Watts criticised over comments on female MPs

UNC MP for La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro Phillip Watts has drawn crit­i­cism af­ter com­ment­ing on the ap­pear­ance and sex­u­al moral­i­ty of fe­male MPs dur­ing Sat­ur­day night's de­bate on the 2027 na­tion­al bud­get.

Watts praised the women seat­ed on the Gov­ern­ment's side of the House, de­scrib­ing them as “good-look­ing” and say­ing they had “a lot of moral val­ues”.

“I feel very com­fort­able on this side, Mr Speak­er. Es­pe­cial­ly with the women, they have a lot of moral val­ues,” he said.

He lat­er added: “I've nev­er come across any of these ladies sleep­ing with the col­leagues. I've nev­er come across that on this side.”

His com­ments prompt­ed an ob­jec­tion from PNM MP for Laven­tille West Ka­reem Mar­celle, who ques­tioned their rel­e­vance to the par­lia­men­tary pro­ceed­ings.

“What is the rel­e­vance of talk­ing about per­sons' per­son­al ap­pear­ance in this House, Mr Speak­er?” Mar­celle asked.

The com­ments have since drawn crit­i­cism from the PNM's Na­tion­al Women's League and for­mer UNC pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer and sen­a­tor Ani­ta Haynes Al­leyne.

In a me­dia re­lease is­sued on Sun­day, the Na­tion­al Women's League praised PNM MPs for their con­tri­bu­tions to the bud­get de­bate but ac­cused the UNC of re­sort­ing to per­son­al at­tacks against fe­male op­po­si­tion par­lia­men­tar­i­ans.

The league al­leged that Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar had en­cour­aged UNC MPs and so­cial me­dia blog­gers to at­tack PNM MPs and of­fice-hold­ers. It did not pro­vide ev­i­dence in the re­lease to sub­stan­ti­ate that al­le­ga­tion.

The league al­so crit­i­cised what it de­scribed as at­tacks on PNM women led by male UNC op­er­a­tives, ar­gu­ing that the Gov­ern­ment had failed to match the Op­po­si­tion's con­tri­bu­tions to the bud­get de­bate.

It said the PNM would not be in­tim­i­dat­ed in­to si­lence and praised Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les-Robin­son's ap­proach to par­lia­men­tary de­bate.

Haynes Al­leyne, a for­mer UNC sen­a­tor and MP, al­so con­demned Watts's re­marks, say­ing the de­bate had be­come a strug­gle to main­tain Par­lia­ment's dig­ni­ty.

She said that while po­lit­i­cal pi­cong was part of par­lia­men­tary life, there was a dis­tinc­tion be­tween an in­ef­fec­tive at­tempt at hu­mour and a tar­get­ed at­tack on women.

“Call­ing it pi­cong does not au­to­mat­i­cal­ly make it clever, and it cer­tain­ly does not make it ap­pro­pri­ate,” she said.

Haynes Al­leyne ar­gued that a woman's pri­vate life did not de­ter­mine her com­pe­tence and that phys­i­cal at­trac­tive­ness was not a mea­sure of par­lia­men­tary per­for­mance.

“Such com­men­tary has no place in a Par­lia­men­tary de­bate,” she said.

She al­so crit­i­cised the Speak­er for miss­ing an op­por­tu­ni­ty to rule on the rel­e­vance and ap­pro­pri­ate­ness of the re­marks.

Haynes Al­leyne said the com­ments were par­tic­u­lar­ly trou­bling at a time when Trinidad and To­ba­go has a fe­male Pres­i­dent, Prime Min­is­ter and Op­po­si­tion Leader.

“We can­not preach women's em­pow­er­ment on Mon­day and par­tic­i­pate in their hu­mil­i­a­tion on Tues­day,” she said.

She called for Per­sad-Bisses­sar to clar­i­fy her po­si­tion on the is­sue.

Watts is the Min­is­ter re­spon­si­ble for Youth Af­fairs.