‘Close this political gender gap’
CIVIL society organisations in Wales have launched a joint call for the “political gender gap” in Wales to be closed.
Groups led by the electoral reform body ERS Cymru want political parties to open up about candidate diversity.
Their call comes exactly 100 years after women in the UK were given the right to stand for Parliament.
In their joint statement, the groups state: “A century since that Act, women remain woefully underrepresented in politics. Less than 28% of Welsh MPs are women. In total, since 1918, there have been just 19 female MPs in Wales.
“The Assembly has slipped back on women’s representation.
“And women continue to be woefully under-represented on councils across Wales: in Welsh local government only 28% of councillors are women, while in two of Wales’ local authorities there are no women at all in their cabinets.
“No longer can we assume this problem will go away simply with time. We need to deal with the root causes. To do that though, we need to know where we stand. We simply don’t have good figures of how many women are being put forward by parties in each election. Businesses now open up about gender pay gaps: it is time our parties opened up about the candidate diversity gap.
“We’re asking for two things. Firstly, that the UK Government enact Section 106 of the Equality Act 2010 to ensure parties publish diversity data for General and Assembly elections. It is already law – the government has just not enacted it.
“Secondly, that the Welsh Government leads by example and asks local authorities to publish diversity data about their current members. Ensuring publication of candidate diversity is such a simple measure which could have a potentially game-changing impact.”
The statement has been signed by Jess Blair, director of ERS Cymru; Catherine Fookes, director of Women’s Equality Network, Wales; Rachel Cable, head of Oxfam Cymru; Cerys Furlong, chief executive of Chwarae Teg; Frances Beecher, chief executive of homelessness chatity Llamau; and Mutale Merrill, chief executive of Bawso, which provides specialist services to ethnic minority victims and those at risk of domestic abuse and all other forms of violence.