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.

After making us wait an extra 4 days for these responses, they better be good, Penny!

No pressure or anything, but it better not be a fob-off with superficial answers like "we have no intention of removing the exemptions under the Equality Act" or you'll irreparably damage your credibility.

We need to know that you:

• acknowledge the conflict between the EA and GRA.
• acknowledge how much worse that would be with self-ID
• acknowledge that women & girls are already losing out because of poorly drafted laws and policies (eg in sports and prisons)
• acknowledge that this has been handled appallingly by the Gov and W&E committee.
• tell us how you're going to fix it.
• tell us how you're going to make sure something like this doesn't happen again.

I would love her to say all of the above . Stonewall would have an absolute freakout which would also be pleasing. It won’t happen but I’m enjoying the image.

this is a brexiteer who lied, blatantly, during the ref campaign. i'm kind of surprised how hopeful people are about her - happy to be proved wrong.

This isn't boding well. Very disappointing.

I wonder if the questions don't give enough wriggle room

I am even more interested to see responses now.

They ain't gonna come
They are not feminine enough, obviously.

She's between a rock and a hard place. How long have we been pointing out to govt that they've painted themselves into a corner? They've got to choose between the electorate, who will not be happy and on whose votes they depend (that particular bit of manure is going to hit the fan eventually, stalling is all they can hope for really), or the lobby. Either way they're in serious trouble.

They've allowed self ID to wander into being without consultation and against the law through carelessness and hoping no one noticed; the EA is compromised, there is no painless way out of this, but I don't at this point in time with Brexit detonating that anyone is going to have the guts to try and undo the mess. Or openly attempt to force this onto the electorate and try and weather the backlash.

I fully expect a whole lot of word salad that has been carefully screened to say as little as possible.

theyve allowed self-ID to wander into being

I was told it was not in fact in place....yet

Still no response?

I fully expect a whole lot of word salad that has been carefully screened to say as little as possible.

But that takes us back to the question of WHY? Penny knows how strongly MNers feel about this. Why do this in order to give us a reply that will just make us angrier and more worried?

The Brexit deal vote is tonight which is understandably v important.
I hope they all vote against. It's a really really shit deal.

Hopefully Penny M will reply tomorrow?

I fully expect a whole lot of word salad that has been carefully screened to say as little as possible.

Me too, in a way. But the other half of me is optimistic that she's realised that doing that is what has got them into this mess, and it's pretty clear we women aren't backing down on this, and everyone is waking up, and sooner or later the issue will need to be addressed.

No time like the present. This is Penny's opportunity to prove herself.

theyve allowed self-ID to wander into being

I was told it was not in fact in place....yet

It's in place ahead of any legislation - schools, other organisations, etc - all bringing in their 'gender (sic) neutral' facilities. And so on.

Yes, thanks Eadie no legal rights to do what's been done, all illegal activity, against EA and women's rights and in fact children's rights to be protected from harm, as doctors swear.

Penny is making plans for any of the Brexit fall out scenarios in which the Tories elect a new leader/PM.

Don't let this come back and bite you Penny.

Thanks Rowan

I

no legal rights to do what's been done

And yet enough drift has been allowed to happen that it will be difficult at this stage to put boundaries back in place for women. The hope to this point was probably that women would just get used to the reduction in their rights and shut up as it became 'normal'.

Not working so far.

If this drags on for much longer it doesn’t reflect well on Penny-these answers were meant to be given on Friday, international womens day.....if she really wants women to feel sidelined she’s going the right way about it

But that takes us back to the question of WHY? Penny knows how strongly MNers feel about this. Why do this in order to give us a reply that will just make us angrier and more worried?

This. Exactly.

We know already that women are sidelined by this govt and the opposition. We basically don't matter.

If this drags on for much longer it doesn’t reflect well on Penny-these answers were meant to be given on Friday, international womens day.....if she really wants women to feel sidelined she’s going the right way about it

Was there any hope that she would answer any of these?

It's why i didn't bother.

I didn’t see this before and have just read through it all now - some very good questions that I’m very interested to see Penny’s answers to so placemarking to see what happens - homework 4 days late and no indication as to when the work might be done by isn’t a good look though.

In fact why are so many saying self-ID is a legitimate and legal thing?

Not a good luck,i can understand her not replying today but really she has had a long time to reply and now this is getting stupid.

why are so many saying self-ID is a legitimate and legal thing?

Misinformation, plus the general strategy of repeating something often enough that it becomes ingrained.

twitter.com/MariaMillerUK/status/1105568497516642306?s=19

There is also an interesting situation developing this evening on Twitter with regard to Maria Miller and self ID