My Lords, Your Excellencies, and distinguished guests.
It gives me great pleasure to welcome you all to this special afternoon tea hosted in the Mother of all Parliaments – to celebrate international womens day!
Begin with a huge thank you to the ETK team for helping to organise today and to the panellists for agreeing to take part.
We gather in a building that began its construction nine hundred years ago—from the sentencing of a king to coronation banquets, it has seen many memorable moments and today is no exception.
We come together to celebrate International Women’s Day and what better way to do it than having afternoon tea in the House of Lords with a fantastic group of women and a brilliant panellist.
I was asked to step in to host this and I said yes without hesitation because it’s important we celebrate the amazing achievements of women but also to work on the areas that still hold them back. And I am proud that today we have held our annual IWD debate in the House of Lords – noting that though much has changed and improved, many women still face challenges like violence and inequality in the world.
On this day I do always choose to personally remember a women who did as much as anyone to make me the man I am – my late grandmother / Nannima – Jaswant Kaur Sahni – the wholly undilute love she shower on us, her always smiling, always supportive disposition meant whatever issue we were facing, she may not have the answer but she was there to get us through it – and yes – her food played a huge part – it was the most delicious in the world because it had that secret ingredient – pure love….. and lots of butter!
'Obviously I remembered her, and my other late grandparents when I was introduced to the House of Lords only a few months ago – and what struck me most was that it wasn’t a big deal that I was British Indian but I did recognise that I was the first Sikh Peer born in Britain! – I feel proud that anyone of us regardless of our religion, colour of our skin or gender – born in Britain - can be true to who we are and still represent modern Britain
However, the work doesn’t stop there. I am privileged to have this platform and glad to be able to use it to host events like today to continue the conversation and tackle the issues that still exist – including of gender equality.
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