We need more working class MPs to get more working class leaders

One member of the House of Lords who expressed an interest in the Labour Diversity Fund to me recently quipped: “There are even more working class Labour politicians in here than there are in the House of Commons these days.” I have to take them on their word on this, but unless the Labour Party acts now it will continue to be this way.

In 1997 the percentage of the Parliamentary Labour Party who were from manual labour backgrounds was at a then low of 13%, today this figure is at a new low of 9%. In contrast, four out of five Labour MPs are from traditional professional backgrounds and 12% were privately educated. No-one is advocating a worker’s party where if you’re middle class or privately educated you’re not allowed in, just a better balance that reflects society at large. It is possible, as half the ministers in Clement Attlee’s cabinet were from working class backgrounds – and over a quarter in Harold Wilson’s – but then this owed to the fact that there were more working class MPs for them to choose from.

From all parties an even lower figure of 4% come from manual labour backgrounds, meaning there is roughly the same proportion of MPs who went to Eton as there are horny-handed sons of toil. Even more damming is the fact that there are more MPs in Parliament who were privately schooled (34%) than from a manual labour background, despite such schools comprising only 7% of the education system. This should anger all Labour members as if we cannot increase equality within our own party, then we don’t stand much chance of being believed about doing it outside of it either.

Earlier in the year Andrew Neil’s BBC programme ‘Posh Politics’ seemed to arrive at an easy answer for the increase in the number of MPs from privileged backgrounds: the demise of the Grammar School. What Andrew Neil referred to as a Grammar School, or the Tripartite System, came into being after the 1944 Education Act, and fell from favour after 1966; yet it underpinned his argument for why there are so few working class MPs in the 21^st century. However, he seemed ignorant to the fact that between 1918 and 1935 72% of Labour MPs had only elementary education; compared with 4% of Conservative and 14% of Liberal MPs during the same period. Clearly it cannot be solely about an exam at the age of 11 years old.

Instead, one of the bigger impediments to candidacy for low income groups to Parliament is an age old problem, money. Research carried out by the Labour Diversity Fund, showed that the cost of selection was on average £4,500 – with £10,000 quoted by one MP. And the Speaker’s Conference on Representation discovered that the cost of candidacy within the Labour Party once selected was around £10,000 a year. This is why the Future Candidates Scheme, launched by the party last summer, will only be a sop and not a solution unless the cost of candidacy is not addressed.

Next year the party will be selecting more members to stand as candidates in 2015. So it is important that we act now to make sure that we have the best candidates, not the best placed ones or the best financed ones. If we don’t have any candidates in 2015 from the coalface of coalition cuts we will be a weaker party.

The Labour Diversity Fund campaign proposes a simple solution to this in order to increase the diversity of MPs in our party, by taking as little as 5% of donations to the party, and putting them into a fund that would issue grants to low income candidates from unrepresented groups going for selection. It is self-apparent that if there are more MPs from lower economic backgrounds to pick from, then it will be more likely to have the same people at the upper echelons of this country; and ultimately sat around a future Labour cabinet table.

Please sign the petition in support of our campaign at our website.

James Mills is the Campaign Director of the Labour Diversity Fund