Women and Equalities Committee — hearing of 24 June 2026: transcript & video

00:04 - 00:44

Speaker 3

Order. Good afternoon, and welcome to the Women and Equalities Select Committee. Today, we're holding an oral evidence session on the work of the Minister for Women and Equalities. We'll hear from the Right Honourable Bridget Phillipson MP, who's Minister for Women and Equalities at the Office of Equality and Opportunity, Marcus Bell CBE, who's Director at the Office of Equality and Opportunity, and Catherine Little CB, the Chief Operating Officer for the Civil Service and Permanent Secretary at the Office for Equality and Opportunity. Thank you all for coming and welcome, and I believe Secretary of State you would like to make an opening statement.

00:44 - 02:41

Speaker 9

Thank you Chair, it's good to see you all today. I should just say at the start, I've got a bit of a sore throat and a cold, so on occasion I might just need to take some water, so please bear with me. Thank you so much. It's great to be with you today, thank you for the invitation to come before the committee. As you'll know, breaking down barriers to opportunity and promoting equality is a central part of this government's agenda, so that everyone can achieve their ambition in work and in life, no matter their background or where they're from.

I am proud of the significant progress that we've made so far. We've delivered the Employment Rights Act with measures to grow the economy, support workers, and particularly working women and mothers. We've introduced measures which will protect against workplace sexual harassment, encourage employers to address their gender pay gap and support women during the menopause. We've also supported working families by increasing access to free childcare, tackling child poverty through ending the two-child limit and a massive expansion of free school meals. We've made clear as a government that we won't stand for a hierarchy of hate, and through the Crime and Policing Act, we've equalised laws for aggravated offences for hate crime based on disability, sexual orientation, sex and gender identity.

And as you will know Chair, in the King's Speech, the government recommitted to introducing a draft bill to ban conversion practices. And I want to assure the committee that this bill will be published as soon as possible, very soon I hope, and to reconfirm that the bill will be fully trans-inclusive. I'm proud that our government is taking action to make clear that these practices have no place in modern Britain and that we are working to ban them once and for all. We've made significant progress on our mission to halve violence against women and girls within a decade, increasing funding for victim support, perpetrator monitoring and support for the police. And I'm sure that members will be aware and interested in the cross-government work in this area.

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