ROLE OF POLITICAL PARTIES IN PROMOTING WOMEN’S REPRESENTATION


THE ROLE OF POLITICAL PARTIES IN PROMOTING WOMEN’S REPRESENTATION


Report from the Commonwealth Women’s Forum


I was invited to speak at one of the Workshops at the first ever Commonwealth Women’s Forum held in Malta in advance of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting last November.


Hon. Fiona Mactaggart MP is a UK Member of Parliament for the Labour Party. She was the founder of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Prostitution and the Global Sex Trade; Co-Chair of the APPG on Human Trafficking/Modern Day Slavery. Fiona served as a Home Office Minister and on various Committees (Health; Children, Schools and Families; Public Accounts; Public Administration). She was also Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities.


There was a really positive atmosphere throughout the event which brought a diverse group of women together from across the Commonwealth because they believe in gender equality, women’s empowerment, and speeding up progress in achieving equality for Commonwealth women. What was also great is that the Women’s Forum preceded the election of the first ever woman Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, a wonderful member of our own House of Lords, who I worked with when we were both government ministers at the Home Office. Two key issues where I think Baroness Scotland and I made a real difference then is in improving awareness of and action to prevent violence against women and also commissioning Baroness Corston’s report on vulnerable women in the justice system. I was speaking at the Commonwealth Women’s Forum on a panel discussing ways to address the inequality of representation of women in politics, focusing on the role of


44 | The Parliamentarian | 2016: Issue One


political parties. As I mentioned during my presentation I felt like a fraud speaking on women’s political representation when so many other Commonwealth countries are doing much better than the UK. However, the UK Labour Party has been a world leader in addressing the issue of women’s representation in Parliament and without its policy on All Women’s Shortlists, the UK would be dwindling towards the bottom of the world rankings for women’s representation in parliament. With the First Past the Post election system, the pioneers within the party recognised that women needed to be selected for safe Labour seats to address the entrenched gender bias at constituency level. The increase in women MPs following the implementation of the All Women’s Shortlist policy, has been a positive force for change recognised not just by Labour supporters, but by the other parties too. Although other political parties in the UK have not been as committed to gender equality as the Labour Party, and women’s representation is asymmetrical with Labour women significantly outnumbering those from other parties, they too have come up with other mechanisms to ensure that they too benefit from more women in the party and in parliament. I was selected for my


constituency of Slough in 1995 and without All Women’s Shortlists, I would not have been successful. All Women’s Shortlists were not popular and the Slough Labour Party picketed Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC) demanding that they be allowed to choose a male candidate; but the NEC stuck to its guns and insisted on the policy going through. I believe structural mechanisms to ensure the election of women are essential to address the appalling gender imbalances which have lasted too long – and waiting for a gradual increase is no longer acceptable. Democracy is flawed if the voice of half the population is not fully represented. All Women’s Shortlists worked in the UK for the electoral system we have in place, but quotas are common elsewhere and examples from other countries include increased state media opportunities for parties fielding good levels of women candidates.


Political Parties are important agents for change and the establishment of the Labour Women’s Network in 1988 – which is still going – has made a huge contribution to more women being elected to public office by helping candidates to prepare leaflets, practice speeches and provide inspirational role models. Having women representatives at the heart of a political party can


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