Draft House of Lords Reform Bill - Draft House of Lords Reform Bill Joint Committee Contents



Fawcett Society

About Fawcett

The Fawcett Society is the UK's leading campaign for gender equality. Our vision is of a society where women, and our rights and freedoms, are equally valued and respected and where we have equal power and influence in shaping our own lives and our wider world.

  • Raise awareness and change attitudes and beliefs
  • Influence changes to legislation and policy
  • Promote and support better practice
  • Increase women's power and influence in decision making

For more information on Fawcett and our work visit www.fawcettsociety.org.uk

The Fawcett Society endorses the Counting Women In submission to the House of Lords Reform Joint Select Committee as well as those submissions put forward by the Centre for Women and Democracy, the Hansard Society, the Electoral Reform Society and Unlock Democracy.

Why Women?

Apart from issues around social justice and democratic legitimacy, the most compelling argument for ensuring that women are present in numbers in any legislature is that they change the nature of the debate so that it takes the whole of the population into account in different ways. In particular:

a)  There is a growing body of evidence, largely drawn from business, that women make a positive difference to the quality of decision-making. For instance, in a recent report[10] Deloitte found that 'In Europe, of 89 publicly traded companies with a market capitalization of over 150 million pounds, those with more women in senior management and on the board had, on average, more than 10 percent higher return on equity than those companies with the least percentage of women in leadership', and came to the conclusion that 'In reality, the question is not women or men, it's how to ensure women and men are working together in decision-making roles'.

b)  The same argument pertains equally to the world of politics.

c)  Research carried out by the Hansard Society[11] found that, despite the difficulties women face in institutional politics, they can and do bring issues to the table which may not otherwise be debated, or which might otherwise be considered to be of less significance. They thus have the effect of making the legislature more relevant to the whole population, both men and women.

d)  Frequently quoted examples of this are work/life balance issues and childcare, which in the early nineties were generally considered to be exclusively 'women's issues' but are now accepted as being relevant to both sexes.

e)  There are also other considerations. Women and girls benefit enormously from the education system, and go on to develop skills and expertise based upon that and their life experience. If they are largely excluded from national (and local) politics these skills are being under-used for the public's benefit. Whilst it is true that in many respects the life experiences of men and women are the same, in some they are not, and to be truly effective the country's democratic institutions needs to take account of what the full range of people involved in them can offer.

Opportunities for increasing women's representation within the Lords

The House of Lords Reform Bill provides an opportunity to bring about a step change in women's political representation and address the democratic deficit of the current gender imbalance in the House of Lords.

The UK is now trailing in international league tables on women's access to positions of political power. At present just 22% of the Lords are women. A new, reformed Chamber must be representative of the population as a whole and be equally informed by the experiences and expertise of women and men. Government also has a legal duty to assess how measures for reform could promote equality between men and women and tackle discrimination. As we move towards reform of the Lords, the representation of women must be at the heart of the agenda.

If reform of membership of the House of Lords is implemented there are several options which could be adopted to ensure it is more representative in future.

Proportional Representation (PR) systems provide a fairer system of electoral representation, with political parties receiving seats in proportion to their electoral strength. Academic research classifies PR as a facilitator rather than a guarantor of better female representation[12], as no voting system in and of itself can guarantee gender parity in political life. While PR as a system has greater potential than other voting systems to improve women's representation and diversity, this can only be guaranteed in conjunction with additional positive action measures.

Where progress has been made in delivering more women into positions of power—both in the UK and internationally—the driver for this has been the implementation of positive actions measures, such as quotas, All-Women-shortlists, zipping or twinning shortlists such that women and men are equally represented, or reserved seats for women in appointment-only systems.

Positive action measures need not be implemented on a permanent basis. Instead they can be time-limited and regularly re-evaluated to gauge their utility and necessity. Given the longstanding dominance of men within politics, positive action measures can provide a boost to the change already in process. Positive action measures could be built into the legislation in different ways depending on the reform model that is finally adopted.

In relation to the elected element of a reformed Upper House, positive action measures should be integrated into the electoral system, requiring parties to proactively cast their net wider to ensure the selection of equal numbers of women and men.

In the event that a proportion of peers are appointed rather than elected, the Appointment Commission should be statutorily required to ensure the appointment of equal numbers of women and men.

Many countries across the world use some form of quota arrangement to ensure the representation of women[1][13]. This includes the UK, in which the use of quotas by political parties is both legal and voluntary, which means that they are used by some and not others.

Many countries writing new constitutions or electoral laws include some form of quota requirements in them. Electoral quotas build the requirement for gender parity into electoral law and 47 countries worldwide use this mechanism, including Belgium (39% women), Portugal (27%) and Spain (37%). This provision works well where it is clear and enforced, and where the rules governing the implementation do not weaken the initial intention.

The reform of the House of Lords offers an unrivalled opportunity to ensure that gender equality and democratic legitimacy is at the heart of reform. Fawcett recommends that the final issue of legislation stipulates a minimum threshold for the number of men and women that should be represented in the Upper Chamber. For example, the legislation may wish to state that no one sex should constitute less than 30% of the Upper Chamber.

Selection Mechanisms

If proportional representation is to be used for elections to the new Second Chamber, political parties will find it much easier to select more women candidates. This is demonstrated not only by a comparison of the 2010 general election figures with those for the 2009 European elections (see table below) but by the results for all parties in the Scottish and Welsh devolved elections where 40% and 35% of the Assembly and Parliament respectively are female.
Party % Candidates Women 2009 % Candidates Women 2010
Conservative 32% 24%
Green 42% 33%
Labour 49% 30%
Liberal Democrat 26% 21%
Totals 31% 21%

There are a number of mechanisms open to political parties to use in list systems, but the most common are zipping (where men and women appear alternately on lists) and some form of quota (e.g., in Spain 40% of each party's candidates have to be men, and 40% women, but there is no stipulation regarding the order on the list, which is left to individual parties to resolve[14]).

In the end, increases in the numbers of women MPs can be achieved using most systems; what matters is the will of the political parties and the democratic institutions with which and within which they are working to create and drive change. Political parties have different traditions, structures and cultures, and need to be able to make their own arrangements for selection procedures, but if real improvements are to be achieved they need to be working with electoral systems that favour diversity as well as making the decisions necessary to ensure that they represent and reflect the communities they serve.

Principles for Reform and Policy Recommendations:

Fawcett recommends that:

  • Reform of the House of Lords offers a once in a generation opportunity to increase the presence and voice of women in the Upper House;
  • A PR model has greater potential than other voting systems to improve women's representation and diversity, but this can only be guaranteed in conjunction with additional positive action measures;
  • The legislation should require the political parties to ensure the selection of equal numbers of women and men as candidates for election to the new Upper House;
  • The final issue of the Bill includes a threshold stipulating that no sex should constitute less than 30% of the Upper Chamber.
  • The Appointment Commission should be statutorily required to appoint equal numbers of women and men as peers in a reformed, hybrid House of Lords;
  • Consideration should be given to the effect that the right of ministerial appointment and the allocation of 12 ex officio seats for Church of England Bishops—currently reserved seats for men—will have on equality and diversity of representation in a reformed Chamber.

12 October 2011


10   The Gender Dividend: making the business case for investing in women' Pellegrino, d'Amato & Weissman, for Deloitte, 2011 Back

11   Women at the Top: Changing Numbers, Changing Politics? Childs, Lovenduski, Campbell, for the Hansard Society 2005 Back

12   Childs, 2008 as quoted in Evans, E & Harrison, L. Candidate Selection in British Second Order Elections: A Comparison of Electoral System and Party Strategy Effects, 2011. Back

[ 13  1] See http://www.quotaproject.org/index.cfm, a website maintained by the International Parliamentary Union, the Institute for Democracy & Electoral Assistance, and the University of Stockholm.  Back

14   With 37% women parliamentarians Spain are currently 14th in the global league table. The top three are Rwanda (56%), Andorra (54%) and Sweden (45%). The UK is 48th.  Back


 
previous page contents next page


© Parliamentary copyright 2012
Prepared 23 April 2012