It has been an important week this week celebrating a range of the diversity issues my Select Committee has been working on over the past year. This week is men's health week, which coincided with the one off session of the Committee on men's mental health. We looked at some interesting research that indicated whilst women had been impacted more financially during the pandemic, it was men's mental health that had suffered more than women's.
Menopause Mandate, a new (ish) coalition of menopause experts and campaigners came together in Parliament on Monday to celebrate the Speaker signing the workplace menopause pledge. This wasn't just parliamentarians and celebrities like Penny Lancaster, Davina McCall, Lisa Snowdon etc, but also eminent medics like Dame Lesley Regan. A great day for everyone and a chance to celebrate how much we have achieved over the last 12 months.
On Tuesday I was in the City at AVEVA, with the 14 FTSE 100 companies who have so far published their ethnicity pay gap. It was great to hear from their perspective what had been the challenges around collecting and publishing the data, but more importantly what the benefits had been for their companies. We had a fascinating presentation by Shell, who have very much been at the forefront of this, and drew up some exciting plans to encourage others to follow suit with their reporting.
I am very much looking forward to being at the British Embassy in Paris next week to give a keynote speech at a UNESCO event celebrating women in STEM, and will spend most of the weekend brushing up my French.
