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
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