BRITISH ISLANDS AND MEDITERRANEAN REGION COMMONWEALTH WOMEN PARLIAMENTARIANS NEWSLETTER DECEMBER 2016 Dear Colleague Since our last BIMR CWP newsletter I have had the pleasure of welcoming Steering Committee Members to the Senedd for the first meeting of the Steering Committee since being elected as Chair. The meeting was extremely useful in considering the priorities for BIMR CWP over the next three years. Preparations are also underway for the next BIMR CWP conference in Northern Ireland, which will focus on mental health. In my role as Chair one of the key priorities I would like BIMR CWP to champion is the White Ribbon Campaign. Ending violence against women is something I have campaigned strongly for in Wales and CWP offers a real opportunity to raise this at an international level. Last week marked the annual White Ribbon Day the international day for the elimination of gender violence - which we celebrated as usual in the Senedd and I look forward to hearing how this is marked elsewhere in the BIMR region. I am pleased to note that the theme of the triennial CWP International Conference taking place in December will be Ending Political Violence Against Women and look forward to participating in this important discussion. The conference will be taking place on 14-15 December in London and will be part of the wider Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference taking place that week. BIMR CWP will also be hosting a roundtable discussion titled Are the impacts of leaving the EU upon women being considered? on Tuesday 13 December, 1130 1300 in the CPA room of the Houses of Parliament. I hope to see you there. I would like also draw attention to my candidacy for the election of Chair of CWP International. The election will take place at the CWP International Business Meeting on Friday 16 December. If you are attending CPC please vote for me as your BIMR CWP candidate. I believe it would be of huge value to the region to bring our drive and vision for women s empowerment and equality to a Commonwealth-wide constituency.
Joyce Watson AM British Islands and Mediterranean Regional Representative on the CWP international Steering Committee and Chair of BIMR CWP Steering Committee BIMW CWP Conference, Northern Ireland: March 2017 Preparations are underway by the CPA Northern Ireland Assembly Branch to hold the Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians Annual Conference in March 2017. The conference will take place in Belfast on Friday 3 rd and Saturday 4 th with and optional tour of Northern Ireland on Sunday 5 th March. The conference will focus on women and mental health in particular the areas of women as carers, depression and anxiety and eating disorders and self-harm. The sessions will have specialists from these areas speak to delegates as well as visits to local mental health charities to find out about their work and hear about people s own personal experiences. The Northern Ireland Assembly Branch and Jo-Anne Dobson MLA, as Chair of the Branch, are very much looking forwarding to welcoming BIMR delegates to Northern Ireland and showcasing Parliament Buildings and the country to first time visitors. New members of the BIMR steering committee We are delighted to welcome (L-R) Norma Paris from Alderney, Eleni Mavrou from Cyprus and Catherine Corlett MHK from the Isle of Man to the BIMR CWP Steering Committee.
Mental health policies: The view from Guernsey by Deputy Heidi Soulsby Recent years have seen a significant shift in the approach taken to mental health in the Bailiwick of Guernsey. In February 2013, the States of Guernsey approved its Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy, a cross-departmental strategy led by the Committee for Health and Social Care, which provides a framework within which all areas of the island community can begin to work together towards better mental wellbeing. The Strategy is aimed at everyone, from Mental Health Services to the Criminal Justice System and through to employers, service users and carers. It is divided into six themes: Starting, Growing and Developing Well; Living Well; Working Well; Ageing Well; Tackling Stigma and Discrimination; and Caring for the Carers. It also explores the challenges of promoting good mental health across the whole population; supporting people to manage their mental health better; and acting to meet people's needs with appropriate, flexible services geared towards individual needs and focused on personal recovery. Work is currently underway, in partnership with the third sector, to condense the original report and put it into a concise working document that everyone will be able to understand, identify some key strategic objectives for the strategy, identify what this means for the local community, and prepare a detailed action plan for the next five years. The project involves in-depth research programmes including an islandwide mental health survey, an analysis of gaps in service provision, the formation of an 'Expert By Experience' group, and detailed interviews with mental health service users about what they want and need. It is also intended that there should be a celebration of the range of services that are already being provided with the publication of a 'Mentally Healthy Guernsey' Report, and a public campaign to increase awareness about what is available.
Alongside the strategy, the States of Guernsey has already demonstrated its commitment to enhancing its mental health services with the opening, in November 2015, of The Oberlands Centre, a state-of-the-art mental health and wellbeing facility which provides a comprehensive range of mental health promotion, prevention and treatment services under one roof. The focus is very much on recovery and enablement, with services delivered in a non-stigmatizing and primarily communitybased setting. The Oberlands Centre has won several prestigious awards since it opened, including the Design in Mental Health Network s Project of the Year and Collaborative Estates and Facilities Team, as well as being Highly Commended for the Estates team in the Building Better Health Awards. As President of the Committee for Health and Social Care, I am proud at what Guernsey has achieved in recent years. Much still needs to be done but we are working closer to our vision of ensuring mental health is given equal consideration and priority as physical health and I believe we will be able to do that through partnership and engagement with the third sector and wider community. Gender Equality in the National Assembly for Wales by Joyce Watson AM Since devolution, the National Assembly for Wales has been among the most genderbalanced legislatures in the world. In 2003 it was the first to elect an equal number of women and men. Indeed, between 2005 and 2007 there were more women AMs than men. Although we have slipped back since then, following this year s election, we remain the most
representative of the UK s devolved legislatures. In May, 25 women AMs were elected, the same as in 2011. Of the four main parties, one is led by a woman (plus the Liberal Democrat representative). A third of Welsh Government Cabinet Secretaries and two thirds of Ministers are women. The Presiding Officer and Deputy Presiding Officer are women, as are three of the four Assembly Commissioners. Women chair four of the Assembly s 13 Committees. The Welsh Government s landmark Violence against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence (Wales) Act 2015 is the first legislation of its kind in the UK. It is the only such law in Europe to have a specific focus on violence against women. A National Adviser, Rhian Bowen-Davies, has been appointed to oversee its implementation. Elsewhere, women have been chosen as special Commissioners Sophie Howe for future generations, Sarah Rochira for older people, Sally Holland for children, and Meri Huws for the Welsh language significant public appointments. The Welsh Government has made funding available to the Women Making a Difference balancing power project that s educating and empowering women to become leaders in public and political life. It has also pledged to meet the 50/50 by 2020 pledge. The aim is to achieve a 50 per cent gender balance within the senior civil service by the year 2020. Outside the Assembly, at the BIMR Conference in Guernsey in February Adele Baumgardt, who holds a number of public appointments in Wales, and Dr Alison Parken from Cardiff University shared their expertise in gender budgeting and equal pay. In October I raised a debate in the Assembly entitled, Common Cause: Women, Wales and the Commonwealth the role of Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians in the post- Brexit era. I talked about the need, now more than ever, for women to come together to defend internationalism and the Commonwealth principles of rule of law, individual rights and parliamentary democracy.
We must continue to work together to make Wales a country where women are equally represented at all levels, and where there is fairness and equality for all, which we want to share across the world, Leader of the House Jane Hutt AM affirmed. You can read the transcript here. Or watch it here. Finally, during November, to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, I hosted the National Assembly for Wales annual White Ribbon event. Over the past few years I have worked with the National Federation of Women s Institutes in Wales to develop the Not in My Name campaign. Reaching across Welsh society, we are engaging men to support this simple pledge: never to commit, condone or remain silence about violence against women. Last year the First Minister of Wales and AMs from across the political spectrum joined prominent figures from Welsh public life and survivors at our Senedd vigil. House of Commons The Women and Equalities Committee has recently launched an inquiry on the Government s response to SDG5 to End discrimination against women and girls by 2030. Other Women and Equalities Committee inquiries include: Examining the implications of leaving the EU on equalities legislation and policy in the UK how to ensure strong equalities legislation after EU Exit. Women in the House of Commons after the 2020 Election - considering how boundary changes could impact the representation of women in Parliament focusing on how political parties' selection processes are taking into account female representation in light of the redrawn constituencies.
As part of the same inquiry the Committee will examine in detail proposals emerging from The Good Parliament report (PDF 1.03 MB) which proposed a blueprint for a more representative and inclusive House of Commons. The Gender Pay Gap. The report highlights the lack of effective policy in many of the areas that contribute to the gender pay gap. It finds that the key causes of pay differentials are: the part-time pay penalty; women s disproportionate responsibility for childcare and other forms of unpaid caring; and the concentration of women in highly feminised, low paid sectors like care, retail and cleaning. The Committee is also awaiting the Government response to its inquiries into Sexual harassment and sexual violence in schools, Pregnancy and Maternity Discrimination and Women in executive management. On Thursday 24 November - the day before of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women - Members of the House of Lords asked the British Government to review its stalking and domestic violence laws. On Thursday 8 December CPA UK will team with ActionAid UK to hold a parliamentary reception to mark 16 Days of Activism against Gender Violence. Tynwald update The number of women in the House of Keys increased in September 2016 when women were elected to five of the 24 seats. A review has described Tynwald as potentially having a major problem in reflecting the society it serves. Ann Corlett MHK has succeeded Clare Christian MLC as Steering Group member. Women now occupy some 21% of the seats in the House of Keys, a share broadly in line with the proportion of women who stood as candidates at the General Election (13 out of 63 or 20%). At the previous General Election, in September 2011, women had won only two seats. One woman had resigned during the lifetime of the House, with the result that immediately before the 2016 General Election there had been only one remaining. The 2016 result therefore represents a fivefold increase.
Five is the highest number of women to have sat together in the House of Keys at any time. The last sitting of an all-male House was almost exactly 50 years ago, on Tuesday 1 st November 1966. Since the 1966 General Election the House has always had at least one female member. Sometimes it has had two or three; and from January 1975 to November 1976 it had four. The total number of women elected since 1919, when women were first permitted to stand for election, is 17. June 2016 saw the publication of a Review of the Functioning of Tynwald by Lord Lisvane KCB DL, former Clerk of the House of Commons. He wrote: Tynwald is almost entirely male; out of 35 Members, only two are women. This means that the representation of women in Tynwald stands at 5.7%. Putting the Isle of Man into the Inter-Parliamentary Union s table of female representation by country, this would put Tynwald in 178th place, below, for example, Iran, Bahrain and the Democratic Republic of the Congo One of the two women Members told me that Tynwald was seen as a male club the boys gang together ; and another witness agreed that it could be a bit clubby. If this is even only partly true, Tynwald has a major problem, both in demonstrating diversity and in reflecting the society it serves, as women outnumber men on the Island. Lord Lisvane s review is to be debated in Tynwald in April 2017. Later in June 2016 Tynwald said farewell to the Hon Clare Christian MLC, President of Tynwald, former BIMR Regional Representative and trustee of the CPA. The Isle of Man Branch has appointed as its BIMR CWP Steering Group Member Mrs Ann Corlett MHK, who was first elected in September 2016 as Member for the constituency of Douglas Central. CWP INTERNATIONAL UPDATE CWP Conference The CWP international Conference, held every three years, will take place during the Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference, to be held on 12-16 December in London. More details here.
BRITISH ISLANDS AND MEDITERRANEAN REGION COMMONWEALTH WOMEN PARLIAMENTARIANS NEWSLETTER DECEMBER 2016 Session 5 of the Scottish Parliament ADDENDUM Following the 2016 elections, the number of women in the Scottish Parliament remained the same as for the 2011 elections, with 45 (35%) women elected. Labour had 50% women candidates and despite the SNP using all women shortlists for the first time, these measures did not increase the number of women MSPs. Significantly, for the very first time in Scotland, the three main parties in these parliamentary elections were led by women. In addition to this, the Presiding Officer in Session 4 was female and two of the new Deputy Presiding Officers in Session 5 are also female. Furthermore, in the last parliamentary session whilst 3 out of 16 of the parliament s committee conveners were women, in this session, the number has increased to 7 out of a total of 15 committees. Scottish Parliament Leadership for Women Programme Fifteen female officials with a broad range of skills, experiences and backgrounds are participating in a programme of workshops and intensive one-to-one coaching sessions designed to develop their potential in a range of ways and to develop their confidence, skills and leadership capabilities. The programme started last year and it will take time to measure its success. The Parliament has also created a women s network. The programme and network will also encourage women taking part to look at any barriers to progress at the Scottish
Parliament and effective ways they could be tackled. This initiative has won a prestigious Scottish Public Sector award. Legislation During the last session and again in this session, domestic abuse has been given prominence in the legislative programme. For example, a dedicated unit for domestic abuse, sexual assault and rape cases within Scotland s prosecution service (the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service) has been established in an effort to ensure that these cases are dealt with sensitively, appropriately and efficiently. Finally, as a result of legislation passed in session 4, domestic abuse now carries a statutory aggravator in terms of sentencing for someone convicted of the offence. In the new session, further legislation is in the pipeline to create a stand-alone offence of domestic abuse. Contact BIMR CWP The secretariat is based in CPA UK Branch. Write to: Joyce Watson AM, CWP BIM Regional Representative, c/o BIMR Secretariat, CPA UK, Westminster Hall, Houses of Parliament, Westminster, SW1A 0AA or cpauk@parliament.uk