Who was the last Labour woman to win a by-election?

By Max Freedman

Who was the last Labour woman to win a by-election? This should be an easy question to answer, as we know how committed the party has been to improving female representation in Parliament, as seen by the All-Women Shortlist policy. By-elections should be even easier way to provide a path for talented women, as the NEC has the power to choose a favoured candidate where a candidate is not already in place, so we would surely expect to have seen numerous high-flying women enter parliament in this way.

The answer to the question is something of a shock, therefore. The last successful Labour woman candidate was Helen Liddell, elected to replace the late John Smith in the Monklands East by-election of June 30th 1994. More than fifteen years, and the entirety of the Blair and Brown leadership years, have passed since then. As the table below shows, this contrasts with the stronger record under the Smith/Beckett leadership that ended at that time.

During those fifteen years plus, Labour have contested 43 of the 46 by-elections that have been held (all except North Down on June 15th 1995, South Antrim on September 21st 2000, and Haltemprice & Howden on July 10th 2008) without increasing the number of woman Labour MPs. In fact, we have only fielded a woman candidate in six of those contests (13%), which is a far lower proportion than at any general election during that time. Indeed, in two of the four instances where the departure of a female Labour MP created the vacancy, the by-election candidate was a man! (Audrey Wise in 1999 and Betty Boothroyd in 2000, admittedly counting the outgoing Speaker as a formerly-Labour MP).

Over these by-elections, both the Tories and the Liberal Democrats have selected more women candidates and elected more of them – even the Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru have between them fielded a higher proportion of female candidates in the by-elections than they have contested, and have elected one to parliament.

It is at least clear that Labour’s selection procedures have not been directed towards choosing female candidates, even at a time when this has been precisely the goal of imposing All-Women Shortlists on constituencies selecting general election candidates.

There are of course a variety of possible explanations for this. It may be that the additional pressure and scrutiny of a by-election demands different qualities to a general election, particularly with the increasing demands for such candidates to be “local” – this may make it harder to bring in women from elsewhere in the country, as has been common under AWS. This reasoning, however, would not explain why Labour has selected fewer women in by-elections than the other parties, particularly the Liberal Democrats, who have pioneered the focus on “local” candidates. This would also suggest that ambitious local female Labour Party members were scarcer in the constituencies that held by-elections in this period, which seems unlikely.

Surely the party must take action on this shameful record. The AWS policy has been controversial, as some critics have claimed that it is applied inconsistently, to block awkward male candidates and generally as a mode of control. But unless the NEC demonstrates a clearer commitment to selecting women when it is most easily in their power to do so – in by-elections – these criticisms will only grow louder.

The table shows every by-election that Labour has contested since the 1992 general election. The colour scheme shows 1) incumbent party (name of constituency) and 2) victor of by-election (date of by-election). Women candidates are in red. Outgoing women MPs are in red and bold.