud their “Safe To Be Me” conference, but LGBT people in the UK are not safe to be with them. This is a Government who are actively rowing back on their commitments to LGBT people, from dropping their plans to reform the Gender Recognition Act 2004, to delaying the urgent need to ban so-called conversion therapy, to attacking LGBT charities and pursuing a culture war against so-called woke issues—or, as they are better known, basic human rights.”
“We are not a colourful add-on to brands that do not challenge ongoing homophobia or transphobia. A rainbow does not mean that every storm has ended. I mention Orbán because he was only the second EU leader that the Prime Minister invited to visit after leaving the EU—rolling out the red carpet for Europe’s leading promoter of anti-LGBT ideology and laws. Under Orbán, as has been raised by many hon. Members across the House today, Hungary has banned same-sex adoption, implemented a section 28-style ban on gay people from featuring in school education materials or TV shows for under-18s, and ended legal recognition for gender changes. Actions speak louder than words. Globally, 72 countries still criminalise same-sex relationships and the death penalty is threatened in eight of them.”
“Although this is a year when the pandemic has prevented the Pride marches that we all enjoy—indeed, I lament the fact that my wonderfully supportive mum sashaying down the streets of Manchester in her rainbow feather boa has been again postponed—these changes have made the UK a better country and one where community, corporate, media and political groups will wave the Pride flag this month, rightly recognising and celebrating these advances. I thank them for their visibility, but there is further to go. Just last week, UEFA gave its logo a Pride makeover while refusing the city of Munich’s request to illuminate its stadium with rainbow colours for Germany’s match against Viktor Orbán’s Hungary, on the grounds that it was “political”. Well, I am sorry, but supporting LGBT rights is political.”
“In the years since the Labour Government came to power in 1997, we have seen dramatic action to remove barriers for LGBT people, including the scrapping of the Conservatives’ homophobic section 28; the creation of civil partnerships; the introduction of same-sex adoption; and the protections of the Equality Act. And yes, we have subsequently seen the establishment of same-sex marriage, supported by the Labour party. Unfortunately, that progress is now under threat from Members on the Government Benches, who have been described by members of their own LGBT advisory panel as “creating a hostile environment for LGBT people”.”
“Friend the Member for Luton North was exactly right when she drew parallels between the hate crime and discrimination faced by other groups and that faced by the LGBT community. We all have more in common than that which divides us, and none of us are equal until we are all equal. Pride Month is an opportunity to celebrate both who we are and how far we have come, and the giants on whose shoulders we stand, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing North said. It is also an opportunity to highlight ongoing issues and to challenge the Government and our society to go further to reach full equality for all lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer people and other groups.”
“Friends the Members for Ealing North (James Murray), for Newport East (Jessica Morden), for Slough (Mr Dhesi), for Liverpool, West Derby (Ian Byrne), for Luton North (Sarah Owen), for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) and for Liverpool, Riverside (Kim Johnson). On a personal level, as the Member of Parliament for Warrington North I am particularly pleased that there has been such a strong showing from the north-west, given the attempts by the Conservative party and the media to paint the interests of the so-called red wall and the interests of the LGBT community as somehow at odds with each other. I know that that could not be further from the truth in communities like mine. My hon.”
“This has been an excellent debate on Pride Month. Indeed, I am exceptionally proud to respond to it on behalf of Her Majesty’s Opposition as shadow Minister for Women and Equalities and a proud LGBT parliamentarian. After today’s by-election in Batley and Spen, I hope that another LGBT MP will join us tomorrow, in Kim Leadbeater. I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for securing this essential debate, and specifically to my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Dame Angela Eagle) and the hon. Members for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) and for Ochil and South Perthshire (John Nicolson) for bringing it forward. I pay specific tribute to the moving contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Dan Carden), and I thank the many contributors to this debate, including my hon.”
“On the Minister’s point about the experience of LGBT people during the pandemic, will the Government commit to an equality impact assessment so that this can be properly measured and recorded and action can be taken based on the facts?”
“Teachers and school staff in Warrington North have moved heaven and earth over the past 18 months to try to support the education and welfare of our town’s young people in the face of last-minute, changing and often contradictory guidance. Nowhere is this more the case than in special educational needs and disability educational settings, especially as testing can be traumatic or, indeed, impossible for some children with special needs. When will schools know what is to happen in September and, can the Secretary of State confirm that this will be shared with schools well in advance of the summer holiday to ensure that staff are not required to work across their summer leave, and that specific guidance will be provided for SEND schools rather than their being an after-thought?”
“The Minister did not give a straightforward answer to my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), so I will ask her again: is she confirming that Ministers did use private email addresses to approve contracts and that the Department of Health and Social Care therefore misled the public in its statement denying categorically that that happened? Given just how serious this is, will she agree to refer it to the Information Commissioner so that there is an independent investigation, not another Government whitewash?”
“Like many Warringtonians, and indeed a number of other hon. Members who I know plan to attend, I am massively looking forward to Warrington’s Neighbourhood Weekender festival, which has been rescheduled for September. Naturally, news that the Kendal Calling festival has been cancelled has caused huge concern to the events sector, as has the lack of publication of the events research programme. Festivals cannot plan ahead on a vague promise of “very soon” from the Minister, so what recent discussions has the Minister had with festivals across the country that need to make imminent decisions impacting on jobs, livelihoods and events of cultural significance to ensure they can go ahead?”
“I am also working with our vibrant creative sector to bring sculptures and other artworks to the parks to celebrate our local culture and heritage. All of this is now under threat. The Government’s White Paper has not only nothing on the natural environment, but almost nothing on affordable rent or on net zero. It does not address wider infrastructure such as transport, retail or leisure, and simply puts developers in the driving seat of their cranes and diggers and gives them a green light to do what they like. I am not opposed to house building. Indeed, probably the largest volume of casework that I deal with relates to the lack of appropriate housing, especially affordable housing for large families and for constituents of my age looking to get on to the housing ladder.”
“If this developer’s charter becomes law, there would be no way for local people to object to bad or inappropriate proposals, such as those to build over Peel Hall in Warrington despite the valiant campaigning efforts over the past three decades by residents against proposals from Satnam. This vital green lung in our communities is beloved by residents and is a vital part of our area’s biodiversity. Working with Warrington’s Labour council, I am looking at ways to make nature more accessible to residents, including bringing together the green spaces and nature reserves that ring the town through connecting cycleways and pathways to create a Warrington orbital park, and working with volunteers to clean up these spaces.”
“I am very pleased to be able to speak in this debate today, not just because there are local issues that I wish to raise, but because planning policy reveals so much about who really has a say in deciding the face and quality of our towns and country in the years and decades to come. There are natural tensions between residents, conservationists, people seeking new homes and the developers who stand to benefit. A fair planning system gives them all an opportunity to present their cases and to be heard equally so that provision can be made without exploiting or spoiling our landscape and heritage.”
“Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) became leader of his party? Scarcely a week goes by without stories emerging of the Communities Secretary weighing in on behalf of developers who have made big donations to him or the Conservatives. We can see the threat to our green and pleasant land from these greedy, present plans. I suspect that the Government would like to drop these proposals, but that is difficult when they have been bought. If Ministers press ahead with this developers’ charter, they must know that it will be resisted in the country, even in areas they have taken for granted. I call on them to listen to their constituents, not their paymasters, and to drop the proposals.”
“My right hon. Friend is exactly right. We need more three and four-bedroom family properties in Warrington where people can have a good standard of living, but what developers want is to convert or build endless one-bedroom flats where they benefit from their highest profit margins while delivering the least for families and our community. Communities should have more say on planning and development. They know what is needed locally, and systems work better where people are working together rather than being shut out. So why have the Government put forward such obviously terrible proposals, angering their Back Benchers and even their own voters, as we saw in the by-election last week? Could it be connected to the fact that developer donations to the Tory party have risen 400% since the right hon.”
“Will the Government therefore consider implementing the Public Authority (Accountability) Bill of the former Member for Leigh to set a requirement on public institutions, public servants and officials, and on those carrying out functions on their behalf, to act in the public interest and with candour and frankness, so that other families bereaved in public disasters cannot be treated as disgracefully as the Hillsborough families have been?”
“Thirty-two years after the Hillsborough tragedy, the families of the 96 football fans unlawfully killed that day have not seen justice done. Three of my Warrington North constituents—19-year-old Ian “Ronnie” Whelan, 19-year-old Colin Ashcroft and 42-year-old Eric Hughes—were among the 96 innocent victims killed that day. May their memories forever be a blessing. Many more of my constituents have been traumatised by the events of that day. The fact that there has been no individual responsible held to account by the justice system is a national scandal, as are the years of smears about fans that the families and survivors have endured, blaming them for the disaster.”
“What steps will her Government take to ensure that all schools can deliver relevant LGBT-inclusive, high-quality RSHE, which empowers young people, challenges attitudes that become embedded around consent and makes clear the avenues young people have for redress if they have concerns?”
“Many of the issues raised in the Ofsted report are not new, and indeed there was much I recognised from my own experience in education of widespread and normalised sexual harassment and abuse in school and on campus. As a 30-year-old, smartphones and social media only became widespread towards the latter end of my school years, but their ubiquity now has turbocharged these existing problems and created new avenues for harm. Ofsted has found that the RSHE curriculum does not reflect the reality of young people’s lives, as it has not kept up with these developments nor with young people’s capacity to get around things like filters with ease, just as my generation did. So does the Minister accept that the curriculum is not fit for purpose?”
“I would like to end by asking the Minister what is being done to hear the voice of perimenopausal and menopausal women in the women’s health strategy, which closes next week. Can she guarantee that the strategy will address the discomfort faced by perimenopausal women at work?”
“There are many reasonable adjustment that employers can make, as recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists—for example, considering workplace temperatures, designing uniforms to limit the impact of hot flushes, and being flexible with working hours so that people experiencing these symptoms are not required to travel during rush hours. Those should all be common-sense considerations without being intrusive. They will be of benefit to individual women workers and will help us unlock productivity gains as our workplaces become safer and more equal, with the talent and experience of women able to be realised much more fully. Will the Minister commit to such measures?”
“As retirement ages have risen, women are spending more years in the workplace during their menopausal and post-menopausal years. The average age for menopause is 51, but the retirement age for women is 60, so many women will work for at least a decade while experiencing symptoms of perimenopause and menopause. Workplaces now quite rightly have maternity policies, but too few focus on how to support and retain menopausal women.”
“It is similarly clear that we can do better to ensure that GPs fully appreciate the benefits and proper use of HRT. Women deserve to have clear and up-to-date facts when they make such important medical decisions about their bodies. They must not suffer a postcode lottery if some GPs have unhelpful prejudices. How will the Government ensure that? We have also heard from my hon. Friends the Members for Swansea East, for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones), for Newport West (Ruth Jones) and the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Kirsten Oswald) about how women in Wales and Scotland benefit from free prescriptions, including for HRT treatments. Will the Minister tell us the cost of making HRT available for free across the UK to address symptoms that come naturally for so many women? Is that something the Government are considering?”
“The cornerstone of normalising menopause is, of course, education in schools, including in relationship and sex education classes. I welcome that those were added to the curriculum in 2019 and would like to hear from the Minister details of how widespread that teaching now is. We heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East important details about alarming gaps in medical school training. Some 41% of medical schools do not teach about the menopause, and we can only imagine how many misdiagnoses that produces. I understand that a third of women do not even seek to discuss the menopause with their GP. Let us hope that better training will lead to increased confidence. This is clearly something that needs to be improved. Will the Minister set out what steps the Government will take to require such training for doctors?”
“They are disproportionately likely to be diagnosed with menopausal-related conditions such as heart disease, diabetes and depression. What plans does the Minister have to address that? Nor should we forget that some menopause treatments are incompatible with medicines taken by some disabled women, putting them in a particularly difficult position and hampering their ability to live normal lives. Can the Minister offer anything on specific support for disabled women? Similarly, LGBT people, including trans men, may have specific issues with being able to access support and appropriate healthcare services if they are experiencing the menopause. What measures will be taken to ensure access to everyone who needs those, regardless of gender or sexuality?”
“We should seek to be a society that understands and accommodates the symptoms that menopausal women experience as a standard part of our life cycles. We should recognise that every woman experiences menopause differently, and that 1% of women experience premature menopause, before the age of 40, sometimes induced by medical procedures such as surgery, radiotherapy or chemotherapy. As they have longer years of post-menopausal life, they are at increased risk of health problems such as the early onset of osteoporosis, as detailed by my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford South (Judith Cummins), and heart disease. We should also recognise that the menopause also affects black, Asian and minority ethnic women, who are too often overlooked in awareness campaigns that do not feature women who look like them.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Ghani. I must begin by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) for bringing forward this important topic for debate. She has done an excellent job in helping to raise awareness and to reveal the further changes we can make to ensure that our society is more supportive of menopausal and perimenopausal women. The menopause is natural—indeed, normal—and is experienced by more than half of the population. It should not be embarrassing or taboo, yet nor should women be required to declare when they experience it. With around 5.1 million women in the UK currently aged between 45 and 55, the menopause affects a huge population at any given time.”
“Does the hon. Lady agree that it makes a mockery of parliamentary scrutiny for the Government to say that we cannot have a vote on the UK’s deal with Cameroon today because we had a debate on the EU’s deal 11 years ago, especially since the main objection that many of us have to the UK’s deal is the campaign of violence from the Biya regime against the English-speaking population of Cameroon, which began just four years ago? Perhaps, as well as buying us a new royal yacht, the International Trade Secretary might look to buy us a time machine.”