Could equality law end all-women shortlists?

LABOUR may be forced to scrap all-women shortlists for parliamentary candidates as more than half its MPs are now female.

Leaked papers from the party’s national executive committee show it has formally decided to stop using the shortlists for the first time since 1997. That year, when Tony Blair entered Downing Street, 101 female Labour candidates – dubbed ‘Blair’s babes’ – were elected using allwomen shortlists.

Women now account for 51 per cent of the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP). Under the Equality Act, all-women shortlists can only be used where females are underrepresented. The leaked documents state: ‘Legal advice suggests that now the PLP is majority women (in no small part because of the great success of all-women shortlists), it will not be possible to use positive action in favour of women for selections in the runup to the next general election.’

A Labour source said: ‘We don’t have any choice under the law as it stands.

‘We’ll fight tooth and nail to advance women’s rights, and if that means changing the law again, we will.’