Lord Speaker visits VCS in Manchester

Lords Speaker visits Manchester 
Becky Kilburn

On 20 May 2011, Wai Yin’s Chinese Women’s Society held an event organised by VSNW (Voluntary Sector North West) to display their services and promote their success to the Speaker of the House of Lords, Baroness Hayman and different North West voluntary groups.

Wai Yin (based in Manchester), helps Chinese women with all sorts of issues such as: support to adapt to a different culture, linguistic skills and help with housing and gaining employment. They provide support groups and training session as well as recreational facilities to help Chinese women adapt to life in Greater Manchester.

The event showcased Wai Yin’s dedication to Chinese women in Greater Manchester. It began with a welcoming from the Chair person, Juanita Yau, followed by a video showing all the different support services they offer. Followed by a traditional Chinese feast, culminating with the Speaker of the House of Lords taking stage and giving the guests an insight into the role of the House and how the public can engage with it. 

Before the event Baroness Hayman stated, “I am delighted to come to the North West – a part of the country with which I have strong personal connections. I am particularly keen that Parliament should engage pro-actively with young people, who will be our next generation of voters. I am looking forward to meeting representatives of the vibrant voluntary and business communities here too, because it’s really important that people from all sectors hear about the work the House of Lords does on behalf of us all, and have the opportunity to be involved – that’s why I have come here today."

Baroness Hayman went on the challenge some of the stereotypical views of the members of the House, being, 'old, white, male, Christian, straight posh, privately educated and conservative’. She insisted "It’s not true, it’s not right, we are relatively normal."

The House of Lords work alongside the House of Commons, looking at proposed pieces of legislation and deciding whether or not they are going to be beneficial to society. The speaker said the House of Lords includes members which “come from a wide range of backgrounds; professional backgrounds, business backgrounds, different areas of the country, and particularly in the recent years, many from the voluntary sector."

All these different types of professions and experiences mean that there is a wide range of ideas going into the House. This is vital, especially as more and more people from the voluntary sector are going into the House, putting ideas forward about the future for the voluntary services around the country.

Baroness Hayman also highlighted the diversity within the house, “We had twice the proportion of ethnic minority peers than there were ethnic minority members of the House of Commons. We have members with disabilities, we have people who are gay and lesbian and people who are in civil partnerships. And although we do have Bishops of the Church of England in the house we also have a chief Rabbi, we have Catholics, we have Muslims, we have Buddhists, and we have Sikhs and Hindus and some very vocal humanists, so there is a range and diversity as well as a range of diversity around professions."

The amount of women represented in the House is also an area of huge improvement; the percentage of women in the House is increasing every year, challenging the stereotypes of the House and creating diversity within it. 

Baroness Hayman  says “It’s a good place for women to operate actually, because there are lots of women whose lives have been rather like mine, it didn’t start on a career ladder at 21, there a lot of women who come in their 40’s, 50’s and 60’s having had very varied careers."

Baroness Hayman is an example of how people in power can have an influence on people in society and make people more aware of what the House of Lords do. She spends a lot of time travelling around the country promoting the House of Lords, as she puts it “I think it is very important that young people (and not so young people) understand how parliament works and understand that they can have an input in to it.”

She continues, “In some ways my job is very limited, which is why I have spent a lot of my time, trying to do thing like this and to set up programmes, particularly for young people. We have a ‘peers in schools’ programme, this year we have 500 requests to send members of the House of Lords into schools around the United Kingdom.”

“I’ve been in a school this morning in Manchester talking to girls about raising aspirations and telling them about how my aspirations in politics were raised by being in that sort of room, in a school gymnasium that I was in when I was 16 years old and my local MP came and talked about parliament, that was in Wolverhampton, in a state school."

The event showed that not only is The Lords a more dynamic, diverse and representative place than many expect, but that the views of people from different groups, like the voluntary sector do make a change. Inspiring people from all aspects of life to get involved and put their ideas for change forward.

For more information about The House of Lords, visit:http://www.parliament.uk/business/lords/

For more information about VSNW, visit:http://www.vsnw.org.uk/

And if you want to find out more about Wai Yin and the service they offer visit:http://www.waiyin.org.uk/