International Women’s Day Q&A with Penny Mordaunt MP, Secretary of State for International Development NOW CLOSED TO NEW QUESTIONS

[JustineMumsnet]

[EDITED BY MNHQ: Questions have now been collated and sent over - new questions may not be answered]

Hello all,

We’re very pleased to announce a Q&A with Penny Mordaunt MP, Secretary of State for International Development and Minister for Women and Equalities.

Please post your questions on this thread by lunchtime on Wednesday March 6. We’ll send on a selection to the Minister and we will post up written answers from Penny on this thread this coming Friday (March 8), International Women’s Day.

In her role as Secretary of State for International Development, Penny Mordaunt oversees DFID’s work ending extreme poverty overseas, including programmes focused on girls’ education and women’s health. DFID has been in the news recently, facing calls for its budget to be spent partly on encouraging projects that would aid British business overseas, and for it to be folded into the Foreign Office instead of being a standalone department.

In her role as Minister for Women and Equalities, Penny is also responsible for work including gender pay gap reporting and possible changes to the law concerning gender recognition.

Penny campaigned for Brexit in the run-up to the 2016 EU referendum and is a Royal Naval Reservist. She has previously been Minister of State for Disabled People and Minister of State for the Armed Forces.

Please add your questions for Penny here by Wednesday lunchtime. And although it’s not a live webchat please stick to the spirit of our webchat guidelines and keep it civil.

If one topic is overwhelmingly dominating responses we might request that people don't continue to post what's effectively the same question or point. Rest assured we will ALWAYS make the recipient aware that it's an area of concern to multiple users and will encourage them to engage with those questions.

Thanks
Justine

Nb existing members will be able to post on this thread. Thanks.

I was hoping the answers would come through before too late at night. I guess it's more likely going to be tomorrow then?

I have every confidence that Penny Mordaunt is taking her time because she is giving the questions proper consideration.

I have every confidence that this won't be like the NSPCC webchat.

Yes please, re-sticky the thread MNHQ.

No update?

The responses will have been drafted by civil servants who will be holding the party line. Because they have to. I am not optimistic that the Department will announce that they now understand the issue and have suddenly remembered what a woman is, on Mumsnet.

Looking forward to the answers. Some really good and intelligent questions.

Looking forward to reading your considered answers Penny.

As a sports enthusiast, I hope you have been reading the posts from women athletes with interest.

Won't SPAD DRAFTED answers be really obvious and make Penny Mordaunt look pretty crap on the biggest parenting website in he UK, and wouldn't that situation be picked up by lots of journalists even though tomorrow is a bit of a heavy-brexit-news day in which a cynical politician might wish to bury a less than stellar performance over something? Asking for a friend.

I thought it was Friday that Penny was playing Mumsnet

Another one hoping the delay means we’ll get some considered, individual responses to the questions, and not some generic response...

It is a webchat actually, seeing as that infers a two-way exchange. With the delay, will there still be that chance of a response to answers given?

Yes it was supposed to be last Friday, but to be fair MN sent all the questions across, so it was delayed till today.

I think a solution might be that a selection are answered today or first thing tomorrow, followed by responses to the major issues raised repeatedly (and intelligently and reasonably, in my view) later on tomorrow or Weds.

It's seems a good question why 'women and equalities' is only a partial role considering equality of opportunity is so far from done and sliding backwards

I'm guessing it's not happening today.

Morning - we'll check now what the timings are likely to be: we're still hoping for this morning although there do appear to be some other things happening in Westminster today...

Sorry for the delay on this. We'll keep you updated.

We'll resticky the thread but edit the title and the OP to make it clear that the questions have now been sent over (don't want to mislead people into thinking that fresh questions are likely to be answered.)

Thanks
MNHQ

Thanks MNHQ.

God, I'm praying she got something useful to say about women and girl's boundaries.

And thanks HQ. This might be a good move all round, for the topic of transgenderism.

Politicians seem to think it's incredibly controversial, and don't like being put on the back foot. So this way, they can give it some thought.

Thanks Rowan.

Given how much light is being thrown on the subject now, I hope Penny and her department will recognise how bad they would all look if they just came back with a vague statement about gender.

Thanks Rowan. There are some brilliant questions on this thread, I really hope they do them justice with decent answers.

Blatantly placemarking.

At work & checking more often than I ought to.

Me too Empress

Hello

We've checked in to see how they're doing - we'll update you when we hear something. Apologies (again)

Thanks RowanMumsnet