Every now and then, the House of Commons sees one of those speeches, a moment when an MP, generally a backbencher, speaks with power and clarity and honesty. Speeches that deserve to be heard far beyond parliament, partly because of what they say and partly because of how it’s said. Speeches that give politics a good name.
Often these speeches are from relatively new MPs, people who have not yet established their name or reputation beyond the narrow confines of Westminster. A few years ago, Johnny Mercer, then a new member, made one of those speeches when he spoke about his combat experience in Afghanistan.
More recently, Rosie Duffield last year brought the Commons to a standstill speaking about her experience of domestic abuse. And among maiden speeches by the 2019 intake, Robert Largan’s speech last month on the virtues of compromise was magnificent. The Commons is not the same place these days thanks to coronavirus, but it can still offer some real moments of drama.
In Tuesday’s debate on the Domestic Abuse Bill, I think we saw one of those moments, a speech that should be seen more widely than an eerily empty chamber and which should make the speaker famous. That speaker was Mark Fletcher, the new Tory MP for Bolsover, who spoke for barely five minutes but what minutes they were.
He started with a point about domestic violence policy that I would like to be shouted from the rooftops, to echo around Westminster and beyond:
It is incredibly important that we hear male voices adding their support for the Bill, because this is not a women’s issue, but a societal issue, and it is vital that male voices make themselves heard, saying, “This must not go on.”
That alone would be enough to make me want to celebrate his speech because he’s right, absolutely right: too many male politicians – and other men – avoid this issue and leave it to women to take the lead. Which is why it was good to see several male MPs speaking in the debate, and speaking well: Mark Garnier also deserves huge praise for working with Harriet Harman on amendments to curb the ‘sex game gone wrong’ defence used by men killing women. That’s a cause that should win and I hope more MPs of all parties get behind it.
Back to Mr Fletcher. I think the conclusion of his short speech deserves to be quoted in full, so here it is:
Very sadly, I grew up in a household where we encountered incidents of domestic violence. Let me say that it casts a lifelong shadow on those children who are affected. Behind closed doors, many things go on. There are many secrets. Those doors do not have to be those of people who are lower class, middle class or upper class; they do not have to be of members of one socioeconomic group or one minority characteristic or another. Those doors do not discriminate. There are secrets behind them.I echo the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes), who touched on the impact of domestic abuse in the LGBT community. That is an incredibly important consideration.Unfortunately, I had a step-dad who reigned with physical terror. I regret that I remember the difficulties we had when he became violent, when he decided, one day, to come home and beat my mum to a point where she needed strong support, and when he came upstairs and blamed me—an 11-year-old kid—and used words that I would not repeat in Parliament ever. Those are things that shape you. Those are things that, unfortunately, you can never forget.I do not remember particularly well the period afterwards of economic manipulation in which he took, or tried to take, control of the family’s money, but I do remember the visit of the psychiatric nurse to help my mum. I remember her shame—her shame—for nothing that she had done, her shame at not being able to tell the authorities, when she denied it to the police and when I was lying to my school. I remember that shame. That is something that nobody should have to go through. If there is anything that we should take away from this Bill, and this fantastic session of Parliament today in which we have heard so many brilliant contributions, it is a very simple message: this must end.
Mark Fletcher is just 34. He’s been an MP since December, in a seat that Labour will hope to win back at the next election. Maybe he’ll defend Bolsover and maybe he’ll lose it. Maybe his parliamentary career will be long and maybe it will be short, but however many years he gets in the Commons, he should know he has already made his mark.
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