Lord Loomba spoke during the debate in the House of Lords to take note of the role of women in public life and the progress made in increasing their representation in Parliament 100 years after the Representation of the People Act 1918, that enshrined in law the right for some women to vote.
Lord Loomba, reaffirming his position as an advocate for women and girls' rights across the globe, that has underpinned his charitable work, opened his speech by saying "progress continues to move at a snail’s pace." "These rights," he said, "that we are celebrating today have been hard won and are still being hard won the world over," but it was as long ago as 1792 that Mary Wollstonecraft, the "acknowledged leader in the battle for votes," wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Woman." Here in this House," he continued, "female participation, through life Peerages, took a further 40 years after the 1918 Act to achieve."
Urging our country to do better, Lord Loomba said: "It is something that we, as a developed nation, should be leading the way on." "We should," he asserted, "be setting an example on the world stage that we truly believe in equality in political life," as he noted that it took a further 98 years, until 2016, "for the total number of women ever elected to our Parliament—to date, 455—to reach the same number as male MPs sitting at present."
