Woman's Hour - Woman's Hour Election Debate

Episode Date: June 18, 2024

In a special extended 90 minute programme, Nuala McGovern hosts the Woman's Hour Election Debate. Senior women from the main political parties of Great Britain outline their priorities for women and answer your questions. Taking part are: Scottish National Party spokesperson for Consular Affairs and International Engagement Hannah Bardell; Reform UK candidate Maria Bowtell; Green Party spokesperson for Housing and Communities Ellie Chowns; Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats Daisy Cooper; Conservative Minister of State for Disabled People, Health and Work Mims Davies; Labour's Shadow Minister for Industry and Decarbonisation Sarah Jones and Plaid Cymru’s Westminster Leader Liz Saville Roberts.

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BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, this is Nuala McGovern and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Good morning. Great to have you with us for indeed this extended edition of Woman's Hour, our election debate. minutes, senior women representing the seven main political parties of Great Britain will answer questions on issues that you have told us matter to you in this general election. Our listeners have identified four issues that representatives will address, followed by a discussion,

and the participants have not been told the issues or questions in advance. The politicians taking part today are, in the studio, Reform UK candidate Maria Botel, the Green Party of England and Wales spokesperson for housing and communities, Ellie Chowns, Daisy Cooper, deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats, and on video links I have the Conservative Party's Mims Davies,

Minister of State for Disabled People, Health and Work, Hannah Bardell, spokesperson for Consular Affairs and International Engagement for the SNP, the Scottish National Party. Labour's Shadow Minister for Industry and Decarbonisation, Sarah Jones. And Plaid Cymru's Westminster Leader, Liz Saville Roberts. You're all very welcome. Now, throughout the programme, we want to hear from you, our listener. So do share your priorities for the next government or your reaction to what you are hearing. You can, in all the usual ways. Text the programme. The number is

84844 on social media. We're at BBC Women's Hour. Or you can email us through our website. For WhatsApp, a message or a voice note, yes, we'd love to hear your voice. The number is 03700 100 444. And I want to remind you that you can go to the BBC News election web pages for all the details and analysis on the latest election news and also for a full list of candidates standing in all constituencies.

So let us get started. Settle in for the next 90 minutes. I want to begin by going to each of my guests in turn to share their party's top policy priorities for women. They will have up to a maximum of 30 seconds each and answering in an order that we picked out of a hat not so long ago, beginning with Sarah Jones from Labour. Thank you. Good morning. Labour is the party of women. Labour in government is always delivered for women from the Equal Pay Act to the right to contraception. And we believe the Conservatives have let women down across the board. So the next Labour government will build on our legacy of previous governments. We want to tackle violence against women and girls. We'll work to finally close the gender pay gap

and we will end the scandalous deprioritisation of women's health in our NHS and we'll create a better workplace by introducing the right to flexible working from day one. Land, we've gone a little over 30 seconds there. Ellie Chan's Green Party. Thanks. The top priority for the Greens

is to build a greener and fairer country and that means investing in the public services that we all depend on like the NHS and the care system. It means reforming taxation so that we can invest to make society fairer and it of course means tackling the climate and nature crises that have to be addressed if we want our children and grandchildren to inherit that fairer, greener world. Let me turn to Liz Saville-Roberts of Plaid Cymru. Thank you very much. For us, of course, public services in Wales and fair funding for Wales are of extreme importance,

as is addressing child poverty in Wales. We also seek to have a fair address for the WASPI women to make sure that women's pensions reflect what they should be receiving. And I have done a lot of work and I hope to continue to do a lot of work to prevent violence against women and girls. I introduced the domestic abuse register, which has been taken on. And we're also really interested in the abuse process, improving the co-op system and seriously addressing stalking

and similar crimes such as that. 30 seconds are up. Daisy Cooper, Liberal Democrats. Well, the Liberal Democrats have some positively feminist policies to give day one rights to all new parents, whether they're employed or self-employed.

Policies to make our high streets and our online spaces safer. We want to tackle the cost of living crisis, make misogyny a hate crime, give right to flexible working on day one. And fundamentally,

our manifesto is a manifesto to save our NHS and social care, because we know that it's women who are often the ones picking up the pieces of our broken public services. To the Conservative, Mims Davies. Hello, everyone. Well, we will absolutely focus on building on the work that we've done to protect women from violence, from building on the work with our menopause champion, building on our work on the women's health strategy and the maternity strategy. And of course, building on the work around defending samesex spaces. We'll also focus on the 30 hours of free childcare and also end the unfairness of child benefits. And time is up. Thank you, Mims Davies. Maria Botel from Reform. So Reform is openly one of the only parties that really knows what a woman is by all accounts.

And I think for me, it's about making sure our children understand that in our schools and also that you can be encouraged to have more children and you're not penalised and give freedom to women to choose whether they would rather stay at home and have that family unit

or whether they want to be career driven. And I think our taxation policies are the only ones that give people freedom of choice of their own money and how they spend it. And also our policing and things help. Time up. Hannah Bardell from the SNP. Thank you. Well, I want to see Scotland become an independent country and that will benefit not just Scotland,

but the rest of the UK, because hopefully they will follow suit in going back into Europe. But I want to see a government policies in Parliament that is open and transparent and works for women and everybody in society one that delivers as we have in scotland free prescriptions the baby box better child care safer communities better maternity including pre and postnatal care and safety in public spaces including online and in public life i want the ability for everybody to live and love freely and have better support for ivf and an immigration policy that is humane. Your time is up there Hannah Bardell thank you so much thanks to all of you for starting on women's priorities but we want to get straight on with the debate and our first question comes from Women's Hour listener Ali. You claim you want to support women and you've identified many of the areas that disproportionately

affect women in your manifestos. My question is a simple one. How important is it to your party to clearly and correctly identify what a woman is? Let me turn to Hannah Bardell for the SNP. I think one of the saddest things about the debate that has ensued around trans rights and the essentialism that's come into the debate is that it is doing a huge amount of harm. It's doing a huge amount of harm to the LGBT community and it's doing a huge amount of harm to society in general. And I think if we get into a debate where we're defining people by their body parts, we've lost our grip on humanity. And I think there is an absolutely a discussion to be had about prisons, women's spaces, all of those kinds of things.

But it has to be done in a way that respects the rights of everyone. And the truth is that I have a lot of trans constituents. I have a lot of constituents who have trans children and they feel seriously under attack. And they never asked for their identity or indeed their humanity to be put up for a debate. And I want to live in a country where, as we have done in Scotland, we passed legislation that would give greater respect and dignity to trans people, and it was blocked by Westminster. And that was voted on by members of everybody, parties in this debate, pretty much.

And that legislation was then blocked. And I think we need, we have to recognise where a lot of this debate is coming from. It's being funded by the right wing evangelicals in the US. It's a wedge issue. It's designed to split the liberal left. And it's designed to also, sadly, some, particularly some in the Conservatives, not all, and some in Labour and other parties, but not all, have used it to distract from some of the really pressing issues that we have in society, like the cost of living, like austerity, like the impact of Brexit. And we are, unfortunately, the mainstream media using trans people and their identities as a political football. I think we will look back in history and we will be deeply shamed because it's the kind of stuff that I grew up with.

I'm a queer woman and I didn't come out until I was 32. And I didn't come out until I was 32 because society told me and successive governments, including people like Margaret Thatcher, told me that I was wrong. Hannah Braddell, let us leave it there for now, because I do want to also hear from the other participants. Let me turn to Maria Battelle for reform and for me biology is biology and that does not mean I don't value humans whatever they choose to do with their lives or what they choose to wear or whether they decide to have surgery they be them that's great for me I worry about my son and I do want to know it very much from Reform UK's perspective. Yeah, so in terms of Reform UK, it's about bringing it back into our schools and education that actually, biologically, you are one or the other.

That is science. And that's not saying we devalue humans. That's saying that's a fact. And my son, he says he goes into the... He's been in year seven. He said he goes into the bathroom at school sometimes just to get a bit of a quiet, safe space. And if I had a daughter, I remember being at school, I would like to have that safe space. And that is the position of Reform UK? I believe so, yes. Let me turn to you, Daisy Cooper, for the Liberal Democrats.

What is a woman? For the vast majority of people, they identify with the sex that they have at birth. But for a very small number of people, a very small number of people, that is not the case. And Liberal Democrats have always said that those people also deserve to be treated with respect and dignity. Now, the Equality Act has been in place since 2010. It's been in place for 14 years. And I think it's working very well. And the Equality Act protects hard won, hard fought wins for women, for trans people, and for all sorts of people with protected characteristics. There are provisions in the Equality Act to provide for single sex spaces.

There are provisions to exclude men and trans people when there is a proportionate legitimate goal behind that. If there are service providers who don't feel as though they have adequate guidance on how to apply those rules, then certainly I think any future government could provide that guidance. But I think we have to be really clear that in every single day life, there are service providers that have to take decisions and we can't legislate for every single one. The fact of the matter is that the Equality and Human Rights Commission itself has said that if you try to change the Equality Act, it might clarify some things in some areas, but it might actually introduce confusion in other areas. The Equality Act has been working incredibly well for 14 years.

The exemptions exist and are working well. I think that I think the Equality Act is fine. And we need to be really clear about the fact there's a small number of people who do identify as being trans and they deserve our respect. I think fundamentally, as a country, we have a sort of sense that people should be whoever they want to be. It's a live and live, live and let live attitude in this country. And I think that the debate has become incredibly toxic. We need to bring that debate and the heat of the debate down so we can talk about how we can protect everybody's rights. And personally, I see no contradiction and no conflict between women's rights and trans rights. Let me turn to Liz Saville Roberts from Plaid Cymru. I think we really, as politicians

in the debate, we need to make a space for respect and tolerance and recognise here that across the spectrum we're talking about the risks to vulnerable individuals and also their rights. Now, I've done an awful lot of work with the prison system and there's quite a lot of talk about how this plays out in the prison system. And the prison system is collapsing. I would imagine that we have the highest number of prisoners ever. In all honesty, many of these discussions here, and I have seen a trans woman in the men's prison because that was where she felt safest place to be and where the prison system felt it was the safest place for her to be as well. But many of these discussions come down to risks about individuals. And if we had a functioning

criminal justice system, that could be managed in a way that it presently doesn't seem to be. And that would alleviate an awful lot of fears. But to roll back from that very specific example, we have to find a way here of respecting people's rights. We have to find a way of talking about difficult issues like this in a way that doesn't just tick all the boxes and become a dog whistle of hatred, because that is playing out in a way that is very dangerous to a lot of young people. And it doesn't do our politics any favours when

actually the larger question of the state of this country will actually have far greater effect on people's lives. Let me turn to the Green Party and to Ellie Chance. Thanks. Well, I agree with a lot of what Hannah and Daisy said. You know, we do in the Green Party recognise that trans identities are real. They are valid for the large majority of people. It's really not an issue in their day to day lives. But for those for whom it is, I think compassion has to be the overriding way in which we treat with people. And I've got friends, colleagues, relatives who are trans. They just want to be treated as individuals. And the people

that I meet and speak to on the doorstep, the large, large majority of them have that live and let live attitude. This is about individual freedom to identify with the gender that you feel most comfortable with. And I think the polarisation that we see in politics in this debate, and in so many other issues, is itself so negative for our political conversation. And this was a question from our listener, Ali, who was asking, what is a woman? Well, you know, for most people, if they're born as a woman, they continue to identify as a woman. But there are some people who are born male and wish to identify as female, as a woman. And for the Green Party, that is valid and real.

Let me turn to the Conservatives and Mims Davies. What is a woman? Well, I think rolling back, protecting female-owned spaces and defending them has been an absolute priority for us as a party. And also protecting the competitiveness of sport, making it clear that sex means biological sex in the Equality Act. So a woman is a woman, but as described, trans people need to be treated with understanding and compassion. And I don't think this is beyond the wit of all of us to manage. I've got friends who are trans, but equally as described, where criminality is involved and safety of vulnerable people is paramount, then we absolutely need to be protecting female-only spaces. And I think anybody listening to Women's Hour, it's called Women's Hour for a reason, wants to hear that women and our hard-fought rights and what we expect in our safety is

paramount. But above all, that compassion to those individuals and those loved ones, we need to protect too. So I think this is the way forward. Protect women's spaces, define women as women, and make sure that trans women and other people who identify differently, equally have the same respect and understanding let me turn to sarah jones for labor what is a woman well we're uh we're all women on this panel which is wonderful um and uh rare um and we know that women you know a woman is an adult female and we know that sex and gender are different and we know that trans women also exist and they deserve support too so i think it's

the parameters here are clear what isn't clear is that we've had this sort of very heated debate where people have felt very um marginalized they've felt very divided and we need to try as politicians i think all of us and i think everyone on this on this panel would want to do that to bring people together to have a sensible conversation about where there are issues that we need to uh look at and um you know what labor has said is that there are there are two pieces of of law there's the equality act and there's the gender recognition act um and we would want to see some changes on both of those um one the gender recognition act is about how uh you support people who've got gender dysphoria, who are making a transition and want to live as a woman and make that transition. And we want to make sure, through lots of consultation, to make sure we do this right.

But we take out some of the elements of the Gender Recognition Act that are out of date and not kind. But we still need to make sure we have a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria and people living for two years and being able to offer proof that they've lived as a woman for two years. We also want to see some more guidance, statutory guidance on the Equality Act, because the Equality Act is very clear about single sex exceptions and where there are places where we need to make sure

we have single sex services. But I think there can be some confusion about how that is applied. So we've said we should we should look at that. You're looking for a statutory change on that.

We actually have time for some discussion on this particular issue. I do have three of my guests are in studio and I have four that are with me via video link. Please raise your hands if you want to get involved and I will try and keep an eye across the seven people in that matter.

But let me begin with you, Sarah, who you were just speaking there about some of the changes that Labour is looking for. Your former leader, Tony Blair, he was speaking yesterday and talked about that you and other politicians in your party are in a muddle over this issue. How divided is Labour on this topic? I think what is a reasonable thing to say is that we've all been on a kind of journey around some of these issues that came to the fore when we had legislation in Scotland, which I think showed that if you try and sort of bring something in without the proper consultation, without taking people with you, without explaining

what you're doing, and without thinking about perhaps what the impact might be on other groups, you can have a challenge. So whenever you have debates around human rights, you can always have different rights bumping up against each other. And we need to make sure those rights are protected for everybody. So where we need to have the kind of, say, there's a service for a group for women who've suffered sexual abuse. It should be really clear that that needs to be a protected space and that that can be a protected space.

And that is there in the law, but the guidance perhaps needs clarifying. So we're all, I think, trying to make sure that people are treated fairly, but we have a common sense approach. Sarah Jones, I'm going to be really, just sorry, Hannah Bardell,

before you come in, I just want to be really clear that I particularly this is radio. We can't have people speaking over one another just so our listeners, to be fair to them, so they can hear you properly. And also what the differences are. Sarah Jones, thank you very much. Hannah Bardell, please. Yeah, I think I think unfortunately, Sarah, perhaps hasn't followed the proceedings in Scotland. It was one of the most consulted on pieces of legislation in the history of the Scottish Parliament. It took us, I think it was nearly six years of consultation. We had two rounds of public consultation.

A very wide range of groups and organisations were consulted with. So I'm sorry, it is completely inaccurate and wrong to say that it was rushed through or there wasn't proper consultation. There was, including with Sarah's own colleagues in the Scottish Parliament Labour colleagues some of whom I know some of whom are friends of mine who I worked with who supported this legislation now I think there is a valid point about how the discussion um you know on on gender recognition and and the change um and and bringing in more humanity to that opened up a wider discussion that people weren't aware of. I think there were a lot of people in the public,

and there's lots of people said, don't really care. Folk don't really care what bathrooms or how people identify. You know, what they care about is that folk are able to live their lives with dignity and humanity, and the vast majority of people in Scotland and across the UK support people's right to identify as they feel and as they choose. That is not to say there are not discussions to be had around services

and other areas of public life. Hannah Bardell? We're in a situation where that legislation was voted on democratically by members of all parties in the Scottish Parliament. Can I ask you, Hannah Bardell, would the SNP reintroduce reforms to the gender recognition laws in Scotland?

I certainly hope so. I mean, it's above my pay grade to make a statement about that. But my hope is that we will revisit that. But that is something you would push for or advocate for. It's certainly something that I personally... In studio with me, Maria Botel wants to come in and then I'll come to you, Daisy Cooper of the Liberal Democrats. Thank you.

Maria from Reform UK. So I've been out campaigning every day and I get a lot of 14, 15-year-olds and even a couple of 16-year-olds who've come to help me and they've told me about how in school everyone's very confused, no-one knows what they are and it seems more confusing now as a teenager than it ever did when I was a teenager.

And I think for me it comes back to what is a woman and actually making sure that our children know that and if they choose to be or want to be anything else, that's not to say they're less of a person, they should have less rights. Reform do not say that you should have less rights as trans. What we're saying is we need to accept and teach facts so that there's less confusion in our youth. Let me come to one specific. You've said within the first 100 days of government, you would ban what you call transgender ideology in schools, meaning no gender questioning,

social transitioning or pronoun swapping so what does a parent or a teacher do when faced with a child who wants to do exactly those things so you would if a child says i want to be called matthew instead of maria you would you would call them by matthew and have a discussion with the parents on if that's okay with the parents because ultimately i feel like it's a parent's responsibility when someone is under a certain age to have that discussion with the school rather than just go by what the child is saying because I was a goth at school that doesn't mean I've carried that on. But let me be specific here so if the parents want that to happen is it reliant on the parents? I think it needs to be a discussion and use common sense

between the school, the parents and the child and what's best for that child. But Reform UK does not have an issue with a child changing pronouns or changing names within the school? I think it is, as long as the child is taught the scientific fact of what actually is reality, and I think there should be some protections over children and that they should be making a decision as an adult if they still want that when they're older.

But this is when they're in school, when they're still a child. But when they're still a child at school, I think it should be a discussion of what's in the best interests of each individual child. But there is not a red line about pronoun swapping? As far as I'm aware, Reform UK is not going to say she cannot say I am a he as long as it's agreed between all parties. And it's not something where the child's just demanding it and the teacher's saying, yes, OK, you're now a he without a discussion with the parents first.

Daisy Cooper from Liberal Democrats. Well, when it comes to young people, there are a number of young people who either are questioning who they are and also suffering from gender dysphoria. And that has been a big issue recently. And of course, young people have been horribly let down by these incredibly long waiting lists that exist for young people. So they can't even access mental health services in the first place. And because there are so many young people who are experiencing gender dysphoria, I think it's incumbent on all of us, again, as I say, to keep the heat out of the argument. The one point I really wanted to make, though, was about the distinction between gender recognition certificates and the Equality Act, because I think for a lot of folk, they just find this whole conversation very confusing.

And the inflammatory rhetoric makes it even more confusing a gender recognition certificate is simply a way of somebody changing their sex on a birth certificate a marriage certificate or a death certificate it doesn't give them any it's completely unrelated to the legislation that affects access to single sex spaces the two things are entirely separate and they keep getting conflated and confusing people. So when the discussion around gender recognition certificates happens, what you're saying is that when somebody is trans, they should be able to identify like that on their legal documents

with various safeguards in place and Liberal Democrats would keep various safeguards in place. But that debate is entirely separate from the discussion about single-sex spaces, which is governed by the Equality Act, which has been in place for 14 years, which does have provisions for single sex spaces when there is a proportionate legitimate goal to achieve. comes to the CAS review as to whether your party accepts the recommendations of the CAS review which said that children were being let down by a lack of research on medical interventions in gender care and call for gender services for young people to match the standards of other NHS care. I'll do the studio first and then go to the video links. Daisy Cooper. Look I'm going to

be really clear here. Yes or no? You can't give a yes or no on these issues because it's so reductive. And the cast review has been so misrepresented by so many different people that by saying yes or no, there are people who are going to misunderstand what our party position is. So do I agree that there is a lack of evidence in this space? Yes, I do. Do I believe that young people have been badly let down by poor provision of mental health services? Yes, I do. We don't have time for a longer answer. If you don't want to give me a yes or no that is your decision this is the problem with this debate it becomes very reductive and that becomes very divisive so do i believe they've

been let down yes i do and do i think it needs that this evidence should be led by clinicians yes i do maria bartell yeah yes and i think in schools we need to make sure that children aren't confused further when they're already at a sensitive age. Ellie Chams from the Green Party. A binary yes or no answer doesn't pay adequate attention to the nuances of this debate. The Cass Review has made some really, really useful recommendations about the need for more services. And we also need to pay attention to the voice. I'm sorry, I'm with Daisy on this. Asking for yes or no answers is a contribution to polarisation in this debate,

not a contribution to clarity. It can be a contribution to clarity. There is not an official Green Party policy on the cast review. I personally am clear. The cast review has made useful recommendations and there is more to be discussed. Ellie Chan, let me move on to my guests that are joining me via video link. Liz Saville-Roberts. chance let me move on to my guests that are joining me via video link uh liz zavall roberts

we agree with the cast review again to be asked to do a yes or no answer to this which is obviously in an area which is a moving societal issue yes there are many very valid points within the cast review also it raises questions about the evidence that was accepted into this review and the obvious point that we will need further evidence. Yes or no, Liz? And of course, the issues with... Alongside all of this, one thing that hasn't come up in the discussion so far about this particular

relation to young people is the risk of increasing homophobic bullying related to gender. And that is another area, Liz, if you don't want to give me a yes or no on the cast review. Hannah Bardell. I don't think you want to give me a yes or no on the cast review. Hannah Bardell. I don't think you're going to get a yes or no from anybody. I'm going to try.

As you've heard, it's too complex an issue. And the reason that we're not getting enough research into this is because of the toxicity of the public debate. I've spoken to health professionals in this area who are scared to go into the jobs. We've funded more research. I understand you're not going to give me a yes or no either. Let me run through because we have a lot more issues

to get through. I think Cass makes a number of helpful points, but I also think she had to clarify herself afterwards. Let me turn to Mims Davies of the Conservative Party. Well, how about a yes,

we stand by doing the review and what comes out from it? And of course, there was debate in the House of Commons on this. And underscoring this is the work that came from DfE. That's a yes, Mims, to Dr. Hilary Cass's recommendations. Yeah, I was just saying, and underscoring this is the work around the provision to support gender questioning children in schools. OK, let us put it there. And Sarah Jones. Yes. I mean, the CAS review lays out clearly how we need to improve and treat young people who are struggling with gender dysphoria.

So maybe in the answers, our listeners will get clarity on your thoughts on that. I want to move on to our next area of discussion, and that is childcare. It becomes a key topic in this election. It's something our listeners are passionate for us to discuss. Penny got in touch with Women's Hour, and here's what she wants to know. It takes a village to raise a child. We ignore this at our peril. What are you going to do to give all children the best start and

ongoing investment? Now, of course, Penny's concern covers a range of measures, part of which is childcare. A report earlier this year published by the Coram Family and Childcare Charity found that the availability of places at nurseries and child minors has worsened

for preschool children across all age groups in the country. Costs have risen 6% this year, with the average annual cost of a full-time nursery place for a child under the age of two now over £15,000. Now, a burden we know that still falls to women who are more likely than men to be out of work due to the cost of childcare. Not to mention 96% of those working in the childcare sector are women. So I want to know from my guests, what is your childcare offer? Let me begin with Daisy Cooper in studio for the Liberal Democrats. Well, the Conservatives made a really

big announcement on childcare. And I have to say it was completely botched. What I heard in my area was there were absolutely scores of parents who picked up the phone, called their local child early years provider or childminder and said, are you going to be providing these additional hours? And the answer they got back was, first of all, we don't understand what the policy is. Secondly, we don't have the staff. We're not going to get compensated properly and we might end up having to close. And as you've indicated, I think around 3000 childcare providers have closed in the last year. So what we would do is try and actually fix this botched plan. So first of all, we would do a review of the rates, because at the moment, the rates that the government pays to childcare providers

doesn't actually cover the costs of running the service. The second thing we would do is put a proper career strategy in place so that we can keep people in the early years sector. Many of them leave because of the pressures and because there aren't always the opportunities for career progression. And the third thing that's really critical is to make sure that when you have early years staff, they have the training to identify children with special educational needs and in those very, very early years. Thank you, Daisy Cooper. Let me turn to Liz Saville-Roberts for Applied Comrie.

Childcare is a devolved issue in Wales, I should say. And if you could tell us briefly your offer. Well, of course, when we were in a cooperation agreement with Welsh Labour, we brought in free school meals to all primary school children in Wales. And that was voted against by Labour until we managed to twist their arm for it. And we were pushed to that to be rolled out for secondary schools. We firmly believe that child benefit should be raised by 20 pounds a week. This would make a massive difference to homes where I think 94% of children live in Wales. And we would also like to roll out more child

care opportunities for 300,000 families in Wales as well. And finally, and this is a really important issue, we cannot understand why Labour won't be pushing harder on the two child limit and welfare that the Conservatives brought in. This seems to be something that deliberately penalises children, of course penalises families with more children. However they have arrived in the welfare safety net, whether by no fault of their own, by the circumstances in which we find ourselves, that would make a real difference to so many people here. Let me turn to Sarah Jones for Labour. I think just to make a wider point at the start, I think the fact that we have so many more women in Parliament means that these issues are talked about much more than they would have been before. And this is a very good thing because childcare, you know, hasn't traditionally been seen as part

of the sort of infrastructure that's important for the economy as well as for individuals so it's good that that it is but look as daisy said that the tories brought in a plan that that that hasn't you know that they simply haven't been able to enact so what labor has said is that we'll deliver over 3 000 new nurseries um to tackle those child care deserts where you have parts of the country where there might be six people for every childcare provider place that exists. I mean, the dearth of spaces is really significant. So we want to use the private school VAT funding to fund those nurseries to meet that demand so people have access to the childcare that they need. And we're saying that that will allow for around 100,000 children.

And what we want to do is use those spaces in our primary schools. I have them in Froydon, where we have primary schools where they're not full because the birth rate is falling. The question is, however, which comes up again and again

from our listeners, Sarah Jones, is you may have those places, but how are you going to boost staff numbers? Sarah Ronanoff, the director of the Early Education and Childcare Coalition, says, you know, the commitment is great, but if you don't have the people, that can't happen. Yeah, well, we want to encourage people to go into the workplace and we've got a whole range of measures around the economy

and around people's rights to work, around women's rights to work, around flexibility. You know, our whole package of New Deal measures will give flexibility for women workers, will give stronger maternity protection. This is a wider issue

about how we get people afford to be working. Thank you, Sarah Jones. I want to keep moving on. And, you know, you talk about childcare being an issue. Some might find it disappointing that it's still an issue in 2024, that it's something that has not been resolved yet. Ellie Chance for the Green Party.

Absolutely. It's good that childcare is more on the agenda now. But I think in response to what Sarah says, it's possibly a little bit early to be celebrating the number of female MPs in Parliament because we're still only on a third last time I looked. So there's quite a long way to go still on that front. In terms of childcare, the Green Party really wants to see more investment in this area. We would like to see the availability of 35 hours a week childcare for every child family that wants it from nine months onwards, recognising that will take significant investment and a long term plan. And we also will be advocating for investment of 1.4 billion in Sure Start centres, as well as the removal of the two

child benefit cap and an increase in the minimum wage. How? We've been very clear with voters on all of our investment plans for public services. We need to reform taxation so that it's fairer, so that those with the broadest shoulders pay modestly more to invest in public services, whether that's NHS, whether that's domiciliary care, whether that's childcare, education, all of these areas where we're saying we do have to invest as a society in these things, because this will even things up. Well, even things up, but there has been criticism saying the loss of free childcare for anyone earning over £100,000, for example, could dampen ambition and discourage individuals from pursuing higher earnings.

I think the key problem in our country is the lack of equality. It's an unfair society. I don't think people on salaries of over £100,000, that, you know, they lack ambition, they lack entrepreneurial enthusiasm. I don't think that that's the key issue. It should be those with the broadest shoulders in society who contribute, chip in a little bit more, so that those who are struggling to make ends meet and struggling to afford the astronomical childcare costs that you just quoted us at the beginning,

those people need to be supported to enable them to work and their children to benefit from all the benefits that childcare offers. Let me turn to Mims Davies for the Conservative Party. Well, this matters to me as a lone parent. I get it, like many others. 2.3 million more women in work since 2010 and the childcare offer has changed. It's grown and it simply didn't exist before we were in government. We, through Universal Credit, has absolutely incentivised work and 1.7 million families gained an extra £1,000 a year on average to the cut of the universal credit taper to really help people to be better off. And in fact, UC claimants who are eligible can get 85% of their registered childcare cost each month back, regardless of the hours that they work. And that can be just over £1,000 for one child and £1,700 plus per month for larger families. On top of this, our manifesto brings an end to the unfairness

of child benefit by moving to a household system so families don't start losing child benefit until their combined income is over 120 000 that will benefit the average family by about 1500 pounds and the 30 hours of free child care a week from nine months is key and that will save eligible families 6 900 pounds a year it's so important to support all families to be able to work. Some people might want to stay at home too and that's great also. Let's talk about some of the issues then. You talk about some of the

free childcare hours but it is subsidised. The charity Pregnant and Screwed says research conducted in February this year found almost a quarter of parents said they couldn't afford to access the so-called free childcare hours because of the top-up fees. That could be meals, diapers, nappies, sun cream, trips. Also, there were a number of issues with the expansion of childcare, which kicked off a couple of months ago. There were reports of delays in allocating funding, staff shortages again, and issues with the IT system.

Basically, that the system is not set up to be able to be expanded as it is. Which is why absolutely we've worked to iron those problems out. And as I said, with the employment rate for women, more women in work, 2.3 million more women, that there's a lot to do and you've described some teething troubles and forgive the pun ladies and absolutely that needs ironing out but I think the point around schools it was raised to maybe one of my constituents that actually everything coming through schools is impacting those businesses too. So Labour's idea

that everything can be done through local schools rather than childcare providers, I think perhaps needs examining. I would personally like to see more childminders coming back. We've tried to make the universal credit system

work for that fluctuating income a little bit more and also more childcare providers. Let us leave it there, Ms Davies. We've had a number of your policies that have come forward. I want to turn to the SNP. Childcare is a devolved issue in Scotland. Hannah Bardell. Thank you.

Yeah, and I actually believe that this is one of these issues where we really need to take the party politics out of it. You know, there are going to be there are areas where we're going to disagree and there are broader impacts, which I'll come on to. But there has to be an absolute drive, not just for women, but for men as well, you know, for families. And we've expanded free childcare up to 1140 hours of free childcare in Scotland for families. And that's saving families around £4,500 a year. And we want to expand it further. I think we need to learn from what's happened in England, that rush to expansion, but it doesn't actually work and it's not properly

funded. And that's a real disappointment, actually. But I think there's also, and it is devolved to Scotland. So we will be arguing, SNP members will be arguing at Westminster for that expansion, for it to be funded properly. But also I think we need to engage with business and work with business. There's lots of businesses now that are opening and developing nursery and childcare provision. But Liz makes a really good point on the two-child cap. And it's really disappointing to see that Labour are not going to scrap that. And what that means, so people understand in practical terms that if you have more than two children you will not

get any child benefit for that and the only exceptional circumstance where you would is if you have been raped and you would have to prove that now I sat on the welfare reform and work bill um early on in 2015-2016 when I was elected and it was just a horrifying experience and there was so much debate and discussion and we sort of trot these political lines out of the two-child cap and the rape clause without explaining what that actually means to people, to women who have to try and access a social security system.

So we need a social security system. Let me go through one of the aspects. One other thing, just to say, we've brought in the Scottish child payment which is up £25 a week per child and that's lifted 100,000 kids out of poverty. I'd love to see the UK government, whichever colour it is, pursue policies like that, and we can share best practice across these islands. Your manifesto is just coming out, I think, the last 15 minutes or so, if I'm correct.

So I have not seen it while I've been speaking to you. But the Joseph Rantree Foundation did say that free childcare provision in Scotland should be expanded to include kids under three to help reduce poverty rates. They called for the party to follow through on a commitment made last year to provide free nursery hours to one and two year olds. Will they? I certainly hope so. I mean, I think it's important to recognise that we've had significant cuts to our budget

through austerity. And also we need to look at why costs are so high. For nurseries and childminders, their energy costs are massive. They're shutting down because they can't keep going. And that's a Westminster problem. Now we do need to do more in Scotland and we will do more.

Let us leave it there, Hannah Bardell. I want to turn, I want to make sure to get in Maria Botel from Reform UK. Thank you. Reform UK's got some great policies for families and it comes back to the comment about it takes a village because it really does. Anyone who's got children will agree and I think for me if you up the tax allowance to £20,000 and also in terms of childminders being able to earn more. The manifesto, though, I was mentioning with Hannah Bardell that the SNP hadn't released theirs when we began our debate. But the manifesto or contract, as Reform is calling it, doesn't mention childcare at all. Why?

It's not that we don't think childcare should be provided. I think it's more bringing back to the value of family units and using... So grandparents at the moment having to work longer, having to do extra shifts to make top of the pension. You have mothers and fathers both working and still not being able to make ends meet. So actually giving people that tax break is what's going to put more money in their pockets

and allow more free hours. So you can reduce your hours slightly and chip in as a family. And it's a little bit more about getting back to those core values of being a family unit. I'm a single mother, so this is not just a family unit of man, wife and child, but actually making sure that everyone has that chance, especially at the lower end of income, to earn enough to be able to support the family. And just to get clarification, the manifesto, as I mentioned, doesn't have the words childcare in it. It does say the majority of mothers would choose to stay at home more if they could.

So I come from Bridlington in East Yorkshire. And based on what I speak to my residents, yes. I want to keep it, you are representing your party nationally today. So I'd like to hear more specifically with that. So in terms of childcare, there is no... No, mothers staying at home. Mothers staying at home, it should be freedom of choice for each mother to decide

on each woman whether she even has children. I think we do need to encourage mothers to have more children because that is how we fill skills gaps so we can train children into our NHS. We can train children into care. But do you feel that the majority of mothers would choose to stay at home if they could? Is that reforms take?

It's in the manifesto. Then yes. Thank you very much. It's very briefly, you've got 30 seconds. I think that all parents should have flexibility and choice as to how they want to juggle their work responsibilities and their parenting.

It's flexibility and choice that I think parents really want. And that is Daisy Cooper from the Liberal Democrats. We're about, let me see, halfway through our Women's Hour election debate. You can text the programme.

Maybe you're shouting at your radio or throwing something at it. Maybe you're cheering along. The number to text is 84844. Text charge at your standard message rate. On social media, we're at BBC Woman's Hour or indeed, you can also email us through our website. But I do want to move on to our next topic, another one that our listeners got in touch with us on. And this is about how safe you feel.

And that's whether you're in your own home, on the street or online. Our listener Kate in London asks, what will your party do to tackle the growing violence against women and girls, from prevention to culturally appropriate support for victims? Now, as a reminder, women's safety has been firmly

in the spotlight since the kidnap, rape and murder of Sarah Everard by a serving police officer. Central to this issue is a decrease in the trust women have in police. According to a recent YouGov survey, over half of women in England and Wales said that the police had not made much or any progress in addressing problems of sexism and misogyny

among police officers in the past year. Separately, we also know that women are more likely to be killed in their homes. In the majority of cases, the suspect is a male partner or an ex-partner. And this happens to women of all ages and from all backgrounds. With the Euros currently going on, this is set to be a particular issue as domestic abuse is more likely to occur during football tournaments. I want to ask everybody who sat around the table and also on our Zoom, asking for women's votes today. Can you keep our listeners safe let me start with the conservatives and with mim davies if you could keep it brief well first off um domestic violence is criminality in the home and it absolutely should be treated as so. We have also obviously passed the Stalking Protection Act in 2019 to protect women

with those stalking protection orders and the landmark Domestic Abuse Act in 2020 which also importantly brought children in as victims as well and we've made it very clear in our manifesto that protecting women and girls, women's safety, is at the heart of what we do. And just talking about the football, our local police and crime commissioner, Katie Bourne, and many others

are doing work around this to make sure that this is not an extra time that women are vulnerable as well. And we've also... But the Conservatives have been... Forgive me, well. But the Conservatives have been, forgive me, the Conservatives have been in power for 14 years. These issues, we've seen them so recently,

as I mentioned, Sarah Everard and others. Why do you think that the Conservatives have not been able to get to a level of safety that women who are getting in touch with us feel is appropriate? Yeah, as I say, we brought in the offence of stalking in 2012, the Modern Slavery Act in 2015,

again, focused around human trafficking and protection for the victims and for the women. And absolutely, I think we have had a focus on this and it continually needs to have a focus, whatever government is in place, in my view. Hence the work that we've done around the Domestic Abuse Act. And I think it's something that's brought us across the house together in terms of listening and learning and working together. And I think trust in police

in particular is very important in terms of helping us to all feel safe. But, you know, I did a call in, Mims Davies, I did a call in not that long ago on Women's Hour and there were many stories

of people not feeling safe when it came to the police. Let me hold it there because I do want to get answers as well from our other participants. The Stated Streets Fund has gone out to local authorities, police and crime commissioners.

Mim Davies, we have to leave it there. Let me turn to Daisy Cooper. Sorry, please don't speak over me. Daisy Cooper from the Liberal Democrats. Thank you. Well, I mean, in the last parliament, one of our MPs actually pushed through the Worker Protect Action Act,

which would give a legal duty on employers to protect their employees from sexual harassment. We brought the upskirting offence into law and we also led for the ban on revenge porn. So we've got a good strong track record in this area. In terms of things that we would like to see,

the first is that we'd like to make misogyny a hate crime. But you know, the Law Commission review did say that that risked creating hierarchies of victim and it may prove more harmful than helpful. Making misogyny a hate crime? Correct. Absolutely. There are lots of other hate crimes that already exist. And what you would do is you're not creating a new offence.

You're actually saying that it would become a more existing offence would become an aggravating offence and be taken into account in sentencing. So there is broad support for making misogyny a hate crime and Liberal Democrats are committed to doing that. But there are many other things that we can do. Let me keep that with you because I'm going to have to go around everybody quite quickly and I want to make sure that everybody gets

at least their take across. Sarah Jones for Labour, maybe you want to pick up on that, whether misogyny should be a hate crime. Yes, it should. I mean, our country on the broader issue faces a tidal wave of violence against women and girls, and there is total impunity for the vast majority of those responsible. So we will set a target to half violence against women and girls, which is incredibly ambitious, and we'll take a raft of measures to do. I mean, the first thing is to put specialists into our court systems on race and domestic abuse victims.

The second is to have specialist domestic abuse workers in all our 999 call centres. We want to tackle misogyny. As I've said, we want to um domestic abusers no place to hide by introducing a new domestic abuse register um we want to tackle the causes by talking about misogyny in schools we need to have a strategy on the incels in terms of our online harms uh we want minimum sentencings on race rape we've got we've got a whole raft of measures because this is a So Sarah Jones, you have from Labour you've laid out some of the issues you are looking at or hoping to implement if Labour comes into power.

Emery Botel for Reform. I think it comes back to policing as well in terms of the people feeling safe and whether I feel safe or not. And do you mean policing about the police being trusting the police or do you mean more policing in areas? Both.

So we've said 40,000 extra police officers and also more stringent checks. Funded how? So we've laid out our manifesto, our contract yesterday and that states there's lots of different areas that we wouldn't want to pull funding in from. Do you want me to go through them all? Do you want me to talk about the plans?

Give me one specific of how you'd fund it. So stop paying interest to go through them all? Do you want me to talk about the plans? Give me one specific of how you'd fund it. So stop paying interest to the banks. Sorry? So the money that was printed, Richard Tice has said about not paying interest on it voluntarily, especially at the current interest rates. And that, I want to continue going round the table, so that is your main issue. Well, for me now, I would say grooming gangs as well, and making sure that if they have dual citizenship and they commit a crime such as rape or the part of a grooming gang they are departed because that's not spoken about enough.

Thank you very much Maria Botel. Let me turn to Ellie Chance, Green Party. For the Greens it's absolutely a priority to end domestic violence and violence against women and girls. We would make misogyny a hate crime across the UK. We want to develop and implement a UK-wide strategy to tackle domestic abuse and violence against women and girls. We want more investment in the police. We want to make sure that they recognise domestic abuse and gender-based violence as key indicators on which their performance is assessed and that they're trained to recognise and tackle domestic abuse. And crucially, we want to fund local authorities so that they can support the rape crisis centres,

the organisations that support women and girls facing domestic violence, because too often those organisations are facing a hand-to-mouth struggle for funding. And sorry, did you say, would you make misogyny a hate crime? Yes, we would. Yes, very clear there. Let me turn to Liz Saville-Roberts for Applied Comrie.

How are you keeping... What would your party do to keep women safe? I would like to pay respect to Rhiannon Bragg, who I believe has appeared on this programme. Rhiannon Bragg of Rosgadvan talking as the victim of stalking, a serious stalking offence. And she makes how evident we need to increase the sentencing for stalking. We need to improve training for police. We need to actually look at the licence orders of when stalkers are released, and we need to look at restraining orders as well,

because the reality of what victims experience, even though these actions will go through courts, but the offenders will be released, and the control over them, looking at the way that probation has had cuts made to it, looking at actually the way that victims experience justice in the England and Wales legal system as things stand,

has to be changed for women to feel safe. In a wider view, I have worked on domestic abuse since I became a member of Parliament. I push for a domestic abuse register when both Labour and Tories push back against it. It is now being talked about

as being brought in with the most recent legislation. And you want a separate Victims Commissioner for Wales? We very much want a separate Victims Commissioner for Wales because what we see with the daggy ditch of how people experience any of the services Liz Saville Roberts, forgive me, let me leave

it there because I want to make sure to get in Hannah Bardell from the SNP before we go to the news. On the question of making misogyny a hate crime, we obviously commissioned Helena Kennedy, the Labour peer who did fantastic work. Yes, I think we should do that. We have an equally safe strategy in Scotland, which has done a lot to tackle domestic abuse and world leading domestic abuse legislation. But also it's important to remember that our MP Ailey Whiteford is no longer in Parliament. She

had a private member's bill to ratify the Estanville Convention. We have to work more with police. I mean, Police Scotland did a brilliant campaign on Don't Be That Guy. We also have to engage men in the conversation as well. They're a huge part of this, but protecting women and girls in online spaces as well and having a really serious conversation about the culture in Parliament too. Because you've got to remember we have had some abhorrent behaviour in Parliament and some terrible cases.

Is that in your manifesto? Well, I'll repeat that it was released about half an hour ago. So I don't want to jump the gun on that, but yes, I mean, in terms of much of this being devolved and also we want to get rid of corroboration. And that's something that that's been looked at by our Lord Advocate Dorothy Bain, which has been a major barrier in terms of rape cases. But we have to recognise that in Scotland, England, Wales, across the UK, that the rate of conviction of rape cases and even them coming to court is woefully low. And we all need to do more.

And I just want to turn to Sarah Jones in Labour in for 30 seconds, Sarah, if you don't mind. When it comes to prevention, there's talk about going into schools, for example, teaching children. But what about men that are already grown that are to stop them carrying out these acts in the first place. It's all very well to talk about victims, but before a woman becomes a victim. 30 seconds. Yeah, no, I think the way that we talk about these issues in schools is incredibly important to teach men what it is to be a man,

what's appropriate, what consent is and how that works. And there are some good practice in terms of schools and how they are doing. But not schools. I'm talking about when they're fully grown men. There are also projects. I can remember

when I was shadow policing minister that in South Wales, they were doing some really good work working with perpetrators. And in London, what they've done is they are identifying

who the kind of most at risk men are. OK, so profiling in one way. Sarah Jones, thank you very much. That's all we have time for on that topic. Don't go away because we will be back after the news summary. We're here with all the women from the main political parties. I do hope you'll stay with me and

talk about how they... you you you you you you Thanks very much to Alan Smith. Well, welcome back to the Women's Hour election debate, a specially extended programme. We're here until 11.30 today with senior women representing the seven main political parties of Great Britain. We're here until 11.30 today with senior women representing the seven main political parties of Great Britain.

They're answering your questions about the issues you say are most important to you and that could influence how you vote on the 4th of July. And to let you know, the participants

who are joining me on Video Link, we have Liz Saville-Roberts from Plaid Cymru, Sarah Jones from the Labour Party, Mims Davies from the Conservative Party, Hannah Bardell from the SNP. And in studio with me are Daisy Cooper of the Liberal Democrats,

Ellie Chowns from the Green Party, and Maria Botel from the Reform Party. If you want to get in touch, you can text the programme. The number is 84844. On social media, we're at BBC Woman's Hour, or you can email us through our website. And for a WhatsApp message or a voice note, that number is 03700 100 444. or you can email us through our website. And for a WhatsApp message or a voice note,

that number is 03700 100 444. And of course, if you'd like to go to BBC Online, they do have the latest election news and a full list of candidates that are standing in all constituencies. Now, I want to ask each of you to think about any pregnant woman listening to the programme who wants to know what your party would do to improve the care she receives from the NHS.

We know that the recent birth trauma inquiry report across the UK just a month ago found, and I quote, shockingly poor quality in maternity services, resulting in a system where poor care is all too frequently tolerated as normal. There's evidence of racial disparities in maternal health and then there are failings in maternity services in hospitals across the country. The inquiry into one of those in Nottingham is now the biggest maternity investigation in NHS history. The senior midwife leading that, Donna Ockerton,

said at the weekend that there are 1,903 families active within the review. And whenever we talk about this on Woman's Hour, we're inundated with stories of how a supposedly joyful event can turn quickly into a nightmare. Health is a devolved issue, but I want to ask whether the problem is funding or culture or both. And that question is for Ellie Chowns from the Green Party. I think the investigations that we've seen highlight that it's both. But I particularly

want to talk about the problems with funding because I think the Green Party is the only party that's really being honest with voters and saying the level of investment that is required to nurse the NHS as a whole back to health, to get it back on its feet, is much higher than any of the other parties are offering. We're saying that we'll need another 30 billion per year in the NHS by the end of the next Parliament. And we've set out clearly where that could come from by evening up taxation. But the key thing here is to recognise that we have a range of crises in the NHS. We've got a recruitment and retention crisis. Can I ask, though, specifically on maternity, and sorry for interrupting, Ellie, as you're in your flow,

but, you know, there's nothing specific about maternity care in your manifesto. I'm sorry about that. You know, we haven't mentioned everything, but we've been very, very clear. It's so in the news, though. We've been very, very clear that the NHS is absolutely top priority for us, and that's across the board. What we're saying is that we would invest both in the revenue costs and the capital funding required to bring the NHS up to the standard that it really should be. And we've got, you know, these ridiculous problems.

I know a young woman who's training to be a midwife in the NHS. She's incurring tens of thousands of pounds of debt in order to do that. She's working full time for free in the NHS as a trainee and then she'll come out into a career in which she can't even be sure that her salary will keep pace with inflation we have not as a country put our money where our mouth is in terms of maternity services and the NHS as a whole and the Green Party wants to change that. Let me turn to Sarah Jones for Labour. You know, your manifesto has said you're going to train thousands more midwives.

We're hearing there from Ellie Towns on one personal story she's heard. But it's a very vague figure that thousands. How many will be trained and how will it be funded? How will you get them? Well, we need to have a long term NHS workforce plan and we've been really clear about that. And let me just say, you know, there is a scandalous deprioritisation of women's health under the Tories across the board,

whether it's maternal health, whether it's gynae waiting lists, procedures for gynecological procedures are the worst in the NHS. So there's a whole, you know, waits for breast cancer treatment. All of these things need improving and on on maternal care more broadly um labor will ensure that trusts uh firstly failing on maternity care are robustly supported into rapid improvement we will train as i said thousands more midwives as part of that nhs but it's retention retention is the issue as well sarah j me just say, really important is an explicit target to close the Black and Asian maternal mortality gap because that is extraordinary. And we know that mortality rates

are going in the wrong direction, which is absolutely awful. And we know that there's a huge disproportionality as well. Maternity covers so many issues, of course, but let me get to that specific issue of midwives. You talk about training. I haven't heard a specific figure or a plan to retain.

So the plan to retain is obviously around support in the NHS more widely, which is why we're prioritising cutting those waiting lists, because people are tearing their hair out when you go into hospitals uh because the the staff are overworked they are um struggling with huge uh issues of lack of support lack of resources and of course it's difficult for people to stay in that role so we need to be doing all the right things to have um to make sure it's an attractive place to work. But what is it? It sounds vague to me. Well, it's 3,000 is the number in terms of midwives. So that is in the workforce plan. That is a very specific target.

And that will mean that we have the people we need to make the job doable because, you know, it's a fantastic job. And then to retain, is it a salary change or something along those lines? We obviously have the negotiations on salary that are part of NHS Agenda for Change that will continue. And of course, we've seen these awful strikes across the board in health and in other places where the government has failed to sort of sit down with unions and come to agreement for very long periods of time. And we still don't have the agreement, obviously, with the doctors as well. So you've got to work with unions and come to agreement for very long periods of time. And we still don't have the agreement, obviously, with the doctors as well. So you've got to work with unions. You've got to work with the workforce

to make sure you can come to an accommodation. But we know the state of the economy after 14 years of the Conservatives is such that we don't have the money that we would like to have at this point. We've got to grow the economy so that we can support

our public services. Which we've heard Sir Keir Starmer say over the past few days as well, talking about growth being the answer to all the issues. Maria Bartell for Reform. Is the problem with maternity care funding our culture?

I think it's a little bit of both, but I don't think we need to just throw money at it. I think the NHS, from my experience, wastes an awful lot of money and I think there's some certain things they could do less of. And also reforms policies in terms of making sure that we keep staff, retain staff by saying you don't pay any base rate tax on your wage

for the next three years because we know we need you and we recognise you. And also in terms of student debt because of training into those positions that we really desperately need actually part of our policy is to cut that debt as well let me turn to hannah bardell for the smp health is a devolved issue in scotland uh do you what you see do you you see it as an issue of funding or culture? I think it's both, Nuala. I think there is a reality and I've done a lot of work on women's health issues, whether it's been endometriosis or the primidos hormone pregnancy drug scandal.

And we've seen, particularly with things like endometriosis and prenatal and postnatal care and maternity care, that there is a culture issue, there is an attitude issue. That is not in any way to do down our medical professionals but it's important to point out as well there haven't been strikes by nurses and doctors in Scotland we have come to accommodations and done our very best to support their pay and also in Scotland we don't have tuition fees and we have £10,000 bursaries a year for nursing students and also we've extended that to paramedic students as well and one of the big challenges in terms of workforce is has been brexit that we've had people leave skilled people have gone back to the eu and unfortunately the party that look like they're going to take

government labor don't have a plan for that they don't want to go back into the eu and i think that's devastating for our nhs because we need those people um from the eu and beyond and we need an immigration policy that supports people to come to the UK, particularly to Scotland, to work. But I think in terms of maternity post-natal care particularly, we all need to do better. And we've got a women's health group in Scotland that was set up in 2020. I know that the UK government followed suit on that.

And that's, I think, positive across these aisles, that we have really focused energy going into policies and listening to women. I think we need to listen to women as well, because so often they know their own bodies better than anybody else and sometimes better than the health professionals. And we are trying to change that culture in Scotland. And I think we all have to work together to find best practice across these aisles to make sure is that I mean that report was absolutely I sat in for some of that debate in parliament and all credit to um to those who have published it and who have worked on it because the trauma that women have experienced and we have heard it on this program as well but is there a specific pledge on maternity care in the SNP manifesto today well it's published tomorrow

so I don't want to give anything away because I can't so I'm sure you will see tomorrow and I am regardless of what's in the manifesto in government the SNP has delivered. Let me turn to Wales and let me turn to Plaid Cymru and to Liz Saville Roberts health also devolved issue. Maternity care you've heard the stories the Ockenden review how do you see it? And I've read the review as well. Of course, people will know that health is devolved, that it's been under the control of Labour for the last quarter of a century.

And I think this is an issue of both funding and being prepared to listen to patients and families and their experiences. Now, when it comes to funding, my partner is arguing strongly that we need fair funding for Wales. The system that we presently have, which we've had in place since the late 70s, doesn't reflect the fact that we have an older population and also that we have a population

affected by post-industrial conditions. And when it comes to maternal health, much of what was raised in that report is things that I've heard locally here as well. That sense, and I think this is really important, that sense of just not being prepared to listen to mothers and their experiences. And why do you think that is? Not being prepared to listen to the patient voice per se. Why do you think that is? I'm afraid to say,

I think this is part of a culture within Welsh Labour. When Vaughan Gething, who is now the First Minister of Wales, was the Minister for Health for Wales, he got rid of the community health councils, which used to be two per county. There were many, many of them across Wales. There is now only one. We have to listen to patients' experiences. There is too much of a culture here of don't question what happens. And I've been dealing with some really tragic situations with constituents.

And actually getting a response out of the health board when people have lost babies is extraordinarily difficult. So yes, we have to improve the culture, we have to improve that answerability from some of these horrific experiences of mothers that came out of the birth trauma report. We also have to improve the funding, some of the poorest areas, we have to look at the taxation and how we do that. And we have to improve the funding for some of the poorer areas. We have to look at the taxation and how we do that. And we have to look at the workforce because the NHS is the workforce. Let me leave it there.

And we have to admit what Brexit and the debate about immigration has done in meaning that we lose good people. Let us get some responses that want to come in. Sarah Jones, you have your hand up. I just wanted to say the kind of wider issue around. But what about that specific issue that Liz Saville Roberts has levelled at Labour, saying that it was their issue, it was a culture of not listening? Yeah, I reject that. Of course I do. But what I do accept is that I think across the board in the health service,

whether it's women who go to the GP many times before they get a diagnosis of endometriosis, whether it's women's pain, the expectation that women can take pain and that's somehow normal, whether it's communication. And a lot of this is exacerbated if you're a woman of colour as well. Those are all issues that need tackling,

which is why we want to target some of these things if you're a woman of colour as well, those are all issues that need tackling. So Sarah Jones, let me leave it there. Some of these things and why we want to kind of bring them out in the open. Thank you very much. I want to turn to the Conservatives and to Mims Davies. The Occident Review, we've been talking about it there. It was published more than two years ago. Has the government improved maternity care since then?

So we're going to absolutely prioritise women's health. It builds on the women's health strategy and we will have a women's maternity strategy, a national strategy building on the all party group on birth traumas inquiry. inquiry and let me pay massive tribute to our friend from stafford and theo clark who speaking out on this has has made a massive change this goes alongside our women's health ambassador dame leslie regan a specialist in this area herself and the last time i saw her she was at that event we'll continue to focus on safety, mental health services. But the thing is, what six month, six week check after birth as well and rolling out. What listeners will be thinking is that the Conservatives have been in power for 14 years.

And we talked about the Ockerton review there. But the most recent Care Quality Commission report that was from February of this year says, yes, some aspects had improved slightly with maternity care, but there was still an overall huge downwards trend in the past five years. And the Conservatives have been in power all that time. So it's been mentioned the NHS long term workforce plan. I think this is really important. None of this is new to us.

And I think it's important for listeners to know whether it is the tax on period pants, the tax relief, whether it's the prescriptions for HRT to the wider women's health strategy, to the fact that you can access a same-sex...

But I don't think you're answering my question on maternity care. Mims, I feel like I'm not being... All of these matters... They all matter but the listeners that have been that the listeners have been in touch about are their specific birth trauma stories when they've

gone through the maternity system the horrendous experiences that they've had. We're hearing from the Care Quality Commission, and preceded by the Ockerton Review, that in fact things have not improved in the past five years. And people want to know why the Conservatives have not been able to make inroads for that woman in a bed, in a hospital, trying to give birth.

So what I'm trying to exemplarise is that we have a women's health strategy that wasn't there before. We are linking in that maternity strategy. We have brought forward the pregnancy loss certificates. We've got the opportunity for same-sex intimate examinations on request. all of the things that women care about. I've had constituents who've shared this with me and I've been working with my local NHS on this. I really think it's important for women listening. And I've had my own challenging birth experiences, not as extreme as others, but difficulties that we take this seriously. That is why in our manifesto and that

we are absolutely thank you very much i need to turn to the liberal democrats and to daisy cooper who's here in studio so the first thing that we would do is write a 10-year retention plan because liberal democrats retention for retention of staff right across the nhs because you can't recruit your way out of a retention crisis. We need more flexibility for the NHS as an employer because we have an absurd position where midwives and nurses in particular, they ask for some flexibility, they ask for a week off, they're told no, so they resign and come back the following week as agency staff and they're paid a lot more. We want to change the culture in the NHS so that patients' women's voices are listened to by introducing a duty of candour

so that every staff member has a legal duty to raise a red flag when something goes wrong. And longer term, we want a patient rights charter so every patient knows who they can talk to to raise a flag to stop things going wrong in the first place as well as to get accountability after the event if things do go wrong. Thank you all. It's an issue that, of course, is very close to the heart of many of our listeners who've been in touch.

Can I make one quick point? Hannah, sure. Briefly, though, because I have another issue to get to quickly. Yeah, it's just about, I mean, I have a friend who's a women's health physio. I want to shout out to Stephanie Milne, who runs the Physio Village, and she's a women's health physio. And she talked to me a lot about, you know, when a woman has a C-section, doctors cut through seven layers of tissue.

Make it brief, Hannah. And there's no proper physio afterwards. If you damage your knee or tear your Achilles heel, you get long-term physio and rehabilitation. I think we need to be taking the same approach. So you're talking about long-term post-maternity care. Post-maternal care. Thank you for that.

Now, listeners have been getting in touch. We have another 10 minutes or so. And I don't want to miss anybody out on this. So they want to know what you'll do about climate change. We have this text here, no name given, which says, I would like to ask the women from the same seven main parties on Women's Hour today, how does their party aim to deal with the climate emergency? We've got to be quick about this because we want to get everybody in. Plaid Cymru, firstly, Savile Roberts. Go. We want to make sure that we are talking about climate change, that we recognise the science, that we do not allow the voices that say that climate change is not occurring to cut through.

We also need to recognise the threat that this is to nature diversity. One in six species in Wales are under threat. And I think that this also engages young people. We really need to show young people that this matters to them. We can bring this in as a curriculum issue in schools, because I know young people are very anxious about this. And this sense also that us as political parties are talking about this at the big stage, that it is also possible for young people to actually do something where they feel that they can make a change here. In relation to Wales, and where the real specifics of this come into kick into effect are to do with the production of energy. I would like us to be playing our full part for the nations of the United Kingdom

and globally in energy production. I also want to make sure that that actually keeps a value here in Wales because the extractive tradition here has meant that we have produced more energy than we use and receive very little in return and pay some of the highest

standing charges for electricity. Thank you very muchRoberts, thank you very much. Let me turn to the Conservatives. Mims Davies, one minute. What will the Conservatives do with the climate emergency? Well, we'll get to net zero as we have committed by 2050. A reminder that half of our electricity

now, it comes from renewables. Under Labour it was 7%. We will treble our offshore wind capacity, deliver low-cost homegrown energy to support the development of industrial clusters, both in North East England, Scotland and Wales. and of course new gas power stations to maintain a safe and reliable energy source for days when the weather doesn't suit what we're trying to achieve. We will invest £1.1 billion into green industries through the growth accelerator and we'll absolutely focus on making sure that we become a net exporter of electricity, building links with neighbouring countries so that we can increase the exports and we can secure also the steelmaking across the UK. And we'll implement a new carbon pricing mechanism. Thank you very much. The minute is up. Let me turn to the SNP and Hannah Bardell. One minute, please.

So we know that climate change disproportionately affects poorer people and women. And I think it's absolutely crucial. I mean, I spent three years in the energy industry before I came to Parliament. The jobs and the skills that we have in the oil and gas and energy sector must be preserved and transported across to the green energy revolution to reach net zero. We have enough wind, wave, tidal and solar power to power not just Scotland, but other nations of the UK. We can transition away from oil and gas and we must do that in a sustainable way.

And we also must protect our water. We have seen horrific scenes south of the border with contaminated water. Scottish water will remain in public hands for as long as the SNP are in power and we will press the rest of the UK, particularly England, to do that. And we also must protect our green spaces. We have to develop

more housing sustainably but we also must protect green spaces and build a sustainable world. And that's it, Hannah Bardell, Daisy Cooper from the Liberal Democrats. We will reach net zero by 2045. We'll make sure that 80% of our energy comes from renewables by 2030. We will double nature that 80% of our energy comes from renewables by 2030.

We will double nature because we recognise it's an ecological emergency as well. And crucially, we will launch an emergency home upgrade programme. Because by doing that, we can reduce people's energy usage, we can reduce their energy bills, and we can create the climate jobs of the future. So it's good for the economy and good for growth. Let me move to Reform UK and to Maria Botel. So Reform UK do not have any specific budget or net zero by a certain date. We want to apply common sense. There are people who can't afford to feed themselves. So what we want to do is take a very conservative approach

and to reduce our emissions. But actually what we need to do first is make sure that we're all fed we all have housing and we're all safe and so our priorities are very different to the other parties we want to focus more on making sure people have the basics before we then for our one percent contribution in the world what we do right now is not going to make such a significant impact when you've got China and India continuing to build coal power stations. Let me turn to Ellie Towns, Green Party beside you. I'm so glad this question has been raised because the climate crisis is the biggest strategic long-term threat

facing us and we have to take action in accordance with the urgency of the situation. It's so important to get more Green MPs elected to Parliament in order to push the other parties to take the action required. That means a nationwide, street-by-street, house-by-house home insulation programme. It means making sure all new buildings are net zero ready. It means getting to net zero at least a decade before 2050. It means leaving fossil fuels in the ground and reversing the licensing that has been given for new oil fields like Rosebank. Labour and the Conservatives are not committing to the level of action essential

to tackle the climate crisis. That's why we so urgently need Green MPs in Parliament pushing policies in the direction to tackle this most urgent of crises facing us. Sarah Jones from Labour, the Green Party saying you're not rising to the challenge. Sarah Jones. Hi. Hi. Sorry, I was on mute. That's utter nonsense. We have in Labour the most ambitious target in the world of clean energy by 2030. And we're going to do that by setting up great British energy and to Reform's point the whole point of this is not just to tackle climate change but it will also bring people's bills down and provide energy security against the likes of

Putin so we have that target we also have the National Wealth Fund which is going to invest in new renewables there will be energy independent and have hundreds of thousands of good jobs we are of course going to insulate homes we have a whole package of measures around that we have a whole package of measures three billion pounds for local authorities i could go on and on i think ellie chowns wants to come in briefly on on one of the points you raised there. Labour have rode a long way back from what they used to promise on this. It used to be something like 28 billion a year.

Now they're saying 8 billion only within the parliament. They're not taking the action at the level required. They're saying they'll go ahead with licensing for new fossil fuel extraction. So we need green MPs in parliament to hold them to account. I don't want to go back to Sarah Jones to respond. Yeah, that's wrong. It's about a £23 billion package. It is the most ambitious in the world to get to that clean energy by 2030. It will be transformational for this country, for bills, for security and for climate change. Well, do you want to respond? They've cut their climate targets.

They've rode back significantly on the amount of funding that they said they would commit. It's nowhere near the level that is needed. We need independent Green voices in Parliament to push Labour to be bolder. Just briefly, Ellie, I want to give Daisy 15 seconds. Liberal Democrats were the first party to call for a windfall tax because we recognise that by taxing the big oil and gas companies,

we can reduce people's bills, we can insulate people's homes. That's good for the planet, It's good for your wallet. Some people say that you don't have the estimates of the cost for the policies. We do. That would be £2 billion a year. It's in our manifesto. All fully costed.

This brings me, on that lively note, to the end of our Women's Hour election debate. Thanks to those of you who got in touch. Also for your questions, your contributions to this extended programme and also for highlighting the issues that you feel matter most to women

in this general election. I want to thank all my guests, all senior women from the main political parties of Great Britain. Hannah Bardell, spokesperson for Consular Affairs and International Engagement

for the SNP, the Scottish National Party. Reform UK candidate, Maria Botel. Also Green Party spokesperson for Housing and Communities, Ellie Chownes, Daisy Cooper, Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats, the Conservative

Party's Mims Davies, Minister of State for Disabled People, Health and Work, and also Labour's Shadow Minister for Industry and Decarbonisation, Sarah Jones. And I also want to thank Applied Cymru's Westminster leader, Liz Saville-Roberts. Thank you very much for

speaking to one another in a very civil and respectful manner. I appreciate that. There'll be more election coverage here on Women's Hour as our series of leaders interviews continue as we head towards polling day, July 4th. Do visit the BBC News election webpages

for every possible twist, turn and detail on this general election campaign. And that includes a full list of candidates standing in all the constituencies. One last reminder, an important one. The deadline for registering to vote in this general election on the 4th of July is tonight at 11.59.

So you've got 12 hours, but do it now. For full information, search for gov.uk and also register to vote. I want to thank you very much for your time, for your attention over the past 90 minutes and we will be back with Woman's Hour tomorrow at 10. I really hope you will join me. We'll have some more issues

and we'll digest all that we've heard today. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. I'm Kavita Puri, and in 3 Million from BBC Radio 4, I hear extraordinary eyewitness accounts that tell the story for the first time of the Bengal famine which happened in British India in the middle of the Second World War. At least three million people

died. It's one of the largest losses of civilian life on the Allied side and there isn't a museum, a memorial or even a plaque to those who died. How can the memory of three million people just disappear? Eighty years on, I track down first-hand accounts and make new discoveries and hear remarkable stories and explore why remembrance is so complicated in Britain, India and Bangladesh. Listen to 3 Million on BBC Sounds. I'm Sarah Treleaven and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered.

There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service,

The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.