International Men’s Day Debate

The business in the House of Commons today starts with questions to the Secretary of State for Transport. There will then be the announcement of what the future business of the House will be and of course we already know that next week the big event will be the Chancellors Autumn Statement. There will then be two debates which have been scheduled by the Backbench Business Committee, the first on welfare and the second on International Men’s Day. Although there may be some who say such a debate is unnecessary the House has debates on International Women’s Day and there are many issues which do affect men and are worthy of debate. For example between the ages of 20 and 34 suicide is the main cause of death among young men. Overall men are over three times as likely to commit suicide as women. Other issues are the rights of access of fathers to their children and men’s health issues and life expectancy which is lower for men than women. Unfortunately I am committed to filming for this weeks political programme so I will miss much of the debate but I look forward to reading the official report of the debate in Hansard.