A REVIEW OF REPRESENTATION FOR WOMEN, ETHNIC MINORITIES AND DISABLED PEOPLE IN PARLIAMENT

  I was delighted to hear that the Conference is being called and felt I might advocate a few thoughts on equality for the Conference and yourselves to consider.

  It seems to me that the House of Commons and indeed the House of Lords, are in fact, national representation of each British family's home and on the basis that each home has equality in the form of two parents (a man and a woman) a similar fifty-fifty approach might be adopted in both Houses of Parliament.

This concept or fifty-fifty policy is explained in more detail in the following points:

1.  Equality in the House of Commons: fifty-fifty policy

  It would appear that there are at the moment 646 places in the House of Commons. If they were paired into 323 double constituencies with two seats to each new double seat, there could then be a male and female seat to each double constituency.

  This would result in 323 male and 323 female MPs a total of 646 Members of Parliament and equality achieved.

  Each voter would have two votes, one for a male and one for a female candidate.

  Ideally, I would advocate, reducing the number of double constituencies to 300, having a round figure of 600 MPs to represent the 60,000,000 in Britain ie 300 women and 300 men for approximately 30,000,000 men and 30,000,000 women.

2.  Equality in the House of Barons and Baronesses: fifty-fifty policy

  Whilst reviewing equality in the House of Commons I would advocate that the House of Lords should be renamed the House of Barons and Baronesses (the renaming would remove the confusion of hereditary Lords and the issue of being Lorded over, in both a political and religious manner). It was after all the Barons who in 1215 instigated Magna Carta.

  A total of 300 seats could be maintained on a fifty-fifty basis of 150 Barons and 150 Baronesses.

It is my opinion that the public do not wish to have another layer of voting thrust upon them and so I would therefore advocate a method of selection by an approved cross party group of MPs (we trust MPs to govern the Country so why not trust them to select the upper house representatives).

  Selection could be for a five-year period with an option to renew for another five years with a maximum of ten years.

  Half the members 150 (75 men and 75 women) could be selected from the area covered by the 300 double constituencies in the Commons ie an area Baron or Baroness to every two double constituencies. The other 150 Barons and Baronesses would be selected from all walks of life for their particular expertise ie commerce, military, science, arts, sport, law, industry, politics etc.

3.  Equality for the Disabled and Ethnic Minorities

  The selection policy advocated for the House of Barons should enable an appropriate representation of disabled and ethnic minorities and in the House of Commons political parties should ensure that in the fifty-fifty policy, appropriate percentages are selected for election.

  It is my hope that the outcome of the Speaker's Conference, will be a fifty-fifty equality policy that all political parties can advocate before the next election and that it might then be fully implemented in the following election.