Senior female MPs pressuring government to publish gender breakdown of political candidates

Women MPs still only account for 32 per cent of the House of Commons

Senior female MPs are planning a bid to force political parties to publish the gender breakdown of candidates amid warnings the government is turning “a blind eye” to the lack of diversity in Westminster.

Campaigners want to step up pressure on the government to enact equality legislation that would oblige political parties to report what proportion of their parliamentary candidates are women.

Record numbers of female MPs were elected last year but women still only account for 32 per cent of MPs, while 26 per cent of peers are women and 32 per cent of local councillors in England.

Cross-party MPs, including Tory former minister Nicky Morgan, Liberal Democrat deputy leader Jo Swinson and shadow equalities minister Dawn Butler, believe recent gender pay gap reporting requirements for big businesses have paved the way for greater transparency in politics.

The group hopes to capitalise on Theresa May’s wafer-thin parliamentary majority by putting forward an amendment to upcoming legislation, a strategy which has proved successful on backbench campaigns such as allowing women in Northern Ireland to access abortions on the English NHS.

“The arithmetic of this parliament is such that it is easier, they can’t just brazen through in the way that previous governments would have been able to,” said Ms Swinson, a former minister in the coalition government.

She told an event in Westminster: ”If parliament was more reflective of society in terms of gender and race and disability and class and all of these different characteristics where it is currently far too homogenous, we would have a parliament that would be more legitimate in the eyes of the public.

“I think part of that legitimacy would just be how it would look when you turned on the television or you opened a newspaper, it would look more like the Britain we live in, and it doesn’t currently.”

Ms Morgan, who chairs the Treasury committee, said gender pay gap reporting “concentrates minds” and could be successfully applied to political parties.

Asked why the government has been slow to enact the legislation, she said: ”I don’t know what the blockage is. I don’t think it’s necessarily a disagreement with it overall, I think there is definitely a lack of time.

“But given what we are doing at the moment... I can think of far more productive things we could be doing that hanging about waiting for Brexit deals and everything else.

“I think there is also a sort of, ‘Oh well is it for government or parliament to tell parties what to do?’ and that’s true up to a point.

“But on the other hand we are telling companies of all sizes and organisations that they need to publish gender pay, so I think we have breached that now.”

Labour’s Ms Butler backed the calls but urged a greater focus on intersectionality, to increase the number of female BME, disabled and LGBT+ MPs.

She said: “That data should already be there because if it is not, it means the party is not really committed because if they are not monitoring, how will they know if they have improved?

“So if the parties are not collecting that data, that means they are not taking the situation seriously anyway.”

The calls are being led by the Centenary Action Group, a coalition of more than 100 women’s rights activists and politicians, which wants to capitalise on the anniversary of some women getting the vote to bring about change.

Convenor Helen Pankhurst, the great grand-daughter of the suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst, said: “The government must demand transparency in politics, in parallel to initiatives like the gender pay gap reporting requirements demanded of large companies.

“We can no longer turn a blind eye to who is being selected into office and just as importantly who is not.

“A simple way of improving representation through greater accountability is available – it just needs to be put in place by the Minister for Women and Equalities – this year, on this momentous centenary.”

The Equality Act was passed in 2010 under the Labour government but section 106 of the act, which covers transparency, has never been enacted.

A Government Equalities Office spokesperson said: “This Parliament is the most gender and LGBT diverse ever, but there is still more to do.

“The Government Equalities Office continues to work on supporting groups to participate in politics.”