Ann Cryer: Why it will get harder for women who join the Westminster gentlemen's club

I was eventually absolved and told that I had not done anything wrong, but I felt guilty for about four months, as if I were some sort of criminal. I think that it is more difficult for women to cope with that sort of situation than it is for men – I am not sure why, but that seems to be the case.

I have talked to many young women from my constituency party and local Labour parties who said that they might once have considered putting their names forward for selection, but after what some MPs have been through, they felt that it was more difficult.

Similarly, the rules on how we claim and what we can claim for have become much narrower, as regards what we used to call London living costs. That will make it more difficult for women with families to enter Parliament, because they will need a flat that is big enough to allow children to visit during the school holidays – I am talking about women who have constituencies outside London.

When my late husband Bob entered Parliament in 1974, John and Jane, my two children, had to stay in the flagship of seedy hotels, the Stanley House hotel in Belgrave Road. We hated it, but there was not enough money to do anything else at that time.

Are we going to go back to that? If we are, Parliament will go back more and more to being a gentlemen's club, which people with money can enter because they can buy themselves out of that difficult situation.

For those people, it does not matter that they do not get an allowance or expenses to pay for a decent flat so that their children can stay with them. If they have inherited wealth, just happen to have a lot of money in the bank, or are moonlighting and doing other jobs in

courtrooms or boardrooms – as many Conservative Members do and make extra money – their expenses do not matter. However, for most people in our party, particularly women, the sort of accommodation that they can have in London will be crucial.

As I have some money in the bank, I was able to buy a decent flat on Marsham Street, which is just over 10 minutes' walk from Parliament. It does not matter what time we finish at night; I can have a safe, comfortable walk back to my flat. I never use taxis; I always walk back home, and always walk to work in the morning, because I have a decent flat. That is partly because I have money in the bank, and partly because the expenses allowed me to claim the interest on my mortgage. That is all going to be stopped, and in the future women will have a real problem with where they are going to live.

If they have to live out in Kennington or Lambeth or somewhere, they will have to get taxis. If they cannot get a taxi, perhaps they will have to use the underground late at night. That is a difficult situation for women to face, and if they think along those lines, it will be another deterrent to women entering Parliament.

If we could still claim interest on a mortgage, I would not object at all to the Fees Office claiming back any profits made on the

properties. However, we are taking a retrograde step, particularly for women and people with children, and those who cannot afford to subsidise themselves when it comes to getting a decent flat near Parliament.

Just over a year ago, my constituency party started the process of choosing a candidate to replace me. As I am still the only woman MP in the whole of Bradford and Leeds – that is 15 constituencies – it was necessary to have an all-women shortlist.

To its credit, the Keighley constituency party agreed, and went along with that. However, it became increasingly clear that another deterrent for women entering Parliament is the expense. One or two of the shortlisted women were coming from London. They had children, so they had the costs of child care and car or rail journeys.

We produce glossy leaflets for members of the Labour Party, persuading them to vote for a certain candidate, and all that costs a great deal of money. Two of the shortlisted candidates told me that they could not afford to go for another seat if they did not get Keighley, as it would cost too much, and because of the time and travel difficulties that there are when one has children. I do not know how we resolve that; I have no idea what recommendations to make.

When I was married to Bob Cryer, who was MP for Keighley and then Bradford, South, he went to about seven or eight selection conferences over 20 years or so to become a councillor, an MP and an MEP. I went along with him to most of those selection conferences because I was interested, and the remarkable thing – no one saw it as being remarkable – was that at every one, there was an all-male shortlist. I do not remember a single woman being on any of those shortlists.

The Labour Party has all-women shortlists. That is controversial, but it works. If anyone can think of a better solution to the problem of all-male shortlists, I am more than willing to hear it, but that is how things were, and I know that if we stop having all-women shortlists in the Labour Party, we will drift back to the gentlemen's club, and to all-male shortlists. I do not know why that should be. It is very disappointing, but that is how it is.

Ann Cryer is the retiring Labour MP for Keighley. This is an edited extract of her final speech to the Commons.