Conservative politician and former banker, Tim Loughton, visited Davison High School last Wednesday; he was invited by 4 eager year 11 GCSE citizenship students: Mia Reid, Milly Hill, Dotty Bartram and Abi Maynard.

 

During our interview, Mia, Milly, Dotty and Abi disclosed that they have, as part of their active citizenship, reached out to a few local MP’s to ask the big (and long!) question:

 

"Are women less likely to vote due to the lack of female representation in parliament?"

 

Mia then stated, after revealing that he was the only male Conservative MP that they reached out to...

We chose to interview  Tim Loughton because it is always important to have an opposing view.

 ... and his view was just that- opposing! This had a quite a big impact on their project as by the end of their research, they had interviewed some Labour female MP's as well as Tim Loughton, who's views contrasted his significantly!

 

Among declaring statements such as “ I must admit there are more impressive women than men” and “the number of women has increased disproportionately”,in support of increasing the numbers of female MP’s, Loughton expressed that “I think it was the right call” after Stella Creasy (female labour MP for Walthamstow) wanted to breastfeed her three-month-old child in the House of Commons' chambers and was denied this right.

 

Laughton goes on to say that “Stella usually pushes too far” and that “Parliament is never going to be fully family friendly” and unfortunately the latter may be true. 

 

As of February 2023, just 35% of all British MP’s are female and although history shows that this is a small victory, it is still significantly low. 

This re-iterates these students’ big question and makes me think, will Parliament ever be equal?