Commons Diary: Jess Phillips
4 min read
A week marked by delays for Jess Phillips, as rail commuters fume at the Transport Secretary and the women of Northern Ireland get sick of waiting
This week, the Commons was dominated by Chris Grayling and women’s rights. Not at the same time you understand.
For me, Monday was meant to be a day in the constituency as I wasn’t expecting votes. As often happens, my plans were cut short by a text from Stella Creasy, this time requesting me in to be in Parliament to support her cross-party bid for an emergency debate on repealing the parts of the Offences Against the Person Act concerning abortion. So I jumped on a train. I live in the Midlands not the North so my train was not cancelled. On arrival to Westminster, Mr Grayling did cause a delay as he was making a statement to the House that went on longer than the time it took to get from Birmingham to Westminster.
The statement on the catastrophe of rail delays and cancellations in the North and South was a searing takedown. Every member who spoke tore into the Transport Secretary. The friendly fire from his own side wasn’t friendly.
Stella Creasy finally rose to her feet, with the Labour benches full to brimming to demand that we debate the issue of abortion laws with specific relevance to seeking patient safety for the women of Northern Ireland. She had leave of the House and then some, almost every member of every party in the Chamber stood with her.
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Tuesday came and we readied ourselves for the debate on abortion, but not before the now regular feature of Grayling making a statement, this time on Heathrow. This is what parliament does now, follows departmental questions with the Grayling hour.
The abortion debate was mainly consensual and well-tempered. Stella Creasy made her case with detailed precision, batting away the fallacy that this was about extending term limits for abortion. It wasn’t. It was about trying to stop the women of Northern Ireland from having to travel abroad to get basic healthcare. It was a historic day apparently, researchers from Kent University contacted me to tell me that mine and Heidi Allen’s admissions in the Chamber that we had in the past each undergone terminations was the first time any woman had ever disclosed this in Parliament. Only once before had a member spoken up when in 1966 Edward Lyons MP told Parliament how he and his wife had decided to terminate her pregnancy following exposure to rubella.
The DUP provided some classic nonsense about how women use abortion as contraceptives. Ian Paisley declared that we needed to take time and not make decisions in a rush on this matter, which is odd because we were asking to repeal a law from 1861. Perhaps he, like Grayling, thinks waiting 157 years for something is acceptable. The House made its views clear and while this debate had no binding effect it was a warning to the government that we’ll be tabling an amendment on the matter soon. We invited them to protect the women of Norther Ireland before this.
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Wednesday morning brought the Women and Equalities Select Committee, and the inquiry into sexual harassment. The columnist Melanie Phillips – who has spoken about how #Metoo has gone too far and monsters men – was giving evidence. Phillips and I have little in common beyond having the same surname and it’s not even mine, it’s my husbands. Mine is Trainor, a good Northern Irish moniker. I relished the opportunity to scrutinise a woman I profoundly disagree with on these issues, however, she was nowhere near the controversialist I’d expected. She did, however, seem to think that women were controlling the media and using it to demonise men over sexual harassment.
I stopped short of asking her to name all the women who own big media companies and act as the editors of our major newspapers. Instead, I delighted in this matriarchal media utopia she seems to live in. Perhaps I can travel there, and on the journey maybe I’ll be sitting among loads of men having to go across seas to get basic healthcare that they can’t get at home.
I hope this travel system is also run by women. Otherwise we might be horribly delayed.
Jess Phillips is Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley and Associate Editor of The House magazine
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