Mrs (Basingstoke)
(Con):...We found that Parliament should actively
encourage women to participate in democracy, and should continue to
look at ways to ensure that there are no unnecessary barriers to
women coming here to represent the people who voted for them. We
found that political parties had the primary responsibility to
ensure that women come forward to represent them. Although the
political parties have measures in place to help to achieve
equality in gender representation, we felt that there was
insufficient analysis of how effective those measures actually
were, and that in all the parties there was a lack of clear
strategy and leadership to achieve Gender equality and
representation...
(Livingston)
(SNP):...It is important that we identify
that the success of women and Gender equality is as much for and about
men as it is for and about women. It will benefit society. I always
think about the reports that I read following the banking crisis
about the demographics of the people who made the decisions in that
sector. We might say they were a very homogeneous group: they were
the same race, gender and class, and they all looked at one another
and did not see the faults in the system. I am not trying to blame
the whole financial crash on men, but had there been more
diversity—this is not my view; it is from the reports produced
after the crash—there would have been different ideas and people
would have challenged one another in different ways.
I take the hon. Gentleman’s point about quotas and long-term
solutions, but surely he recognises that structural challenges
still exist for women who seek to get into positions of power. He
referenced all-female shortlists. I will talk a little about what
the Scottish National party has done in that respect, but
all-women shortlists have brought us Members such as the hon.
Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips). I cannot imagine
her not being in this place and not being a vociferous champion
of Gender equality. I am sure she will be able to
comment about this, but I have not seen anyone cast that up to
her at any point. She is here and in her place, like many
others...
(Brent Central)
(Lab):...The whole system is substantially flawed in how
it counts the number of constituents, because it takes into
consideration only people who are registered to vote, and not
everybody who actually lives in the constituency. The right hon.
Lady will find that constituencies such as mine—a London
constituency—have a substantial number of constituents who are
not registered. The whole system is flawed in terms of how the
number is calculated, but it is not only that. The Labour party
is set to lose more seats under the boundary changes than any
other party, and we would therefore lose more women. That is
where some of the gerrymandering comes into effect.
The report states:
“Our focus on women in this report should not be taken as a lack
of interest in diversity more generally”.
I accept that. When we look at achieving Gender equality, we need
to look at all kinds of women. My hon. Friend the Member for
Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq) referred to
intersectionality in women of colour, who often get ignored or
brushed out of the feminist argument. Even though we are looking
at women, we need to look at the diversity of women. This is not
confined to women of colour; it is also working-class women,
disabled women, LGBT+ women, single women, single mums and so on.
It is important that when we talk about women, we are not
focusing on one particular group of women who are then the
acceptable face of women generally...
...Labour is seeking Gender equality by 2020 or whenever the
next general election is. It might be next year—who knows? The
last general election was called quite quickly, so we did not
have time to enforce all-women shortlists, but even then, the
Labour party still achieved 45% of its Members being women. Of
the 262 MPs, 119 are female. Labour has more female MPs than all
the other political parties added together. That is something to
celebrate and talk about. We cannot have this debate without
acknowledging how far the Labour party has come...
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