YP Comment: Parties must lead by example

it is a sobering thought that the number of male MPs at present equates to the total number of female representatives in the past century. Despite the progress that has been made, Parliament is still unrepresentative of the country's demographics.

Despite the progress that has been made, Parliament is still unrepresentative of the country’s demographics.

Yet the Women and Equalities Committee at the House of Commons, headed by former Cabinet minister Maria Miller, is misguided with its call today for statutory legislation which would compel the major parties to ensure that at least 45 per cent of candidates at the next general election are female.

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This should not be a matter for Parliament which will soon become bogged down by Brexit and the NHS crisis. It is a matter for the parties putting forward the most able candidates – and the electorate, the most important people of all, having the final say. If they think a party is being sexist or chauvinistic, it’s their democratic right to vote for AN Other.

For, while Labour’s decision to embrace all-women shortlists in 1997 did, indeed, change the dynamics of Westminster, it did divide opinion – some felt it undermined the cherished concept of a meritocracy because gender, rather than an individual’s capabilities, was being used to determine candidates.

As such, it is the basic responsibility of each party – and not the Government – to look at how they become more inclusive of women, the disabled and ethnic minority candidates. After all, who would have thought that Labour, the supposed party of progress and equality, would have yet to elect a female leader when the Tories, the party of tradition, now have their second female Prime Minister in Theresa May?