Philip Davies MP has called for a debate to raise awareness of issues such as male suicide, boys’ educational under-performance and fatherlessness to be held in Parliament on International Men’s Day.
The request follows last year’s controversy after calls for a debate to mark the day were initially mocked by Labour MP Jess Phillips, before pressure from leading men’s charities and campaigners led to the debate going ahead.
If Davies’ application is successful, it will be only the second time an International Men’s Day debate has been held in Parliament.
Davies told the backbench committe the issues debated last year “are still relevant today and still very rarely get debated and discussed in the House of Commons, things like male suicide, the under-performance of boys in schools, the way that men sometimes have difficulty getting access to their children, the impact on men of the criminal justice system.
“Only recently the Prime Minister has raised the issue of how black men in particular are particularly affected in the criminal justice system. And it seems to me this debate would allow all of those issues and others to be discussed.”
Davies told the committee: “I am delighted to say as well that we actually had as many women speaking in the debate as men, to show that it wasn’t just about one particular gender.”
Watch Davies’ full presentation here:
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