Margot James highlights the need for MPs from a diverse range of backgrounds
12th January 2012
Speaking in a debate on Parliamentary representation, Margot James welcomes the progress made in increasing the number of women MPs but highlights areas where there is still a way to go. She outlines reasons why many good candidates are put off running for Parliament.
Margot James (Stourbridge) (Con): First, I warmly congratulate the hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg) on securing the debate, and on the important contribution that she makes to this whole subject area.
The main parties have each in their own way done a great deal to reduce discrimination in the candidate selection process. The difference that the Labour party made in 1997 was phenomenal. Although I do not agree with all-women shortlists, I certainly do not have a closed mind on the subject when I see what they have achieved for the party. The difference for Conservative women just between 2005 and 2010 has also been amazing. In 2004, when I was applying for a seat in Berkshire, I was given an interview and told in a letter that were I to make the final round, I would be welcome to bring my wife to drinks beforehand—and I do not think that its authors were so forward-looking that they were taking into account future gay marriage legislation.
One of the main reasons why still not enough MPs are women or from minority groups is that they do not come forward for selection in adequate numbers. There are many reasons for that, several of which have already been mentioned. I would add that the personal, and sometimes sexist, coverage of women MPs in the media is also a factor, as is the general level of aggression in some aspects of political debate. Moreover, the opprobrium that is heaped on MPs who make a misjudgement or get something wrong is often out of all proportion to the seriousness of the supposed offence. We have already seen that this year in respect of one hon. Member. The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority is another factor, but I will not dwell on that.
Those factors put many people off entering public life, but they put off a higher proportion of women and people from minority groups. There are certain things we can do, and some of them are in the gift of the Prime Minister. I was delighted to hear that he is intent on having one third of his Government made up of women by the end of this Parliament. The hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) has drawn attention to some of the many Departments that have no woman Minister. It is breathtaking that not one of the 15 Ministers in the Departments of State that face the outside world—the Foreign Office, the Ministry of Defence and the Department for International Development—is female. What message does that give to women who are struggling for the most basic human rights in the developing world?
Returning to the broader issue of diversity, I want to place on the record my gratitude to the Prime Minister and the previous but one Prime Minister for the amazing progress made since the turn of the century in the area of gay equality. The number of openly gay MPs in my party increased sixfold or sevenfold, as we have heard, at the last election. That is testimony to the legislative changes introduced by the Labour Government under Tony Blair, and to the cultural change in the Conservative party brought about by the present Prime Minister. I would not be standing here today without them, and I am deeply grateful to both of them, and to others such as the chairman of the Stourbridge Conservative association when I was selected, Councillor Liz Walker. These people have made possible a journey that I embarked on at the age of 16, and I am deeply grateful.
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Margot's interventions in the same debate
Margot James (Stourbridge) (Con): Does the hon. Lady agree that both people with manual backgrounds and those in the professions are discouraged from putting themselves forward by awkward economic considerations? Those in manual trades cannot afford the whole process of campaigning, taking time off and so forth, while those in the professions cannot afford to give up the salaries to which they have become accustomed.
Dame Anne Begg: That is an excellent point, which may explain some of the narrowing of the backgrounds of some of the people who are now trying to stand for Parliament. It is crucial for work to be done to deal with that. We, as political party animals ourselves, should be spotting people’s talents and encouraging them. Many people out there have never dreamt of being Members of Parliament, but we know that given the right chances and the right encouragement they would make excellent MPs, and we diminish this place by not giving them such encouragement. Some women are a bit more diffident than many men, and may need that extra push. Once they have bitten the bullet and put themselves forward they may make excellent candidates and excellent MPs, and be a credit to their parties.
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Margot James: I wonder whether my hon. Friend noticed on the “Andrew Marr Show” at the end of last year its review of 2011. It was a wonderful canter through all the year’s political highlights, and approximately 20 politicians featured—but not one woman.
Amber Rudd: I am so grateful to my hon. Friend for improving on my case.
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Margot James: On the international point that my hon. Friend makes, does she accept that in some of those countries a lot of the women who fill those quota places are, sadly, place women and often they are not there on any particular merit other than their connections to—mostly male—members of the establishment in those countries?
Mary Macleod: I agree with my hon. Friend. There is certainly more work to be done in communicating with Governments elsewhere about what else they can do to increase female representation in their Parliaments, and not necessarily by using things such as women-only shortlists, with which I do not agree.
