Parliamentary Representation

Margot James Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Margot James (Stourbridge) (Con)]

Mr Speaker, I congratulate the hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg) on securing this debate and on keeping the pressure up to make sure that the Speaker’s Conference proposals, which were made before many of us entered the House, live and carry on delivering the successful outcomes that they have started to deliver. I agree with much of what has already been said; we are here because we all care about our democracy and know how fundamental it is that all Britons, regardless of their ethnic origin, gender, sexual orientation, where they come from or social background, should not be barred from playing a full part in our parliamentary democracy. So this debate involves the issue of fairness, as well as the effectiveness of our legislative process. As I found in business, things are much more effective where a diverse group of individuals, with a variety of backgrounds and experiences behind them, come together to have an impact on the process. Later in my contribution I will give a few examples of small ways in which that has been achieved by our greater diversity.

A more representative Chamber will also help us to reduce the gap, which we have all seen grow in our lifetimes, between the public and their elected representatives. There are many reasons why we are all here, and the whole process starts at a young age by inspiring in people an interest in politics. Although we have improved the routes into politics, one conventional route is still for young people to come here to work as interns or special advisers or for one of the main parties’ research functions. We have to capture those young people and make sure they are more representative of society at large, as that is a natural pool of entry into politics.

We also need to consider the people who come into Parliament later in their careers, having done something else first. The public always say that they want to see more of that, and I believe everyone in this House agrees with that. There needs to be a career within Parliament that embraces the experience that these people have had in other fields and does not just focus narrowly on the more political experience, and the performance in the Chamber and at the big set-piece events, as the only perceived way of getting on in Government or shadow Government.

There are many barriers to overcome, and I have touched on a few. The hon. Lady gave a strong mention to the economic barrier, which puts a great many people off. It is why we have so few people from lower-paid or manual occupations. Indeed, there are also issues to address in respect of people at the higher end of the pay spectrum, who might feel that they cannot afford to go into Parliament. This is a big issue with numerous aspects.

The impact on family life has to be tackled better than it has been, and some of the regulations imposed by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority have moved the situation backwards. That has to be tackled head on; we must not be embarrassed or nervous about dealing with the problem faced by those who represent constituencies many miles away and who want their family with them during the working week. They should not be disincentivised by an anti-family system of allowances. That system has to be changed.

[Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the partners, wives and husbands of MPs have changed their view of the role of an MP? An MP, like everybody else in our society, needs to do a range of things both for their family and for their work, and that social change in expectations on child care and other things is a driver in some of the things to which she has referred.

[Margot James]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. He makes a good point about how society and family life are changing, and how Parliament has to keep up with that. I quite agree.

[Dame Angela Watkinson (Hornchurch and Upminster) (Con)]

Following on from that, does my hon. Friend agree that the decision to become an MP is a much greater one for a woman than it is for a man, particularly if she is of child-bearing age, because there are big decisions to make about when to have children? I am absolutely full of admiration for female colleagues in this House who have had babies while they have been working, but there are decisions to be made about who looks after the child, possibly decisions that men do not have to make. That is one of the reasons why women are under-represented in this Chamber.

[Margot James]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention; she makes an important point. I know that she does not mean to imply that the aspects of family life and child-rearing that she mentioned apply only to women; increasingly, young fathers are also involved in making such decisions.

It is difficult to combine a parliamentary career with caring responsibilities. While my parents were alive—they lived close to me in London—I would have found it possible to represent a London constituency but impossible to represent a constituency outside of London and many miles away from them.

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. We need to tackle this issue, and the system of allowances and parliamentary hours, about which much progress has been made, needs to reflect the difficult decisions that people make. She is quite right, of course; I believe that there is only one mother in the Cabinet, and perhaps that has something to do with the point she made.

I will talk a little about some of the measures that have been taken and that have worked to various degrees. Clearly, the all-women shortlists that the Labour party introduced in 1997 have had a positive effect on the representation of women in Parliament, and I am sure that they have had much to do with why 33% of Labour MPs are women. Positive discrimination, if I can put it that way, has also benefited Conservative representation, perhaps not so much in this place as in Europe, where we have two or three very good MEPs who were elected at the last European elections because we were brave enough to say that in the primary system of election, whereby we were electing candidates, the highest placed woman went to the top of the list.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend accept that, although we of course want to have as many women as possible in Parliament—not least because they are as gracious as she is—it is still a fundamental Conservative principle that Conservative associations must preserve full independence to select the best people, whatever their sex?

[Margot James]

A system that does not recognise that some groups in society face greater barriers than others does not do Parliament a service, and I do not think that we can just leave things to what, in some parts of our country, are fairly small groups of people. If they are in a Conservative area where there is a large majority and effectively choosing the MP, I do not think that they can expect to have untrammelled choice, when we are acknowledging in this debate that many groups—including women and ethnic minorities, and especially people with disabilities—have particular issues they need to overcome. That needs to be built into a system in order for it to be genuinely meritocratic, and I thank my hon. Friend for his kind remarks.

[Mr Brooks Newmark (Braintree) (Con)]

I could make the quip that for more than 200 years we seemed to have all-male shortlists and nobody seemed to object to that. Does my hon. Friend agree that, when we make international comparisons, we see that where there is higher representation of women in international Parliaments there is some form of positive discrimination?

[Margot James]

I agree with that point and I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. In most Parliaments where there is a decent level of female representation there is at least positive action.

Our party has succeeded to some degree with the positive action that we have taken. I was on the A-list, as it was known, before the last election, along with many of my hon. Friends. That system enabled a big increase in the number of Conservative women that we now have in the Chamber. As many Members will know, it was a system whereby half of the list of candidates from which an association could select were female. We went through a few other developments on that theme, and later in the cycle of selections there was a system whereby associations had to have gender parity at each stage of the selection process. I commend that process for enabling men to have a proper and fair chance while ensuring that women were supported in overcoming some of the more extensive barriers that they face.

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

I will just take my hon. Friend back to the point of selection. Is it not also the case that the selection processes of all parties, but especially our party, do not only favour men but men of a particular social and professional background? That has been one of the biggest issues in expanding representation. This debate is about not only gender, but social class, and frankly our associations all too often—not in the case of my constituency, I am pleased to say—represent a particular social class.

[Margot James]

My hon. Friend makes the very good point that, of course, this debate is about more than gender; I could not agree more. In my area, the black country, I do not feel that Conservatives have any sort of class bias in favour of people from higher socio-economic backgrounds, but I can see that in some parts of the country that bias might exist and we must certainly stamp it out.

Gender is an area where it has been easier to improve the selection processes, but we must work equally hard on improving the access to Parliament for other disadvantaged groups. We can do that by fostering a sense of inclusion—a sense that Parliament is an inclusive place—and by our parties respecting that when they select candidates.

The Speaker’s parliamentary placement scheme has delivered a good start in equalising the number of women and men who come into Parliament at a young age to work. Almost 50% of the paid internships supported by the scheme have been for young women, which is a good thing. The hon. Member for Aberdeen South mentioned the access to elected office for disabled people fund. There have been 60 applicants to that fund and 29 people with disabilities, who probably face greater hurdles than anybody else in entering Parliament, now have full funding, which is great progress. I thank you, Mr Speaker, for your support for all that work, which I hope will continue.

I will say a little bit about the sort of changes that we can make when we get here. The number of lesbian and gay people on our Benches now makes quite a big difference. Ministers across all Departments are very busy people. I am glad to say that all the Ministers I know are fully committed to diversity and equality, but the issue is not always at the top of their mind—they have very busy lives and many responsibilities—so it is up to Back Benchers. I applaud many of my fellow gay Back Benchers on keeping the Government to their promises. There has been the legalisation on gay marriage; the removal of historical convictions for consensual sex between men; the pardoning of Alan Turing; and support for anti-homophobic bullying campaigns in school. There are many other examples, too. It is because we have more diversity that we can make that sort of difference, and that is why we need more of it.

I want to talk about what we can learn from business. In business, we have seen some success in the “Women on Boards” programme, which has very much been led by the Government and the Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equalities, my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant). Now, 25% of non-executive directors on boards are female; that is up from 16%. I can see business outstripping politics if we are not careful. Of course, I hope that business wins the battle to get more diversity and inclusion. It realises that it will not win corporate battles by relying on the talent pool that used to win in the past, and that areas of great shortage, such as engineering, need to attract more women. Some 75% of an organisation’s customers and employees will not be white men, so its decision makers should not be, either.

There are many ways to lead. Lloyds Banking Group has set a target: it wants women to be 40% of its senior executives in five years’ time. Procter & Gamble has a big programme on developing women leaders globally. Thomson Reuters has a female management academy. Those organisations recognise that women need support and training, and a champion at board level to enable them to fulfil their potential. I see an opportunity there for politics in Westminster. I think that we are all aware that HR at Westminster is perhaps a little antediluvian, compared with HR in industry. We need to learn lessons from these organisations, which do not just set targets, but have committed people dedicated to making those targets a reality. On those programmes, women are identified and put into positions that are known as feeder jobs, in which people can acquire critical skills that they will require at board level. What I am saying is that it is not enough to get greater diversity in Parliament; we then need career progression, which needs to be managed and led from the top. There is a great opportunity there, and I urge that point on Members on both Front Benches.

[Julian Smith]

From my experience of head-hunting in business, I would say that the key element in getting more women into the positions that we are talking about is incentivising men to look at a much broader longlist of candidates. That is vital in achieving what she wants.

[Margot James]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. More broadly, many men, both in politics and the corporate world, now see the benefits of having a more inclusive environment. It is crucial that the head-hunting industry plays its part in supplying the longlists that he mentions. There is a lot to learn from business.

There is also outreach: we have to reach out. I hear from contacts in universities and the workplace that the Labour party is very good at that. We Conservative Members need to follow its example of going after people from a diverse range of backgrounds when they are at university or in leadership roles in business, inviting them in, and suggesting a parliamentary career to them. Hopefully, more will be Conservative than the opposite.

[Dame Angela Watkinson]

rose—

[Margot James]

Does my hon. Friend wish to intervene?

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Member for Hornchurch and Upminster (Dame Angela Watkinson) need not be unduly shy; she would be breaking the habit of a lifetime.

[Dame Angela Watkinson]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I want to follow up the point about going to universities and enthusing people at that stage. That needs to start even earlier. I have been shocked to find in schools that pupils do not ever read a newspaper or watch news bulletins on television. I encourage them to do so. They think politics and public life are nothing to do with them. Interest in general matters needs to start much earlier.

[Margot James]

I absolutely agree. All of us have a duty in that regard. We all enjoy going to schools and talking about politics, and ensuring that there are school visits to this place; all that is very important. Politics A-level should be an option in all sixth-form colleges and all schools, because that can inspire people. If young people do not watch the news on television, perhaps they are getting their information from blogs, or in other ways, but they must be encouraged, by us and by others, to engage politically; I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend on that.

We all want a much more inclusive political process. I hope that I have been able to set out a few ideas about how parties, the Government and Parliament itself can help us to achieve that goal so that we do not go backwards, as the hon. Member for Aberdeen South realistically warned that we might, but instead go forward as a Parliament that is far more inclusive than it has been to date.