‘There aren’t many female MPs with young children’

PINNED AS a rising star, Miriam Cates is already being tipped to climb to the top of the Conservative Party.

Before she was elected in December, Mrs Cates sat next to Boris Johnson at the party conference last year, and during the winter’s campaigning, she was joined on the doorstep in her Penistone and Stocksbridge constituency by the PM’s fiancee Carrie Symonds.

But despite being seen as a leading light in the party so desperate to keep its hard fought for northern seats, the Cambridge graduate and former schoolteacher has not slipped into the background after winning her seat, making waves both locally and nationally.

“I think the thing that I’m aiming for is to get a balance,” she said, speaking to The Yorkshire Post six months after the election.

“So, yes, I’m here to represent constituents to deliver on the things that I’ve campaigned on, levelling up, that is absolutely my priority.

“But also MPs do have a national role. We’re here to be legislators, and we have to take that seriously and that isn’t necessarily just about focusing on local issues, but it’s also about what’s best for the country.

“I think finding a balance between those is my short and medium-term aim.”

Mrs Cates, a mother-of-three, has the ambition to make it easier for female MPs like her, who are juggling the job with bringing up children.

And she has not been afraid to call out the dearth of mothers of young children in both Parliament and her own party.

“There aren’t many female MPs with school-aged children and young children and it is tough,” she said.

“Being away for a large part of the week, and then trying to actually have meaningful time with them when I am home and not constantly be on my phone and my email.

“But I want to make this possible because if it isn’t possible for mums with young children to be MPs, then we are missing out on a huge section of the population being represented.

“If we don’t have people from all walks of life around the tables where decisions are made, we won’t look at how those policies filter down to the people that they affect. I think being a mum, being a parent, is such an important role in society, so we should be very careful that our policies promote those people and help those people and help children.”

She said: “I want there to be enough mums in Parliament, going through that experience right now, struggling with childcare, having to help your child with homework, so that we can be a voice.

“If it’s not possible to do that, then that’s a bad thing for our whole country.”

And she said it meant she had a “different kind of life experience”.

“I’ve not been a banker. I’ve not been a lawyer, but gosh, I know how a school works and how a PTA works and those kinds of things, so it is a valuable life experience,” she said.

“That is one of my ambitions to bring that to the table.”

Mrs Cates, 37, said the first few months in Parliament, and being thrust into a global pandemic, had been “a massive learning curve, there’s no doubt about it”.

“And I know quite a lot about politics, I suppose, compared to the average member of the public because I’m interested in it. But even so, there’s just been so much to learn so quickly,” she said.