The London assembly member for Harrow has called the first statue of a woman which is to be unveiled in Parliament Square ‘gesture politics’.

On Tuesday April 24 there will be a public unveiling of a statue of the suffragist leader Millicent Fawcett, which was commissioned by the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan.

The statue will mark the centenary of women having the right to vote in the UK and alongside the statue, inscribed on a plinth, will be the name and portraits of 59 men and women who campaigned for women’s suffrage.

But Conservative Susan Hall has had some strong words to say on the matter.

She said: "What’s more important are things going on such as Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and forced marriages.

According to Ms Hall 50% of incidents of FGM in the country are carried out in London.

“We can make all the grand gestures we want but we need to stop FGM and women being forced into marriages.

“We need to be looking at issues that matter, other people can worry about statues but to me we have to get a grip with FGM and forced marriage.

“I think that it’s gesture politics.”

Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan will attend the unveiling as well as Caroline Criado-Perez, who campaigned to get the first statue of a women in Parliament Square when she started a petition for the monument, which was signed by almost 85,000 people.

The new Parliament Square monument comes as part of the Sadiq Khan’s #BehindEveryGreatCity campaign which celebrates the role of women in London during 2018 and marks the centenary of women being allowed to vote in the UK.