Getting more women into Parliament has long been the aim of the Conservative Women’s Organisation (CWO) and this is something that we have campaigned for long and hard.
We are absolutely delighted that David Cameron has made such a commitment to ensuring the Conservative party is more representative of modern Britain by getting more women selected in winnable seats. The Conservative Women’s Organisation is firmly behind him on this.
In the 1930s there were 13 Conservative women MPs this is the same as the number elected in 1997. Today we have 17 women MPs, which is 9% of the Conservative Parliamentary Party. This is clearly not good enough considering that women are 51% of the electorate.
We in the CWO are able to help women wanting to get selected in a number of ways - by being able to give them encouragement, mentoring and by helping to introduce them to women in the constituencies where they want to apply.
The good news is that the changes in the selection procedures combined with the Priority list is delivering! At the end of October 2006 of the selections up to that point, more than 30% were women – a huge improvement.
We understand that some men have been concerned about the priority list; to them we would say that there are still nearly twice as many men being selected as women. For years women have suffered from indirect discrimination and now is the chance for the Conservative Party to move into the 21st century by having more women sitting on the green leather benches!
Fiona Hodgson
See Also: Becoming an MP