Should the government prioritise British-made cement in public construction projects?

A comfortable win, 45 votes to 22, put this chamber behind the Mineral Products Association's pitch for a "buy British" rule in public construction. A 34-point margin looks decisive, but it masks a vote that was won overwhelmingly in one half of the electorate and barely at all in the other.

Men voted yes by 78% (31 of 40), a rout that alone accounts for most of the winning margin. Women split almost exactly down the middle, 12 yes to 13 no, making this less a national consensus than a male-driven mandate that happened to clear the bar nationally.

Age moved in the more familiar direction: support climbed steadily from a bare majority among 25-34s (50%) to 78-80% among the 55-64 and 65+ cohorts, the pattern typical of protectionist, industry-facing questions that resonate more with older voters closer to Britain's industrial past than with younger ones weighing consumer costs against green ambitions. The 25-34 bracket, split evenly at 6-6, was the only age group to properly hesitate.

The headline number says Britain-on-the-platform likes buying British; the internals say that instinct is really a story about who was doing the voting.