Causes to fight for: women’s representation in politics

By Cat Smith

This week has seen the publication of the House of Commons Speaker’s Conference recommendations on women’s under-representation in Parliament. The Conference was set up in November 2008 by Harriet Harman to address the under-representation of women, ethnic minority groups and disabled people at the House of Commons. When I think back to 1997 and that landslide win which saw the biggest ever influx of women into the House of Commons, along with the continued work Labour has done on this issue, it makes me feel proud.

The recommendations include that parties should be required to adopt quotas for their women Parliamentary candidates if this year’s general election does not lead to an increase. This alongside all parties being required by law in the equality bill to publish monitoring reports updating the public on how they are improving the range of representation among women should prove to ‘wake up’ some parties who shamefully have very poor women’s representation.

Overall our parliament has only 19.5% women MPs, which is lower than Rwanda, Mozambique, Sweden, Cuba and Denmark. Labour tops the women MPs’ league table with 27% of our MPs being women, the Liberal Democrats come in with 14%. Just 8.7% of the Conservative Parliamentary party being women. Interestingly, there are no Plaid Cymru or SNP women MPs in Westminster.

The report has been given added impetus by the expenses scandal, and admits:

“At present few people think that MPs understand or share the life experiences of the people they represent. Building and restoring public faith in Parliament is of crucial importance to the future of our democracy.”

With the crisis of confidence in our elected politicians we need more than ever to have a more balanced group of representatives, one that would lead to better decision-making and political prioritising that more closely reflect voters’ concerns. If you’re looking for a cause to fight for where Labour holds a strong record already, this is it.

London Young Labour and Compass Youth are not prepared to wait 200 years, or 40 General Elections, for women’s representation to rise to 50%. We are hosting a joint public meeting “Where are young women in politics?” in Committee Rom 16 in the House of Commons on 28 January from 6:30pm – 8:30pm. We will be joined by Emily Thornberry MP and Dr Rainbow Murray. We also hope we will be joined by our sisters and brothers in the Young Fabians so together we can take a lead on setting up discussions with young women in politics and building support networks for a new generation of women politicians.