Woman's Hour - Jane Goodall; Female cabinet ministers on TV; Coercive control

Episode Date: January 25, 2021

Internationally-renowned primatologist and conservationist Jane Goodall discusses the tragedy of lost nature and the positive action needed to combat climate change.Does it matter if female cabinet ministers are missing from flagship political programmes and TV briefings? Emma speaks to former Government minister Anna Soubry, and later in the programme to Therese Coffey MP, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions.In the new episode of Grounded with Louis Theroux, musician FKA Twigs says she was coercively controlled. What can you do if you find yourself in a psychologically abusive relationship?IMAGE CREDIT: Bill Wallauer

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2, and of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme, peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, it's Emma Barnett here. Welcome to the Woman's Hour podcast. Good morning. Hope you had a lovely, perhaps snow-speckled weekend and are taking the NHS advice to stay safe in the snow by walking like a penguin. Waddle and keep your weight over your front leg

as you walk to avoid falling. That's actually what the advice from some NHS trusts are saying on social media. I thought you'd like to hear that here on Radio 4 on Woman's Hour. Now, perhaps your weekend included watching the flagship political TV programmes on Sunday morning. If it did, chances are you won't have seen a female cabinet minister. Analysis by the Sunday Times found that the government has only put up one female cabinet minister since the start of the first lockdown in March 2020, nearly a year ago. That's on either BBC's Andrew Marr show or on Sky News. But by contrast, in total, male cabinet ministers have appeared on those programmes 65 times. It seems the stay-at-home message applies

to the female ranks of the Cabinet. But does it matter? Does it matter to you? Does it matter to our policies? Does it matter to the way that we are governed? How do you feel about that? What was your reaction when you heard that, perhaps read that yesterday?

Maybe you're hearing it for the first time. You can text WOMEN'S HOUR on 84844. Text will be charged at your standard message rate. Or let us know what you think on social media. Many of you have already been getting in touch on that platform. It's at BBC Women's Hour or email us through our website. Prager says it shows how having women or diversity is purely performative box ticking. Women aren't as involved in decision making. But to be honest, I'm surprised they haven't rolled women out to bear the brunt of general incompetence. That's how it's been put by one of our listeners.

We shall discuss. Also on today's programme, we'll be hearing about coercive control, perhaps how it can affect anybody at any level of society as a very high profile singer has been speaking out about this. And we are joined by the internationally renowned primatologist and conservationist Dame Jane Goodall. That's all to come on the programme. But does this government have a woman problem?

That analysis by the Sunday Times has put it into sharp relief. And of course, we want to hear what you have to say on this. And we've issued an invitation to the government, which we are hopeful will be taken up. In fact, I'm being told will be taken up in short order. But before we get to whomever that is, former Conservative MP and government minister Anna Soubry joins me on the line now. Good morning. Good morning. What did you make of those numbers? I think it's shocking, frankly, and I think it's bad, and I think that the government does have a problem with women. You just have to look at the figures.

I mean, I served in David Cameron's cabinet, and he exceeded his target, 30%. Under Theresa May, 35% of cabinet ministers were women. And in this government, it's about one in four. It's about 25%. But most importantly, it's the secretaries of state. I mean, if you look now, there are only three secretaries of state. And that's where the big decisions are made. Out of the 18.

And under David and under Theresa May, that was twice as many. It was six. And I think it says a lot about this government, that it doesn't have women in those big jobs at the table making decisions. And it's rather like excluding over half of our population and it's not good enough. I've just been told that Therese Coffey will be joining me a bit later on in the programme, who's the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. Of course, we made sure we put in our request this morning to Downing Street to see if we could hear from a female cabinet member, because it would be slightly remiss of Woman's Hour not to put that in. So I'm happy to be able to say that to our listeners. But your point, your bigger point is about women not even occupying those big offices

of state, which of course, Priti Patel does as Home Secretary. And she's the only one that has appeared in this Sunday roll call. And perhaps some will be saying, listening to this, I can see some of the messages. Does it really matter? The policies are the policies. Well, I think it does matter because I think it shows something about this government that it is. It's very bullish. It's very boorish almost why aren't those women there because yes there is a problem that the Conservative Party has been depleted of some outstanding women who stepped down before the last general election back in December of 2019 so by way of example Justin Greening I mean goodness me if there's

anybody who knows about how to level up it has to be Justin Greening and all her work on social mobility chose not to stand. The loss of Amber Rudd, the loss of, I mean, Nicky Morgan didn't stand again for Parliament. I mean, it's different to enter the House of Lords, but the party lost some really good women. I could go through quite a long list of people who absolutely should still be there in parliament. And there are some good women in parliament. They're either very new and I think abiding their time or they've been effectively muted. They don't want to speak out. Some of them are chairing, like Caroline notes, doing a very good job chairing the Women and Equalities Select Committee. But I think it shows a depletion in the ranks of good, sensible, more liberal minded, not right wing conservatives. But I think it shows something at the top of government that it doesn't seem to be women friendly. Otherwise, it would have women there because, of course, we should be there.

We should be there at all decision making. It's so important. And it's also important not just for society generally but for young women i mean as i say this government talks about leveling up that includes getting women through those glass ceilings which we've yet to crash through and that means that you need those inspirational women there that are great leaders for us that inspire young women to go into politics. You're not... They also show a decline in politics generally. We should say, as I did, that you are a former Conservative MP. You left the party over differences of views around Brexit, went to what was Change UK.

And some may say, well, you're not the biggest fan of Boris Johnson or of this administration. You would say that anyway, wouldn't you? But of course, that landslide victory shows the majority of the country, or at least the ones who voted, are at odds with you on that. Yeah, look, I speak as I find. And if I was a fan of Boris Johnson's, I would say so.

No, I am not a fan of Boris Johnson, and I'm not going to, no doubt, bore you with why I'm not a fan of his, because that's really not our topic. But I think the fact that he is he has a woman problem is part of his character. But it extends beyond Boris Johnson and it shows a shift to the right within the Conservative Party. And I didn't leave the Conservative Party just because of Brexit. I left the Conservative party for many reasons. But in short, it was this shift to the right. And I think we're seeing a rise in a feeling that women should be in the home, that they don't have a real place in politics. And I think there are elements of misogyny in the Conservative party, which I had thought had long

gone away, which I think are now coming through with this rise and this drift to the right of the Conservative Party. But the problem of women leaving politics is not confined to the Conservative Party. It's a problem that Labour found when a number of excellent women were driven out of the Labour Party,

primarily through anti-Semitism, which was allowed, in my opinion, to flourish under Jeremy Corbyn. That's a whole other subject as well, which we could go into a lot of detail around, and no doubt we will at different points. But the point I know you're making is it's not just in the Conservative Party and with an issue with women in politics. But if I could just bring you back to what you just said

about the shift to the right of the Conservative Party and elements of misogyny you thought had gone away. You say Boris Johnson has a woman problem. What is driving that problem from your perspective of him, but also within the party? Where's this coming from, Anna? Well, I think for someone like Boris Johnson, I think he is primarily somebody

who just cares about himself and his own advancement. And I just sometimes, well, I do believe that he doesn't see that bigger picture because it doesn't involve him. He doesn't seem to understand how critically important it is that you have a government that reflects the whole of society and obviously that must include women and if he did think beyond himself and his own his own narrow naked ambition then he would be wanting to go to where we were under David Cameron's leadership a lot of that came out of the chairmanship of the party by Theresa May which was an understanding that we needed to get more women into the most important positions in the Conservative Party, more women into Parliament, more women into government. And both Theresa and David Cameron achieved that. And there's been a huge step backwards, which

for me, a woman of my age, I find deeply concerning. I thought we were making advances. We seem to be going backwards. But there's a report today in June, there's going to be a reshuffle. Boris to trust, for instance, Liz Truss in female focused cabinet reshuffle coming in June. Do you believe that that will sort the problem? Well, if it's simply somehow advancing Liz Truss, no, it certainly won't. What he needs to do is he needs to bring on this new generation, many of whom were elected in 2015, some in 2017, who are clearly there. But the reason that they haven't been brought on is because, and I think this is very important, if you wanted to be in Boris Johnson's cabinet, you had to be 100% behind Boris Johnson in everything.

And that included the B word, Brexit. But it meant, no disrespect to some people in that cabinet who I've known for a number of years and who I have time for, but I think it is universally accepted that this is one of the lightest weighted I'm being generous cabinets that we have ever seen and that is because Boris Johnson again and based on his his ego and his need to be loved and to be liked he surrounded himself with yes men and women and sycophants do you think he's sexist a government is a government. Anna, is he sexist? I don't know if he's sexist. It wouldn't be right for me to say that because I've never had any direct experience of that. But I do think he comes from that school of thought that somehow women are seen as in some way second class and to be shoveled into the sidelines.

Having said that, undoubtedly, his partner has considerable influence over him and seems to be exercising that influence. So he's got rid of some of these ghastly people like Dominic Cummings. He's brought in some exceptionally able women like Allegra Stratton. So it may be that we do see now a big shift, and that

would be for the betterment. Anna, it's one of those things, will it lead to a shift in policy? That's what a lot of our listeners, of course, also care about. We shall see. We'll talk to Therese Coffey a little bit later on. Thank you very much for your time. Allegra Stratton has been appointed recently as a spokesperson, the chief spokesperson for the prime minister, we should say,

if you're not up on that. And a reference there to Boris Johnson's partner is Carrie Simons, his fiancee, who used to work as a press officer at Conservative Party HQ headquarters. So we'll speak to a female cabinet minister, a cabinet minister, the Department for Work and Pensions secretary very shortly indeed about this. Keep your messages coming in

on whether you think this is an issue or not. Let us know what you think on 84844. Anna Soubry, thank you for your time. Now, a new episode of the podcast and Radio 4 programme, Grounded with Louis Theroux, came out this morning. In it, Louis speaks to the highly acclaimed musician and actor Talia de Brett Barnett, who's better known as FKA Twigs. And she talks about her relationship with the Hollywood star

Shia LaBeouf for the first time since her allegations against him, very serious ones, of sexual battery, assault and infliction of emotional distress hit the headlines last month. We should say that he's made a statement about those and we'll read that out shortly. But here is a clip of Twiggs describing some of the ways in which she says she was subjected to psychological abuse and coercive control.

That's something that I want to be able to talk about to raise awareness to the signs of abuse just via my experience. The first thing is an intense honeymoon period at the beginning which is a signifier of how brilliant things can be. It sets the benchmark for if you behave well and if you fulfil all of the requirements and meet the rules and all these things of the abuser. It can be here, it can be great. Intense love bombing, big displays of affection, lots of love words and happy times, great dates, lots of laughs, you're amazing, put on a pedestal. And that's very common in the beginning of an abusive relationship. And then for me, the grooming, the pushing of your emotional and spiritual boundaries, you know, so that can come

out through somebody being jealous, controlling, you know, little things that you could do wrong that could take away from the happiness of where things could be. For me, it was being nice to a waiter or being polite to somebody that could be seen as me flirting or want to engage in some sort of relationship with somebody else when I'm literally just ordering pasta and being polite. So any harmless bit of friendliness on your part could be construed as disloyalty or sort of infidelity? Yeah, which can be really isolating. You know, I was told that I knew what he was like

and if I loved him, I wouldn't look men in the eye. So that was my reality for a good four months towards the end of the relationship that I wasn't allowed to look men in the eye. He told you that? So then I'm looking down all the time. And you know, that does a lot to someone's confidence. When you're worried about someone being nice to you in a shop, just any sort of day to day pleasant interaction could you in a shop. Just any sort of day-to-day pleasant interaction could result in a three-day event of me being berated and kept awake. And I think for me, I started to

really isolate myself. So I stopped talking to my friends. I didn't talk to my family. I just was living a very regimented and contained life that I felt got me in the least trouble you've brought a legal suit against him which we can talk about in a minute but it means I've read that so I know some of the details one thing you mentioned is that I think it's in the suit that he would count the number of times that you had kissed him in a day yeah right yeah i had a quota that i had to meet that would change so it was like touches or looks or kisses that his previous partner apparently met this number very well so I was inadequate compared to a previous partner of his and I had to get the touches and the kisses correct but I never exactly knew kind of what the number exactly was but it

was essentially around 20 a day like 20 touches 20 kisses a day of just like are you okay like reinforcements basically of my devotion for him and me being committed to him which is exhausting you know because you can't be natural so he was keeping track of the kisses and then if you didn't meet the number, what would happen? He would start an argument with me, berate me for hours, make me feel like I was the worst person ever. Like, I genuinely thought that I was so cold and so awful and such, like, a terrible girlfriend. He would wake me up in the night to accuse me of all sorts of things, accuse me of staring at the ceiling

and thinking about ways to leave him. Accuse me of masturbating. Accuse me of not wanting to be with him. Accusing me of wanting to be with somebody else, but it would be always, I'd say between like four and seven in the morning. And that's why I wanted to do this again because you were kind of asking last time, what have you been doing over lockdown? But for me, I've just been

like, for me, I've been trying not wake up between three and seven in a panic attack. That's what I've been trying to do. And I am there now, you know, just I am there. But for a long time, anything that woke me up in the night, even if it was just my dog or a noise outside or just needing to go to the bathroom, it could trigger a really intense panic attack because I was left with PTSD from that. Which, again, is just something that I don't think we really talk about as a society, just in terms of the healing of leaving and how much work then has to be done to recover, to get back to the person that you were before. And that is time consuming and it's exhausting and it's expensive as well.

You know, I completely acknowledge my privilege of having a house and having a good set of friends around me and having the means to be able to have therapy twice a week if I need it. That's the musician, FKA Twigs, talking on Grounded, the programme with Louis Theroux. You can hear that full podcast now on BBC Sounds and it's coming soon here on Radio 4. We should say that the actor Shia LaBeouf did make a statement about those allegations

included in the lawsuit filed by FKA Twigs Talia DeBrett-Barnett in a Los Angeles County court. He said many of the allegations are not true. I have no excuses for my alcoholism or aggression only rationalizations. I've been abusive to myself and everyone around me for years. I have a history of hurting the people closest to me and I'm ashamed of that

history and I am sorry to those I hurt. There is nothing else I can really say. Let's talk now to Lisa King, Director of Communications and External Relations at Refuge. And I should also say we're speaking on the day that the Domestic Violence Bill is at the House of Lords Committee stage. Lisa, good morning. Good morning, Emma. It's a big thing for anybody to talk out about what's happened to them in this way. But FKA Twigs, she's incredibly famous. She's well known with especially a lot of younger women.

What sort of impact do you think these conversations can have? Yeah, you're absolutely right. FKA Twigs is very brave and courageous speaking out and speaking so openly and fully about what sounds like a very challenging time in her life. And that will give reassurance to other young women who are sadly experiencing domestic abuse across the country now to know that actually it's not something to be ashamed of, that there is support that you can access, that you can begin a new life after experiencing domestic abuse. And she's calling out behaviours and tactics of control for women to look out for, which is great. The more we understand, the more we can do.

And hopefully that'll give women a better understanding of experiencing domestic abuse and start to question behaviours and think about maybe making choices and changes. What is your advice for anyone who listened to that and thought, I recognise that, I think that's a bit like me? If that sounds like you and you've just listened to that very articulate young woman speak about her personal experiences, then please reach out and get support. So much of what she said is a kind of clear trigger examples of experiencing domestic abuse. And there is support there. I mean, there is support to reach out for Refuge Runs, the 24-hour national domestic abuse helpline. We have live chat. There's content on our website. You know, there's the refuges to turn to if you want to actually

escape a partner. Or there are some amazing experts who operate across our communities in kind of we'll meet you in the park or wherever is safe to have a discussion about what you're experiencing and help you understand that and look at what options are available to you. Because everyone's situation is going to be different and a unique sort of support plan will be put in place for you as an individual. I think that people listening think that perhaps if they do recognise this that they could go and make that step and it's important for them to know where to go but how can you do it? How can you kind of find that moment? What would you say about that? Because you can always think, oh, maybe it's not that bad. Maybe I'll do it another day. I think if you can ask yourself this question, are you changing your behaviour negatively because you're scared of your partner's reaction? And if you find whatever question you ask yourself around that answer is yes, then I would strongly urge you to start accessing information. Start to look at our website. There's an exit button on there if you need to quickly leave it. We've got live chat,

which runs from three till 10 o'clock every Monday to Friday to talk to an expert where you can ask questions and find out more. Start to educate yourself and find out because as we've heard in this alleged case, domestic abuse increases in frequency and severity over time. So now's a good time to start finding out more and being informed and knowing where to turn to when you feel that the time is right. The domestic violence bill, I said, is at the House of Lords committee stage today. What's going to be discussed that's relevant to coercive control? Well, there's going to be a number of really important aspects discussed. One is a campaign, actually, that Refuge has led where we are calling for threats to share intimate images to be made a crime.

So many young women in particular experience this new form of coercive and controlling tactic whereby men will threaten to share intimate images and just imagine for a moment that somebody might have an image or a video of you imagine them saying I'm going to share that across your Facebook pages I'm going to send it to your mum and dad and all your friends and they use that as a way to control the choices that you make make you maybe even stay with them and prevent you from making choices around leaving. That is a really concerning issue that is increasingly happening to more and more young women in particular, and that needs to change. We've been campaigning for a long time around that. It had a great response when it was read in the House of Lords a week or so back, and it's being tabled this coming week as a change.

So we hope very much that that becomes a crime because the coercion inflicted upon women as a result of that currently being allowed is very, very concerning. Lisa King, Director of Communications and External Relations at Refuge. Thank you for your time. And of course, men who are affected by any of those things will also be covered in that bill, which will keep you across. Now we will be coming to a Cabinet minister. Therese Coffey will be joining us shortly. She's the minister for the Department for Work and Pensions. If you've got any questions for her, do let us know. But prompting that discussion is the paucity of female ministers

being allowed out by Downing Street. It all works through an approval system. Who gets to go out onto the airwaves and represent the government on the Sunday morning shows? You've been getting in touch to say what you think of this. Has this government got a woman problem? The most able people should be promoted to cabinet to serve country. Sex shouldn't come

into it. Well, women are there. It's just whether they're being trusted to speak. With reference to your item on female cabinet ministers, Emma, appearing on television, of course it matters. Take the issue of schools returning, to which all intents and purposes affects women more than men. Who is speaking up on that that topic children need to be back in school as soon as possible for so many obvious reasons well of course men have children too but the point there of course

perhaps who's bearing the brunt of homeschooling right across the country and parenting at the moment discuss that is a very very live discussion in people's homes right now something else that is a live discussion is what's going on with the climate, as more and more of us are, of course, only able to just go for walks or be outside. 2021 is going to be a decisive year for action on the climate crisis, or at least that's what many people hope. President Biden has already set out his stall by rejoining the Paris Agreement and pledging to reduce America's reliance on fossil fuels.

Come November, the UK will be hosting the Conference of Parties, or COP26, in Glasgow, giving the government here a chance to showcase its own vision for a greener future. Getting the world's nations to agree on serious action could be do or die for the planet as things are changing at an alarming rate. But will it happen?

One woman who's seen our planet change over the decades and has been a leader in this space, internationally renowned primatologist and conservationist Dame Jane Goodall. She's going to be giving an online talk at the Science Museum this week on Thursday. It's a free lecture and the first in a series about climate change. She joins us now. Good morning. Good morning. You're most famous for your pioneering work on chimpanzees in Tanzania, which you started in 1960. What's changed for them in the intervening decades and how they've been affected by climate change? Well, they've been affected in several ways. But first of all, when I got to the little Gombe

National Park in 1960, it was part of the equatorial forest belt that stretched right across Africa to the West Coast. And when I flew over in 1990, instead of being part of the forest, I looked down and saw a small island of forest that was the national park. And it was surrounded for miles by completely bare hills, more people living there than the land could support, too poor to buy food

from elsewhere, farmland overused and infertile, struggling to survive. And so that was one major change. And it meant that the Gombe chimpanzees were now isolated from other chimpanzee groups. And as there were only just over 100, that is not enough for long-term viability because of inbreeding. So what we did was work with the people, help them find ways of making a living without destroying the environment. And because they came to trust us, they agreed to set land aside and actually the trees have now come back. So you won't see the Bear Hills anymore and the people have become our partners in conservation. But for what reason?

I was just going to say, I mean, presumably you've also seen a change in the UK's wildlife too. Oh, absolutely. I mean, when I grew up, I'm speaking from the house where I grew up in Bournemouth, and I used to wake up at four to hear the dawn chorus, so many different birds. There's hardly any left now. Most of them have gone. Most of the species have gone. And there isn't any more adorned chorus. It's funny, though, people have been saying during lockdown, though, they feel because fewer planes flying and fewer people on the road, certainly very much in the early

days of lockdown, that perhaps they could hear the birds more clearly. There are birds. And yes, you can hear those that are here more clearly. But that doesn't mean that we haven't lost many, many species. And also in the summer, if you left your window open with the light on, the room was full of insects. Well, that doesn't happen anymore. It's exciting to see one moth and people have paved over their gardens and there's no hedgehogs anymore. It's changed enormously. Let me ask you about our leadership in this country. I'm very mindful of the fact that I'll be speaking to a cabinet minister in just a moment, but on other issues. Boris Johnson on the Green Agenda spoke up very recently

against China's killing of the pangolin in relation to COVID. He actually faced some criticism in his own ranks for doing so, expecting a stiff rebuke from Beijing over doing that. And he talked about Chinese traditional medicine being demented. He blamed it for unleashing the pandemic. How much faith do you have in the UK under him being a leader in this space, that the UK can occupy that space? Well, I don't want to say too much about the leadership in the UK because, you know, our

institute, the Jengrel Institute, is apolitical. But I can talk about China. We have our youth programme, about 2,000 groups of roots and shoots across China. And as soon as it was suspected that the pangolin might have been the conveyor of the COVID-19 virus, it was banned from killing, breeding, eating pangolins. They've been taken off the list of Chinese traditional medicine. They've been put up to number one status in conservation in China. And in fact, I've just written a children's book about a pangolin because most people don't know what they are. No, I had to educate myself.

And the way they roll up in a little ball is just gorgeous. You know, I mean, people should know what they are. So that's very nice to hear you've done that. Yeah, it's coming out, I think, in the UK next week or something called Pangolina. Yeah, well, this is, of course, you put that spotlight back there. What do you hope to see come out of the COP26 in November? Well, I think, you know, right now, as you say, more people are getting aware of the natural world. And I think more people are understanding that this pandemic, we brought it on ourselves by absolute disrespect of the natural world and of animals. And it's the same disrespect of the natural world that's led to climate change. And I think this is pushing more people to realize it's desperately important that we create a new relationship

with the natural world and animals and a new, greener, and more sustainable economy. Because does it make sense that on a planet with finite natural resources and a growing human population with their livestock, that we can have unlimited global economic development. It doesn't make sense. If we carry on with business as usual, that's the end, not only of life as we know it on this planet, but that includes us. You still have a lot of hope. You have your podcast, Hopecast, and I think that's important to have

and it's inspiring that you do despite all you will have seen change. But the time that we're talking in with a pandemic, a lot of people, a lot of older people, very, very concerned and have had a lot of anxiety.

I don't know if you've had the vaccine yet, but you also, I saw in a piece, spoke about dying being the next great adventure. What did you mean by that? Well, I mean, when you die, there's either nothing or there's something. I happen to think there's something. And if there is, then I can't think of a greater adventure than discovering what's in store for us when we leave this planet. So that's what I meant by that. So no fear there in the sense of what comes next, because as you say, either something

or nothing. Have you been vaccinated? I've had one and I was told it's desperately important you get the next one within three weeks. But now they've run out of the vaccine. Suddenly it's okay to wait for 12 weeks. I don't know what to believe. Yes, well, that's a question many people are having at the moment. Thank you so much for talking to us today. I know that talk is on Thursday on the Science Museum's website, which you can see virtually and for free. Dame Jane Goodall, thank you for your time today. Good to have you with us. Now, I did promise you we'd be speaking to a cabinet minister and a female one at that. And the reason why that's important is some analysis has been done about how much those female cabinet ministers,

the much fewer in number than the men, are actually allowed out, as it were, to go and speak on behalf of the government officially. Not, of course, doing their constituency work, but onto like this, and not least the flagship political TV programmes. The Sunday Times did some calculations and found since the start of lockdown, I'll just make sure you've got this, a total male cabinet ministers have appeared a total of 65 times on the two flagship political programmes in this country on a Sunday morning. That's versus twice for the women. Therese Coffey, good morning. Good morning, Emma. You are, of course, the Secretary of State for the Department

for Work and Pensions, a very important office of state, not least at the moment when people are struggling and are having to rely on the state in a way perhaps they hadn't before. Why are you not allowed out on a Sunday morning? Well, I think it's important when the government's ministers are on the perhaps what you call the flagship shows on the Sunday. Of course, we've been out on other occasions as well. It's often the issue of the moment. And it so happened recently, before Christmas, I was due to go on. And then the confirmation of Joe Biden likely to be the president

meant I stepped down and understandably the foreign secretary stepped in. But a lot of these reasons for making broadcast decisions are based on kind of issues at the moment with people like Matt in charge of Department of Health, some of the work that's been going on with businesses, Michael Gove. So the women simply don't have the top jobs? No, I think it's just we've got different jobs. It's not about what's the top job. I actually think the job that I do is really important.

Why have we not heard from you? Well, what I'd like to think is that we've done our job competently. We've delivered for people who've often turned to benefits for the first time. And what I expect, Emma, is that we now move hopefully more towards with the plan for jobs and the recovery. You may well be seeing more of me, Emma, because right now, let's not pretend,

unemployment is still rising. We're doing what we can through things to plan for jobs to try and get some confidence and creation of jobs. And we're doing our best within DWP to help people get ready and be prepared for it. Let's come back to the DWP in just a moment, because we have had a response to the fact that there have been basically no women on those programmes. No women trusted with the message, apart from Priti Patel once going on on both programmes that I've talked about. Do you not understand why some of our listeners

think that this government's got a woman problem? Well, I know the Prime Minister is very conscious of the fact that more than half the electorate are women. He's appointed his first press secretary, who's going to be a significant broadcaster later this year. I don't know when, through Allegra Stratton, who is an excellent professional, has got that job, obviously, entirely on merit. But I'm sure we'll be a familiar face representing the government. But no offence. Sorry, that's a PR job. It's a very important job to communicate.

But we're talking about being trusted with the policy and the great offices of state. And for instance, if I put to you, Anna Soubry has said to me, someone who is not a stranger to the Conservative Party, she says herself just only a few moments ago, not a fan of Boris Johnson, but she's saying what she sees, that she is so surprised to see elements of misogyny moving back into the Conservative Party and the Conservative Party moving to the right. Do you recognise that? I don't actually, Emma, and I know Anna's been on a journey and she left our party. You know, I was elected at the same time as her and I'm not going

to look backwards in that regard. Look, I think a lot of the comments have been well heard um there's definitely a new regime at number 10 uh you know we are uh stepping up into some of the areas where you're seeing sorry just we're seeing prominence of issues that will come to the fore a bit like liz trust doing lots of trade deals probably uh really important work that she's been doing but that's gradually come to fruition so So I'm not trying to justify necessarily the entire past, but a lot of the issues that people wanted to know about were largely being led on, it so happens, departments that were being led by a mixture of men and women at the time. It so happens, but I have to break in there.

Sorry, I have to break in there because you say, I can't talk about, you know, apologise for the past or focus too much on the past. I didn't say apologise. OK, but you said there's been a change of regime. The word change assumes, quite fairly, I think, that something needed to change. Was there a problem before? Genuinely, Emma, I don't want to get into the fact that we're problems or not we have a change of regime uh the prime minister has had a new director of communications some new people coming in um you know they will take the approach to communications in the way they think best uh and you know I'm conscious uh that I am I absolutely feel trusted to go out and represent

the government as I do regularly I'm just conscious that sometimes the issues on which I lead for the government will not be front and centre in people's minds on the issues they want to hear about from the government on that specific day. Whether it's about vaccinations or Brexit or all these other things. You were quite vocal last week about vaccinations six days ago. You were definitely not on the government script. You tweeted, if I may, to remind our listeners, vaccinations started well in Suffolk Coastal in the last few days, but something isn't quite right in some places. Patients aged 70 plus are being contacted for vaccination ahead of 80 plus slash 90 plus year olds. And Downing Street was insisting from the outset that the over 80s

will still be prioritised. Do you veer off script a bit more than Downing Street would like to raise coffee? I'm not sure it's about that. I was tweeting that specifically relating to my own constituency in Suffolk Coastal. Yes, where the government policy wasn't working. Well, the government policy is absolutely working because the priorities have been set. Sometimes some of the local delivery is a bit more challenging. But, you know, the NHS, along with the army, are doing a great job.

And sometimes, you know, as the local MP, not just the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, you know, I do need to stand up for my constituents as well when something isn't quite working. So this is not a criticism at all of the national government and um i've always tried to as your producer knows uh be open in my communications with what i do be regularly present you know was on bbc any questions and things like that as well so as i say in the moment um sometimes you need the the minister who's got the uh you know the policy the levers on their fingertips uh that is whom often is whom often we want to make sure the public can hear from. Just to hear what you've just said, local delivery was more challenging. Well, you know, government is nothing but local delivery.

And one of the messages we received was perhaps women don't stick to the script quite so loyally and doggedly as the male ministers. So do you think the women deviate a bit more? Are you more on the naughty step than the men? Are the men more slavishly loyal to Mr Johnson? No, I think we work together very well as a cabinet, as a government. We are in some really challenging times

through this pandemic. The vaccination programme has been a huge success. I'm a local MP as well, Emma. And sometimes it's a balancing act that we often have to walk about how we communicate with people so it doesn't get interpreted as being a criticism of national government progress. Have you got a press conference in the diary? Are you going to lead one of those soon? You've not done one, I believe well emma i'm not aware quite right now that um dwp is leading on the plan for jobs uh we've made some important announcements today frankly when i do go on the media uh like i has have this morning trying to fit in some of where my responsibilities primarily lie can can be quite challenging to get

that on the uh into the broadcast well i'll ask you something specific about your brief i've only got 30 seconds if i may joint universal credit payments the refuge we've just been speaking to about coercive control wants separate payments to be the default instead are you going to do that we're not going to do that no emma um the vast majority of people in uh households that we support will often have uh sharing budgets um quite often the different ranges of support that we give may not cover for example um local housing allowance will be part of the support that they get and universal credit is an agile um kind of payment system based on uh of combined incomes. But you're not, I'm very, Therese Coffey, I'm so sorry. It's not what I want to do necessarily at this point, but I have to.

We have to leave it there for timing. But you gave a very clear answer. That's not going to be separate payments. We hope to talk to you again. Thank you for making the time. Therese Coffey there, Department for Work and Pensions, Secretary of State. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Thank you so much for your time.

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