Tory candidate selection ‘still favours men’
The Conservative party has come under fire from women’s campaign group the Fawcett Society for failing to represent female Tories – despite the implementation of last year’s “priority list”.
The “A list” scheme, the brainchild of Tory leader David Cameron, provided Conservatives with a list of candidates of whom just over half were women and ten per cent were from ethnic minority communities.
But the Fawcett Society has said that nearly half of local associations ignored the list, preferring local candidates, and women remain under-represented within the party.
Before last night’s selection of the 21st candidate since David Cameron became Tory leader, only 30 per cent of those selected – six out of 20 – were women.
Mr Cameron, who is expected to comment on new plans to increase diversity this week, said recently he was pleased with the improvements.
“I’d like us to do better and I’ll be looking carefully to see how the selections go and I always said, that you know, in the middle or end of August when the first trawls of selections have gone through I’ll have another look and see how the system is working,” he told Radio Five Live.
He concluded: “But we are making progress. We’re selecting some really good candidates, men and women, and as I say also people from black and white ethnic communities because I think it’s important, not that we reflect necessarily 100 per cent accurately every part of Britain but if we want to be a party that governs for all of Britain, we’ve got to reflect Britain in its diversity.”
The Fawcett Society found that in the last general election only 12 per cent of candidates in the Tories’ 50 most winnable seats were women – compared with 42 per cent in its least winnable seats.
It said that although things had improved since then, the Tories must harden their approach and ensure the A list is enforced.
Director Katherine Rake said: “David Cameron was bold in setting out his vision for a more inclusive and representative party. If selections of women continue at this rate he will fail to deliver.
“It is essential that he takes action now to show his is a modern party that can represent women’s interests today.”
Ms Rake told politics.co.uk she was concerned by the failure of local parties to use the A list, adding: “I suppose what’s not being done strongly enough is insisting that local parties use the list. Where it’s used we are getting 50-50 representation, but where it’s being bypassed people are reverting to type.
“I think they need to think carefully about how to enforce this and they need to make sure constituency parties use it.”
She recommends that the Tories “send out strong signals” to enforce the priority system. If this fails, the society suggests that a list just for women may be necessary to ensure equal representation.
The six women selected were Michelle Wiseman, Anna Soubury, Harriet Baldwin, Karen Bradley, Andrea Leadsom and Pauline Latham and were joined by two ethnic minority candidates.
