Hot topic – The battle for "access" to Legal Aid for victims of Domestic Violence
Amber Rudd MP and Kate Green MP – go "head to head" on this Tricky Issue!
Victims of Domestic Violence can take years to summon up the confidence to report offences to the police. They may not, initially, tell anybody else, even friends and family yet alone those in positions of authority, about their abuse. But reforms to how Legal Aid is "accessed" in the future for Domestic Violence victims is leading to concerns that women will not be able to "qualify" for Legal Aid in order to take their cases to Court. New time restrictions are being imposed and new processes are being put in place for those in authority to legitimate that abuse did actually take place.
The Women's Institute, Mumsnet, Netmums and Rights of Women, have written to the Justice Secretary Ken Clarke, saying that the new reforms to Legal Aid will be detrimental to Domestic Violence victims. They have copied their letter to the Prime Minister, David Cameron.
The Labour Women MPs want more reforms and concessions to the proposals but Ken Clarke says the amendments he has already made are sufficient, including broadening the definition of domestic violence for legal aid purposes to include emotional and psychological harm, not just physical abuse.
Women admitted to a refuge, those receiving social services support, and any victim whose partner or ex-partner has a caution for violence against them will now also be entitled to claim legal aid. Originally only those in a refuge would have been able to claim.
The various amendments have been "ping ponging" between the House of Lords and the House of Commons. So who is for or against the various amendments?
We talk to Amber Rudd MP, the Conservative MP for Amber Valley and Kate Green, the Labour MP for Stretford and Urmston and Shadow Equalities Minister. Both have supported a number of the amendments. They spoke to our Executive Producer Boni Sones in Central Lobby.
Amber Rudd MP (Cons) Hot quote: "I feel it is an example of democracy in action because it gave us time to make the case to the Secretary of State. It gave the interest groups like the WI and Mumsnet time to make the case about widening the definition of Domestic Violence and a lot of Conservative MPs, Conservative women MPs in particular, took the opportunity to speak to the Secretary of State Ken Clarke.
"There have been very important concessions made which do safeguard women's rights, and this will be the end of the "ping pong". I hope the message comes across of the facts: that if you have been a victim of Domestic Violence you will get Legal Aid – the only thing is you have to have evidence from someone else, and that is a very reasonable position to take"
Kate Green MP (Lab) (Co-author "Everywoman Safe Everywhere" Report) Hot Quote: "It is a very confused situation with accessing Legal Aid. The government are putting women and sometimes men at risk of further abuse. We need further concessions. There is quite a lot of slow reporting, in the first few months, there can be up to a couple of dozen incidents before a victim is able to report abuse. If there are doubts about the remedy you can access, women will be all the more deterred from seeking advice and support. This is happening against a backdrop of many other changes to Legal Aid which will restrict access to advice, for example welfare benefits and housing and family law arrangements too. It is not just the DV cuts that are serious but all the other things someone fleeing DV can find themselves dealing with."
For more information contact www.parliamentaryradio.co.uk Executive Producer Boni Sones 07703716961.
Hot topic – Why are childcare costs out of the reach of most families in Britain today?
In part two of her documentary series our guest reporter Sheun Adelasoye assess the full impact that modern public policy decisions have had on the spiralling cost of childcare in Britain today.
Sheun interviews: Luciana Berger the Labour MP for Liverpool Wavertree, Claire Perry the Conservative MP for Devizes, and Ryan Shorthouse of the Social Market Foundation who is the co-author of 'A Better Beginning'.
Critics say that the Conservative Liberal Democrat coalition government has withdrawn the lifeline that most families need to support childcare costs but others allege it is the fault of the last Labour government for introducing too much regulation into the system, so that the childcare costs are now unaffordable!
Luciana Berger Hot Quote: "Childcare is very expensive in this country and we need to see more being done by government to make it more affordable. We've got some of the highest childcare costs in Europe."
Claire Perry Hot Quote: "The staff to children ratios we have in Britain are the highest in Europe, or the lowest in Europe i.e you have to have more staff than in any other country for the same number of children, and why?"
Ryan Shorthouse Hot Quote: "We've come up with an innovative solution (The National Childcare Contribution Scheme), which is costless to the Government, it doesn't count as public expenditure and it mirrors what happens with the student loan system, whereby parents are given support from government, financial support, but they pay that back through their salary each month for a long period of time."
The cost of childcare and a Crèche in the Commons - Speaker John Bercow and Jenny Willott MP
In a two-part radio documentary our guest reporter Sheun Adelasoye assess the impact that having a Crèche in the House of Commons has made to MPs and asks what solutions can be found to the high costs of childcare in modern Britain?
Insiders are known to think that David Cameron and George Osborne would be advised to think long term about moving towards tax-deductible childcare but this week's Budget has offered little redress to parents whose household budgets are being "squeezed" by changes in the benefits system. These include the now staggered withdrawal of the £20 a week child benefit for higher-rate taxpayers, which starts next January, child tax credit changes, the scrapping of the Child Trust Fund and the proposed Housing Benefit cap.
In part one of her series Sheun records an important piece of Parliamentary history by asking The Speaker John Bercow, how he reacted to much vicious personal criticism for making the House of Commons a modern workplace by setting up a Crèche on the site of the Bellamy's bar, for the use of MPs and their staff. But first she spoke to Jenny Willott the Liberal Democrat MP for Cardiff Central, who has an 18 month old son, who uses the Commons Crèche.
Jenny Willott's Hot Quote: "I don't know what I would have done if the nursery hadn't been here. I was breastfeeding, so I wanted him to be on site through the day, so if necessary I could pop over there and so on. It has made life so much easier than if I'd had a child minder off site and had to go back and forth."
Sheun Adelasoye, reporter
John Bercow's Hot Quote: "I'm saddened, not in any way put off, not worried, just saddened by the really low grade, sub-standard down market, vitriol of some of the real rag type media outlets who are not interested in the welfare of the children, or the interests of the parents or the notions of the forward looking House of Commons, who just want to write trash for cheap stories. But if those sorts of outlets think that the House of Commons Commission or the Speaker are going to be deterred from doing what we think is the right thing by parents and children, well they're very much mistaken, then they can go on whistling in the wind, but that's all it is."
Clare's Law and Hazel Blears MP – "Two people every week die from domestic violence"
Hazel Blears the Labour MP for Salford and Eccles has been campaigning for a new law to give women more information about violent partners who have a previous record of domestic violence.
Her constituent Clare Wood, was murdered by her former partner George Appleton after she ended the relationships. He stalked her, threatened her and then eventually strangled her in February 2009 and later hanged himself. In the past he had repeatedly harassed women.
The Home Secretary, Theresa May, has just announced that "Clare's Law" is to be piloted in four areas including Salford and Greater Manchester. Hazel has been working closely with Clare's father Michael Brown for two years to secure this change.
Sheun Adelasoye, reporter
The pilot "Clare's Law" scheme is based on two options: the 'right to ask' and the 'right to know' and will test the methods used by the police to disclose information to victims or potential victims of domestic violence.
Our guest reporter Sheun Adelasoye spoke to Hazel about it. Thanks Sheun. Congratulations Hazel!!
Hazel's Hot Quote: "Two women a week – 100 women every year - are killed by their violent partners and for many of them there will be a history of domestic violence, before it gets to the point of killing someone there has been a serious of incidents taking place. The police estimate that across the country there are probably 25,000 people who are deemed to be serial perpetrators with a history of domestic violence so it is a big, big problem."
Slavery and FGM – Three Campaigners and two Hot Topics that refuse to go away!
Jane Ellison MP and Amber Rudd MP - Raising awareness of FGM – still practiced in the UK today!
Two Conservative women MPs, Jane Ellison the MP for Battersea and Amber Rudd the MP for Hastings & Rye have helped establish a new All-Party Parliamentary Group on Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), which Jane Chairs.
The new Group is made up of over 50 MPs and Peers from all the main political parties. It has been formed to raise awareness of FGM in the UK and overseas and to work with the Government and NGOs towards eradicating the harmful practice.
2001 figures suggest that around 20,000 girls in the UK are living at risk of having FGM committed against them and 66,000 girls and women are already living with the consequences. It is believed that the problem might now be a lot bigger, especially in London.
Hot quote Jane: "It is heart-breaking. The headmistress who spoke to me about the problem of FGM said I saw the little girl go off a happy little eight year old and come back a shadow of her former self, a depressed inward looking child."
Hot quote Amber: "This is something we will be raising on International Women's Day with the International Development Minister, Andrew Mitchell. I will certainly let my constituents know about it."
Fiona Mctaggart MP - Buycotting not boycotting goods that use slave labour.
Fiona Mctaggart the Labour MP for Slough has successfully introduced the "Eradication of Slavery (UK Company Supply Chains)" Ten Minute Rule Bill.
Fiona and other MPs across party are asking women as family shoppers to "buycott" not "boycott" goods that are made using slave labour.
Hot quote: "I suppose I thought while I was growing up that Slavery had been abolished. That this Parliament had played a big role in getting rid of it two Centuries ago and that it didn't exist anymore. My horror in recent decades was to find that it is quite widespread still and that it exists around the World today and that it can even be found in this Country. It is down to people like to me in Parliament to end that, if we don't then perhaps no-one else will."
For more information contact Boni Sones: 07703 716961
News Release: 5 March 2012
Tricky Issue
Penny Mordaunt MP, defends the Health and Social Care Bill
Just imagine. You are a Conservative MP out on the doorstep having to defend your Government's much criticised NHS Reform Bill. You knock on the door and your constituent asks you to say why you want the Bill to succeed when others are talking of scrapping it altogether?
Critics have dubbed The Bill David Cameron's poll tax moment, and Nick Clegg has admitted it is more unpopular than the controversial raising of tuition fees.
The Bill will pass accountability down to the local level with GPs and local authorities being responsible for commissioning services and larger bureaucratic structures such as PCTs scrapped. We asked Penny Mordaunt, the Conservative MP for Portsmouth North, to explain clearly what the Bill does and why she supports it?
Hot Quote: "The people that are deciding whether someone should have a drug or not is not that person's GP or their consultant or their specialist, it is not based on clinical need, and for me that is the killer change that we need to happen that this Bill will bring about. The people making those decisions should be your GP your oncologists, your hospital consultant."
You can read more of what Penny says in our Press Release.
Thanks ever so for listening to wpradio.co.uk Archive Site and our newly launched www.parliamentaryradio.com (for women).
Our web stats continue to grow and to show that we are attracting significant audiences as a "stand alone" web platform with no membership base but interested and socially concerned listeners who "somehow" find their way to us.
We can tell from our band width figures and the data on our "unique visitors" and "number of visits" that our audience stays online to listen to our "as live" podcasts with women MPs for minutes rather than seconds.
Around one-third of our visitors are listening to us for between 2 minutes to one hour.
Messages like this one are regularly arriving via email:
Dear Ms Sones
Just discovered "Parliamentary Radio for Women" and wanted to congratulate you and all who are part of this venture! I've been involved on and off with women's projects for a few years and this is a great idea. I look forward to hearing more and good luck with it!
All the best
Dr. Anita Raghunath
Last year wpradio.co.uk had 13,645 unique visitors, 36,979 visits, over half a million hits = 529,984 and 18 per cent of our audience stayed online for half an hour or longer than an hour. That’s cool! Jackie, Deborah, Linda and I would like to thank you for your support. Thanks too to our Advisory Board and our web manager Adrian.
Campaigners often bring their campaigns to the heart of Westminster, and World Book Day 2012 set up a colourful display in the Committee Corridors to celebrate books and reading with MPs.
Here we asked the MPs to read extracts of their favourite children's books to our listeners!
You will hear from Joanna Prior, Chair of World Book Day 2012, Stephen Williams, Liberal Democrat MP for Bristol West, Lyn Brown the Labour MP for West Ham, Alan Hurcombe, Group MD for Scholastic, and Tristram Hunt, the Labour MP for Stoke-on-Trent Central, author and Chair of the All Party Publishing Group, who launched the campaign.
A World book day £1 token will buy you one of the eight specially-produced World Book day books. Our MPs seemed to like "How to Train Your Dragon", by Cressida Cowell. Are you sitting comfortably? Now they will begin...
The Campaigners – fighting in the front line of politics for social justice!
The need for a new law on stalking – sooner not later.
Should the UK follow some parts of the United States and Scotland in introducing a law specifically to create an offence of stalking? The Independent all-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Stalking Law Reform, Chaired by the barrister Elfyn Llwyd, and Plaid Cymru MP has just concluded that a new law is needed specifically to deal with stalking.
At the moment stalking can only be dealt with in a Magistrates Court, as a lower tier harassment offence under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 which was passed to deal with the problem of fixated behaviour.
Mr Llwyd's Committee also wants perpetrators of the offence to be put through clinical psychology courses. In all the report makes 30 different recommendations.
Hot Quote: "There were people who had reported stalking offences to all the authorities and the stalking continued and they were murdered. We heard of two or three such examples and their parents came and gave evidence to us. How they managed to do it I don't know but without their help we wouldn't have got anywhere. In some cases there wasn't a dry eye in the room.
"There has never been a stalking law as it has never been identified in law as the offence of stalking. We need a dedicated stalking law nothing else will work. There are 120,000 reports of stalking each year, very few are prosecuted, and of those that are prosecuted fewer than 3 per cent end up in prison sentences. "
Tightening up health and safety legislation – how companies are escaping justice
Luciana Berger, the Labour MP for Liverpool Wavetree, has introduced a Ten Minute Rule Bill to tighten up health and safety legislation in the workplace to prevent companies going into liquidation to avoid paying out personal injury compensation claims.
It follows the death in 2007 of a constituent, Mark Thornton, who died after a mobile crane toppled over and crushed him.
She said her proposal would close a "loophole" which meant some so called "phoenix firms" facing a Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigation were able to force themselves into liquidation in order to avoid punishment for an employee's death or injury.
Ms Berger claimed 50 people had been killed last year as a result of accidents at work in the construction industry alone.
Hot Quote: "For me it is an issue of social justice. The companies concerned have set up again, almost the next day, just with a different name. The pain that families go through to know that firms have managed to avoid paying the fines that they should have paid and avoid justice, yet they are still trading but the families have lost their loved ones. "
Seema Malholtra the new Labour MP for Feltham and Heston tells www.parliamentaryradio.com for women how delivering your Maiden Speech in the House is an "overwhelming experience"!
Seema, who grew up in the area, paid tribute to Alan Keen who had been the local MP since 1992 until his death in 2011. When our Executive Producer, Boni Sones, caught up with Seema in Central Lobby Westminster, she had just visited Feltham Skills Centre, been to Prime Minister's Questions, attended the Police cuts debate, the Ten Minute Rule Bill debate on Corporate Manslaughter, and met with the Operation Black Vote mentoring scheme. She has just been voted onto the cross-party Justice Select Committee.
Seema, a management consultant, is well known in Westminster as a founder of the Fabian Women's Network. Many a cheer went up as she stood to give her "Maiden"!
Hot Quote: "My Maiden Speech was an overwhelming experience. The first few weeks of being in Westminster were awe inspiring and the warm welcome from all sides of the House, which is probably peculiar to a by-election perhaps, but nothing does prepare you for making that first speech."
For more information contact Boni Sones: 07703 716961
News Release: 3 February 2012
Hot Topics
"The Campaigners"! What three very determined MPs are doing to campaign for social justice.
Andrew Stephenson the Conservative MP for Pendal: "Justice for Jane Clough" and "Justice for the Yousaf Family". In both campaigns Andrew is working with families whose relatives have been murdered and through using parliamentary processes he is making a real impact on public policy and social justice. Andrew's Ten Minute Rule Bill, to change Bail laws, was drawn up with the help of Jane's parents, whose daughter was murdered while her attacker was on Bail facing charges that he raped her. It is now being incorporated into a Parliamentary Bill. It would give the prosecution a right to appeal against a Judges' decision to grant bail.
Andrew has also used his Maiden Speech, an Adjournment Debate and visits to the Foreign Office to fight for culprits in Pakistan to be brought to justice for the murder of three members of the Yousaf family when they were paying a visit to Pakistan: Mohammed, his wife Parviaz and their daughter Tania.
Hot Quote: "Janes parents wanted to ensure that lessons were learnt from what happened even though it wouldn't bring Jane back. We had meetings with Ministers and others and that led to my Ten Minute Bail Amendment Bill. We kept up the pressure from there and I was delighted that we got all party support, from Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives. That led to the government agreeing in principle to support the Bill and bring forward our amendments as part of the Legal Aid Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill."
"The Yousaf family case was a real learning case for me. I was staggered when I invited the family to come down and listen to the Adjournment Debate and 300 people came down to listen to that debate at 11 at night, it showed the strength of feeling amongst the community."
Jo Swinson, The Liberal Democrat MP for East Dunbartonshire, Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Body Image: The screening of the Jennifer Siebel Newsom film "Miss Representation" looked at how the portrayal of women in the media leads to an under representation of women in public life. It was Jo and the Equalities Minister, Lynne Featherstone, who first kicked off the Body Image campaign in 2009. Their campaign has led directly to air brushed images from advertisements being withdrawn and is now "mainstreamed" as an issue in Parliament itself.
Hot Quote: "The campaign has come a long way since 2009 when Lynne and I first raised this as opposition MPs. The Film has a lot of different people supporting it and even the advertisers are now realising that we need to treat this issue differently. We have seen bareMinerals do an advertising campaign choosing their models on the basis of their stories and their attitude and their inner beauty as much as how they looked. And No 7 have stopped airbrushing in their advertising campaigns, we are seeing a lot of change within Industry and I hope that with the screening of this Film "Miss Representation" we can now look at how to go about the next steps."
Esther McVey the Conservative MP for the Wirral West - "If Chloe Can": Esther's careers booklet for young women, with case studies of positive role models of women who have succeed in their careers in many different walks of life, is now a play. An extract from the play was staged by The National Youth Theatre in Speaker's House this week, thanks to the Speaker John Bercow.
We got Chloe, played by Sophie Wardlow, and her fellow actress friend, Carly-Jane Hutchinson, to interview well known politicians including David Davis, Harriet Baldwin, Esther herself, the Speaker John Bercow, and Michael Portillo. We also caught up with Esther's Dad, Jim McVey, who told us some secrets of Esther's success too. Thanks Sophie and thanks Carly, we'll give you a job!!
Hot Quote: Iain Duncan Smith, Secretary of State for Works and Pensions: "I have known Esther for a while and I love the project "If Chloe Can". It is helping girls from difficult backgrounds to realise that everything is open to them if they make the effort to work hard and to try hard there are lots of women who have gone before and who have achieved. I think it is really important for "If Chloe Can" to be able to say actually you are only ever limited by the limited nature of your own ambition. If you try hard you may not reach the sky but you will get somewhere better than you ever thought you would. I thought the performance was excellent Chloe!"
Amy Lee, Technical Advisor and Researcher for www.parliamentaryradio.com.
30 January 2012
Baroness Kramer of Richmond Park
Welfare Reforms - making the benefits go round but allowing the bonus culture to flourish?
The Coalition Government's Welfare Reform Bill returns to the Commons this week after it has suffered a number of defeats in the Lords. The defeated proposals include plans to charge lone parents to use the Child Support Agency, changes to disabled benefits for young people and changes to benefits for cancer patients restricting them to one year only. The Bill also introduces a cap on benefits of about £26,000 a year, which is the income of an average family.
But is it "fair" that there should be cut backs in benefits at the same time as bankers, including The RBS Chief Executive, Stephen Hester, are drawing million pound bonus payments? Boni Sones, Executive Producer of www.parliamentaryradio.com for women trundled up the corridors of the Lords to put those questions to the LD peer Baroness Susan Kramer of Richmond Park.
Baroness Kramer Hot Quote: "The Welfare State is not being withdrawn from those who are most vulnerable. We are moving towards the universal credit, which I think is the most significant reform. I give incredible credit to Iain Duncan Smith, The Works and Pensions Minister, for driving that forward."
For more information contact Boni Sones, Executive Producer: 07703716961.
Tricky issue: A woman as Prime Minister - In Film and TV - but who will be next?
A look at the life of Margaret Thatcher with Meryl Streep in "The Iron Lady" and the Danish TV drama "Borgen" – are both giving the chattering classes something to think about in the corridors of power in 2012. Who will be the next woman Prime Minister in the UK? Labour's Yvette Cooper perhaps?
We put our thinking caps on and trod off along those corridors to interview Emily Thornberry the Labour MP for Islington South & Finsbury since 2005 to get her take on it all. Emily, a mother of three, has watched both, and says the real shock is seeing the mythical Danish Prime Minister Birgitte Nyborg (Sidse Babett Knudsen) go home to see her family so often. She also says that far from being just the "The Iron Lady" Margaret Thatcher could being disarmingly flirtatious with those who visited her, including trade union officials.
But behind the humour is a serious issue that never goes away in Westminster. The long hours, its impact on MPs and their families whether men or women, and the need for further reform. Emily tells us the newly honoured Dame Joan Ruddock, will be taking up the issue again soon.
Congratulations Joan from all of us! You deserve that Honour. Thanks Emily for the interview.
Hot quote from Emily: "The hours need to change, the hours are mad, the hours make no sense at all. And hopefully the wonderful Dame Joan Ruddock will lead the charge and hopefully hours will finally come back to something which is in some passing way normal, at the moment they are crazy. All of us need some support."
2012: Equality in the Commons: 100 years - too long to wait?
Tricky issue: Some issues just don't fade away, in fact as people get angrier about them they seem to come back into fashion again! In 2012 there are enough angry voices now across party to put women's representation in the Commons back at the top of the Parliamentary agenda. Here our dogged reporter Linda Fairbrother tackled that thorny issue of why at the current rate of progress we will have to wait another 100 years before there is parity in the representation of female MPs in Westminster. Thanks Linda, you are kicking off 2012 in style for us.
Hot quotes:
Joan Ruddock MP: "I think that what's happened with the appointment of a 29 year old woman Chloe Smith into the Treasury Team was that men generally think either a women can't do those sort of subjects, or that she's far too young, and also most importantly, there's an awful lot of them who thought they should have the job. And this is always the thing – women are not entitled to equal opportunity, men should always come first!"
Professor Joni Lovenduski: "At the current rate of progress we are going to be 100 years before we have parity. And I haven't got 100 years – have you?"
Copyright to this report belongs to Linda Fairbrother.
The Times sketch writer Ann Treneman has captured the ups and downs of coalition government in her new book: "Dave and Nick, The Year of The Honeymoon", and admits to our parliamentaryradio.com reporter Linda Fairbrother that although the "love affair" has withstood votes on tuition fees, the AV referendum, and now Europe too, we are into the latter stages of this marriage and into "the beyond!" Linda managed to sneak into the Reporters Gallery of the Commons, where only Lobby journalists are allowed to ask Ann about her witty pithy new book. How does she manage to think up the metaphors and situations into which to slot her characters and make her readers laugh out loud week in and week out as she looks down from The Gallery onto the Chamber itself? Ann is not short of a few laughs herself as she tells Linda a few tricks of her sketch writing trade. Do listen, it's fun!!
Hot quote: "If I am too ponderous it just doesn't work in sketch writing, you have to have an eye for the absurd and you have to not think of giving your opinion. It is my job to show what is actually happening and the funny side of it all and you have to think that often politics is very humorous, it just is, it is a very strange profession, people standing up and saying the most extraordinary things."
Improving self-confidence in girls and young women - a soft topic or a hot debate?
Can improving the self-confidence of women and girls be a new route to career success and how much can schools and colleges actively do to improve self-esteem and confidence in young women? Esther McVey, the Conservative MP for Wirral West, a mover and shaker in Parliament has held a Westminster Hall debate on this hot topic to support her impressive work on the "If Chloe Can?" career booklet for girls.
Esther also created momentum recently when she and a number of other Conservative women MPs signed a letter in support of women's rights to all Newspapers saying: "We don't support all of this despite being Conservative. We support it because we are Conservative and believe in equality of opportunity for all."
Here our Executive Producer, Boni Sones, met up with Esther and her Conservative "mates" in Central Lobby Westminster to talk about Self-Confidence in girls and women, the work they have been doing in Parliament and for their Constituents, and their hopes and ambitions for 2012.
Boni first spoke to Esther, then Amber Rudd, the MP for Hastings and Rye, and Harriet Baldwin, MP West Worcestershire. They then walked across to the scarf of the suffragette Emily Wilding Davison and also chatted to Tracey Crouch, MP for Chatham and Aylesford and Caroline Dinenage, the MP for Gosport.
Caroline and the others are determined in 2012 to push the issue of tax free child care forward and helping with the costs of childcare to get more women into work.
Hot quotes:
Harriett Baldwin: "It's about aiming high, and it starts with girls at school and I remember my teacher saying to me remember Harriett you are a very bright girl but have you thought about becoming a glove buyer at Harrods!"
Amber Rudd: "I am a committed feminist and it's because I a feminist that I am a Conservative not despite it. Conservatives and feminism go together. We believe in enabling women."
This report is produced by Boni Sones. Further information: 07703716961.
25 November 2011
How government ministers could help save a life...
Tricky Issue! "I want every child to be a life saver"
Should Emergency Life Skills become part of the National Curriculum? Labour's Bolton West MP, Julie Hilling, says Yes! Her Ten Minute Rule Bill - "National Curriculum (Emergency Life Support Skills) Bill" will get a Second Reading in the Commons in January 2012 but she is mystified as to why more government ministers are not supporting it.
Her modest attempt to save thousands of lives by teaching secondary school children just two hours a year of life saving skills could become a reality if Education Ministers, including Michael Gove, had the energy and will to make it happen. She says the costs would be small and that it also increases confidence and makes children feel better citizens.
Julie is supported in her campaign by The British Heart Foundation. Her Private Member's Bill would require Michael Gove, the Secretary of State for Education, to include the teaching of emergency life support skills in schools as a compulsory part of the National Curriculum, and for connected purposes.
Every year 150,000 people die in situations where first aid could have made a difference. Every year 30,000 people have a cardiac arrest outside of a hospital environment but less than 10 per cent of these survive to be discharged from hospital. Often children are present when these events happen.
Julie told our reporter Amy Lee how she wants "every child to be a life saver"!
In her Constituency 15 year old Patrick Horrock had a heat attack in Hindley Leisure Centre earlier this year but thanks to a member of staff performing CPR and another using a defibrillator he is alive today. In France, Denmark and Norway and some states in the USA, ELS is already a compulsory part of the National Curriculum. Why not here too? Come on Mr Gove you can make such a difference if you want to!!!
The Bill is scheduled for a second reading in the House on 20th January 2012.
Hot quote: Julie told Amy Lee: "This government is keen not to prescribe things and say educationalists should prescribe, but they are prescribing other parts of the curriculum. I don't think it is putting a burden on educationalists, if you are saying children should learn about the Kings and Queens of England I think they should learn how to save a life. Minsters could go down in history as a Government who saves lives. I don't understand why they don't want to do this.
"As a Ten Minute Rule Bill it is not going to become an Act, so I am working with others to try and make it happen and promote it, and to make sure that all my schools in my Constituency are life saving schools and I am working with the Fire Service locally too on it.
"In 2010 Everybody has an opportunity to save a life just imagine how awful it is to see an accident and stand back and not be able to do anything. There are courses all over the place go and learn basic life saving skills."
This report is produced by Boni Sones. Further information: 07703716961.
8 November 2011
A life story of one woman in the Commons and another about young women starting their working lives: 'If Chloe Can!'
"Aim high and you can succeed" – Esther McVey MP the National Youth Theatre tour "If Chloe Can"!
Esther McVey MP the Conservative MP for the Wirrall West and PPS at the Department of Work and Pensions took her "campaign" to give positive role models of extraordinary success to young women to the National Youth Theatre. They turned her recently launched book into a play 'If Chloe Can'. It will now tour major cities in the UK, Manchester, Liverpool, and Sheffield.
Our new parliamentary reporter Amy Lee and our Executive Producer Boni Sones, spoke to Jo Salter, the first female fighter pilot, Lucinda Ellery, a hair loss specialist, and Debbie Moore of Pineapple Dance Studios. They then chatted to three young women from Fulham Cross School and Esther McVey herself about the production, its ideals, and the future for this imaginative venture.
Hot quote: Debbie Moore says: "Guts and hard work lead to success, there is no such thing as a free lunch. Common sense and confidence are essential."
Guardian journalist Jackie Ashley talks to Baroness Helene Hayman for the Women's Library Fawcett Lecture. We hear how Baroness Hayman, was supposedly breast feeding in the Commons in the mid-1970s when there were just 27 women MPs, and what she thinks of gender balance in the Upper Chamber today, equality and women's portfolio careers. But an elected chamber? Perhaps not.
Jackie, too, chuckles with laughter when Baroness Hayman recalls that she never actually breastfed although her male colleagues to this day claim to have witnessed it! Oh well, that is life, but these same issues of work home-life balance will never fade away, they just keep repeating themselves it seems. Over to Jackie now for this very special report. Thanks to the Women's Library.
Hot quote from Helene Hayman: "Women's different career experiences do allow them to bring back a lot into politics later in their lives. These female experiences of doing 'other things' rather than just the traditional career paths in life should be valued."
This report is produced by Boni Sones. Further information: 07703716961.
30 October 2011
"Tricky Issue": Job Share MPs?
Copyright to this report belongs to Linda Fairbrother.
Should MPs be allowed to job share? Hot foot from one parliamentary gathering Boni Sones OBE, Executive Producer of www.parliamentaryradio.com, and Linda Fairbrother report on how reformers are now calling for Job Share MPs.
In this 25 minute audio documentary, www.parliamentaryradio.com reporter Linda Fairbrother analyses both sides of this month's "Tricky Issue"!
Surprisingly an idea that was once ridiculed has now been mainstreamed and is being considered seriously in those famous "corridors of power". Supporters include the Equalities Minister, the Liberal Democrat MP for Hornsey and Wood Green Lynne Featherstone who would like the Speaker of the Commons John Bercow to consider it.
Hot quote: Lynne told Linda: "I have raised it with the Speaker of the House because I think we want to get him on board. He was certainly very interested in the idea. He wants to spend more time with his children so he's always very sympathetic to a whole range of family-friendly arrangements and we are working with him and other male MPs on this.
"The men in the House who have children, particularly young children, they love them just as much as the women love their children. They do actually hate not being able to see them, particularly if they are parted because of Constituency reasons, for part of the week. It's very, very tough to miss your kid's first day at school whatever your gender."
Linda also interviews former Civil Servant Maggy Piggott and her colleague Judith Killick, who job shared in the Civil Service for 23 years, and Liberal Democrat Dinti Batstone from the Campaign for Gender Balance.
Hot topic – The battle for "access" to Legal Aid for victims of Domestic Violence
Victims of Domestic Violence can take years to summon up the confidence to report offences to the police. They may not, initially, tell anybody else, even friends and family yet alone those in positions of authority, about their abuse. But reforms to how Legal Aid is "accessed" in the future for Domestic Violence victims is leading to concerns that women will not be able to "qualify" for Legal Aid in order to take their cases to Court. New time restrictions are being imposed and new processes are being put in place for those in authority to legitimate that abuse did actually take place.
Hot topic – Why are childcare costs out of the reach of most families in Britain today?
Sheun interviews: Luciana Berger the Labour MP for Liverpool Wavertree, Claire Perry the Conservative MP for Devizes, and Ryan Shorthouse of the Social Market Foundation who is the co-author of 'A Better Beginning'.
Ryan Shorthouse Hot Quote:
The cost of childcare and a Crèche in the Commons - Speaker John Bercow and Jenny Willott MP
Insiders are known to think that David Cameron and George Osborne would be advised to think long term about moving towards tax-deductible childcare but this week's Budget has offered little redress to parents whose household budgets are being "squeezed" by changes in the benefits system. These include the now staggered withdrawal of the £20 a week child benefit for higher-rate taxpayers, which starts next January, child tax credit changes, the scrapping of the Child Trust Fund and the proposed Housing Benefit cap.
Sheun Adelasoye, reporter
Our Hot Topic
International Women's Day 2012 "The Campaigners"!
Fiona Mctaggart MP - Buycotting not boycotting goods that use slave labour.
Tricky Issue
News Release: 1 March 2012
We can tell from our band width figures and the data on our "unique visitors" and "number of visits" that our audience stays online to listen to our "as live" podcasts with women MPs for minutes rather than seconds.
Last year wpradio.co.uk had 13,645 unique visitors, 36,979 visits, over half a million hits = 529,984 and 18 per cent of our audience stayed online for half an hour or longer than an hour. That’s cool! Jackie, Deborah, Linda and I would like to thank you for your support. Thanks too to our Advisory Board and our web manager Adrian.
News Release: 22 February 2012
Here we asked the MPs to read extracts of their favourite children's books to our listeners!
A World book day £1 token will buy you one of the eight specially-produced World Book day books. Our MPs seemed to like "How to Train Your Dragon", by Cressida Cowell. Are you sitting comfortably? Now they will begin...
The Campaigners – fighting in the front line of politics for social justice!
Tightening up health and safety legislation – how companies are escaping justice
Seema Malholtra MP – and her Maiden Speech
Andrew Stephenson the Conservative MP for Pendal: "Justice for Jane Clough" and "Justice for the Yousaf Family". In both campaigns Andrew is working with families whose relatives have been murdered and through using parliamentary processes he is making a real impact on public policy and social justice. Andrew's Ten Minute Rule Bill, to change Bail laws, was drawn up with the help of Jane's parents, whose daughter was murdered while her attacker was on Bail facing charges that he raped her. It is now being incorporated into a Parliamentary Bill. It would give the prosecution a right to appeal against a Judges' decision to grant bail.
Jo Swinson, The Liberal Democrat MP for East Dunbartonshire, Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Body Image: The screening of the Jennifer Siebel Newsom film "Miss Representation" looked at how the portrayal of women in the media leads to an under representation of women in public life. It was Jo and the Equalities Minister, Lynne Featherstone, who first kicked off the Body Image campaign in 2009. Their campaign has led directly to air brushed images from advertisements being withdrawn and is now "mainstreamed" as an issue in Parliament itself.
Esther McVey the Conservative MP for the Wirral West - "If Chloe Can": Esther's careers booklet for young women, with case studies of positive role models of women who have succeed in their careers in many different walks of life, is now a play. An extract from the play was staged by The National Youth Theatre in Speaker's House this week, thanks to the Speaker John Bercow.
"Dave and Nick, The Year of The Honeymoon" on Amazon.co.uk
Can improving the self-confidence of women and girls be a new route to career success and how much can schools and colleges actively do to improve self-esteem and confidence in young women? Esther McVey, the Conservative MP for Wirral West, a mover and shaker in Parliament has held a Westminster Hall debate on this hot topic to support her impressive work on the "If Chloe Can?" career booklet for girls.
Here our Executive Producer, Boni Sones, met up with Esther and her Conservative "mates" in Central Lobby Westminster to talk about Self-Confidence in girls and women, the work they have been doing in Parliament and for their Constituents, and their hopes and ambitions for 2012.
Boni first spoke to Esther, then Amber Rudd, the MP for Hastings and Rye, and Harriet Baldwin, MP West Worcestershire. They then walked across to the scarf of the suffragette Emily Wilding Davison and also chatted to Tracey Crouch, MP for Chatham and Aylesford and Caroline Dinenage, the MP for Gosport.
Harriett Baldwin: "It's about aiming high, and it starts with girls at school and I remember my teacher saying to me remember Harriett you are a very bright girl but have you thought about becoming a glove buyer at Harrods!"
A woman in the Commons breast feeding - never!
