Speaker’s conference on diversity in Parliament
12:06 pm - November 13th 2008
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To the House of Commons last night, to hear Harriett Harman speak to a motion launching a Speaker’s Conference to be held over the next year, and to make recommendations on how the House of Commons could better reflect the British population, particularly with regard to having more MPs who are women, from ethnic minorities and disabled.
The 1917-18 Speaker’s Conference finally generated cross-party agreement on votes for women: last night’s highly consensual debate saw all major parties speak of their shared commitment to the importance of more diverse House of Commons.
That may in part have reflected relatively sparse attendance on the Conservative benches: Shailesh Vara welcomed the Speaker’s Conference for the opposition frontbench supported by backbenchers, such as John Bercow, who had championed a more inclusive party long before it became fashionable, while the “political correctness gone mad” advocates stayed away.
There were warm cross-party tributes to Harman’s championing of diversity from Vara and Bercow and Simon Hughes and Jo Swinson for the LibDems, and for Keith Vaz and Diane Abbott, members of the breakthrough class of 1987 who argued for the need to speed up progress.
Vara said that if the Conservatives achieved a majority of one at the next election, the number of Tory women MPs would increase from 17 to 50 or 60. Fiona MacTaggart argued that this would hardly be cause for celebration as a share of over 320 MPs, contrasting that with the 65% of Labour’s class of 2005 who were women.
Perhaps the highlight was a short and well judged speech from Parmjit Dhanda, the MP for Gloucester, on Parliamentary culture and language., asking the House to recognise that saying “hanna” rather than “y’know” at the end of every sentence “comes from where people grow up and is part of what they are—it does not make them any less intelligent or less able to do a job in this House”.
Dhanda also said of his experience of first entering Parliament:
I remember coming through the Carriage Gates on my first day in the little two-seater red sports car that I had back then. I was 29-years-old, I had the windows down and the music quite loud, and I thought, “This is fantastic. I am a Member of Parliament now.” I walked into the Chamber—the House was not sitting at the time—and I was asked who I was and where I thought that I was going.
I took the little green and white badge out of my pocket, showed it and everything was okay.
I can clearly recall that what I really wanted to do was to quote Eddie Murphy in a film called “48 Hours”. I wanted to say, “I am your worst nightmare. I am a black man with a badge.” I paraphrase—that is not actually what he said.
The Speaker’s Conference will address the issue of disabled representation alongside gender and ethnicity, while Harman, Emily Thornberry and John Bercow all emphasised the importance of having more openly gay and lesbian MPs in the House.
Fiona MacTaggart was among those to emphasise that this was not simply an issue of fairness to individuals from under-represented groups – but a matter of better government. And Harman had noted that a House without any Asian women MPs at all would rightly feel ill equipped to debate issues such as controversy over the wearing of the veil.
It will be up to the Speaker’s Conference as to how far its remit to consider ‘associated matters’ should extend. Tony Wright, MP for Cannock Chase, made an effective plea for class to be part of the equation, especially for a “party was born in order to bring working-class people into political life” and for the broader issue of breaking up an exclusive “political class” to be part of the discussion too.
When we talk about under-representation, we have to talk about over-representation, too. We know that former public schoolboys are vastly over-represented in the House of Commons. I think that they are the majority element on the Conservative Benches. Is that primarily a statement about gender, or class? The truth is that it is a statement about both.
Also in the public gallery was Trevor Phillips, Chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission. There were probably rather more references to his controversial Times interview at the weekend than he might have wanted. But his elevation – by Shailesh Vara MP – to “Sir Trevor Phillips” was a slip of the tongue (which, at the time of writing, Hansard has let stand) which in part reflected Tory gratitude for Phillips’ support and positive comments about the leaderships’ attempts to change the culture of their own party.
The Speaker’s Conference will meet, in public, over the next year, and take outside evidence. It is an issue I will maintain an interest in, and I will report back as further details become available. and Liberal Conspirators might want to consider whether and how to contribute.
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Sunder Katwala is a regular contributor to Liberal Conspiracy. He is the director of British Future, a think-tank addressing identity and integration, migration and opportunity. He was formerly secretary-general of the Fabian Society.
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Reader comments
.Harperson is a niece of Elizabeth, Countess of Longford I would love to know how she feels she has been discriminated against. What a joke that woman is .We have had the pointless Blair babes and we have suffered a lobby fodder Parliament reduced to pantomime for too long .As long as every category but class is considered for leg ups you will increase the justifiable resentment many feel for those who get a free ride.
How many people that truly represent the Southern lower middleclass are there in Parliament .The estate agents, mortgage brokers and service people who are all facing unemployment with crushing debts for tiny houses they will lose .This after ten years of supposed boom has been flushed down the Public sector toilet . Yes lets have some proper representation but for fuck`s sake not a Benetton advert collection of skin pigmentarians gays and the rest what an aristocrat like Harman thinks are worthy of her patronage
I think there is a need for a wholesale constitutional change in British politics. London is way, way too powerful.
We should have regional assemblies with local representatives. This would redistribute political power to the regions and reduce the imperial overreach of Westminster. I also believe this would provide an environment for local business people, community workers, and politically minded subjects to get involved in a much higher profile way than council politics could possibly offer.
If areas have large ethnic populations, this will be reflected in the representatives they select. The local politicians will then have a better chance of getting national prominence as the media will have to spread itself beyond London.
I don’t like the idea of ethnic or woman-only short lists. America just elected a black politician without such provision, and Thatcher rose to the top without it too.
Sounds good, thanks for the report Sunder.
I don’t like the idea of ethnic or woman-only short lists.
Aaron, I doubt there will be an or in between those. From what I hear, there will be a ‘diverse’ shortlists with women and minorities in them. Not happy about that either, admittedly.
America just elected a black politician without such provision
Aha! Not exactly. Chicago itself is very steeped in black power politics… which Obama negotiated through and partly took advantage of. But in terms of getting to the top once he was inside, you’re right.
Well you know the golden rule in Chicago on election day: vote early, vote often.
I’m male, white and attended a private school – yet I disagree with the majority of policies from all major (and minor) parties. Does that make me under-represented? Perhaps Harman should notice that your physical characteristics don’t always create your views or policies.
I think I’m supporting Tony Wright’s position to say that the important issue is not a “more diverse HoC”, but a more representative HoC.
The current lack of diversity and under-representation of various portions of society is what prevents the HoC from being fully representative in its current composition.
I would however say that Parliament IS representative of the relative distribution of power in this country, so, really, instead of complaining that the results of the current distribution of power is unfairly unrepresentative we should be looking at ways in which access to power is distributed more equitably.
Theyworkforyou is a bit easier on the eye.
Well, the answer is obvious, innit?
Open primaries. Most of the problem arises from selectorates second-guessing what they think voters want. Mind you, on the only occasion I was part of one, it never occurred to me afterwards that because we’d chosen the black woman on the list to carry the Party banner (sucessfully, it was a safe seat) that white voters would feel less represented than they had been.
I would also add that at the last census a million Brits were age 85 or over, but I somehow doubt that there’ll much traction for diversity to extend to them. I don’t know what proportion of MPs attended Russell Group universities (if it was over 80% I wouldn’t be at all surprised) but no one sees this as a problem – or do they?
Just seen this:
http://nds.coi.gov.uk/Content/Detail.asp?ReleaseID=384075&NewsAreaID=2
The decline in manufacturing and heavy industry did much to reduce the power of the regions. The return of successful people, who could represent the regions and did not want perks offered by the whips woud reduce the power of S England. The problem is that too many MPs have beer budgets but champagne tastes and look upon politics as a career. If mps were financialy independent and considered it an honour to represent their constituents, they would be indifferent to the whips blandishments and could hold the executive to account. Having more homosexual, women,ethnic minority, religious minority and handicapped mps who have no experience outside of politics and are completely controlled by the whips will not improve the situation.
We are fighting two wars yet how many mps have combat experience? Our economy is in dire straights yet how many mps have set up and run companies?
Logically there is justification to promote diversity and to combat discrimination for every parameter that makes humans different from each other, the number of which infinite. Research has shown, for instance, that good-looking people have much better life chances, get better jobs, end up with more money, are more successful in getting sex and partners, than ugly people and so on. Are ugly people properly represented in parliament. Likewise you could make a case for short people, men with beards (unpopular in business circles), women with facial hair, spottiness and so on. It is an open-ended list. Why, therefore, concentrate on this one parameter, race? Simply because race has been built up into a totemic obsession for a certain section of the population, and for a large subset of them, it is their living. Look at all the diversity managers in the NHS, soaking up money that could go to nurses. Note the gloating MP for Gloucester, crowing that he has got one over on whitey. Can he be relied upon to serve his pink-skinned constituents as well as he serves his brown-skinned constituents? I hope this little episode was in the Gloucester local press. I agree with Aaron Heath. We need to devolve power away from the remote and unrepresentatuve south-east of the country.
The people do not want regional assemblies and they do not want additional layers of government. Engagement with political processes would be improved by making more powers more local.
The answer is simple: Elections by the single transferable vote in multi-member constituencies (PT/STV). This will automatically and organically produce a representative assembly without any need for primaries, ethnic short-lists, women-only shortlists or any other artificial, anti-democratic devices.
With PR/STV, you will get gays, blacks, asians, women, the disabled, or any other group you can think of, elected in the right proportions, to the extent that electors themselves wish, at any given time, to be governed by those criteria. On the other hand, it does not force them to elect such representatives if they do not want them. If the parties fail to put up enough such people, they can stand as independents and still get elected where there is any significant demand for such representation.
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Sunder Katwala
@Michael_Merrick yes, I agree on class point see http://bit.ly/bgFXGn and at end of this http://bit.ly/p059W
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