The Passage of the Sex Discrimination (Election Candidates) Bill

Concepts of Representation and The Passage of The Sex Discrimination (Election Candidates) Bill Dr Sarah Childs First Draft for Journal of Legislative Studies Middlesex University White Hart Lane London N17 8HR 07950-933371 [email protected] Abstract The Sex Discrimination (Election Candidates) Bill was introduced to the Commons in October 2001, gaining Royal Assent in February 2002. The Bill followed the decrease in the numbers of women elected in the 2001 General Election. It permits political parties to introduce positive action in the selection of candidates. The Bill received cross party support and had an easy passage through both Houses of Parliament. This article examines the arguments employed by MPs and Peers in support of the legislation, informed by feminist concepts of representation. Arguments associated with the claim that women have a different political style received little support. There was greater discussion of arguments based on symbolic representation and substantive representation, although many MPs were reluctant to make the strong claim that women’s substantive representation is dependent upon women’s presence. However, the most widely supported argument in favour of the Bill was the justice argument, namely, that women are currently being denied equal opportunities in the parties’ selection processes. Introduction1 The 2001 General Election saw 118 (17.9%) women MPs returned to the House of Commons. This was the first time in over twenty years that the numbers of women MPs had decreased (Lovenduski 2001). Yet it was not unexpected. Unlike 1997 when the Labour Party had implemented all women shortlists (AWS), no political party adopted positive discrimination measures for 2001. This was due to an industrial tribunal ruling in 1996 that ruled that selection was subject to UK employment discrimination legislation and concerns about European and human rights legislation (Russell 2000, 2002). With the realization that fewer Labour women MPs would be returned at the 2001 General Election, facing internal and external pressure to act and with evidence that legislative change was possible (Russell 2000, 2001), the Labour Party included a commitment to new legislation in its 2001 manifesto (Labour 2001, 35). The Government introduced the Sex Discrimination (Election Candidates) Bill in the Commons on the 17 October 2001. It excludes ‘certain matters relating to the selection of candidates by political parties’ from the operation of the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 and the Sex Discrimination (Northern Ireland) Order 1976. The Bill introduces a new section 42A to the Sex Discrimination Act. This dis-applies the anti- discrimination rules in Parts 2 to 4 of the Act (including section 13) from arrangements which ‘a) regulate the selection by a political party registered under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 of candidates in an election for Parliament… and b) are adopted for the purpose of reducing the inequality in the numbers of men and women elected, as candidates of that party, to be members of the body concerned.’ The Bill’s remit includes elections for Westminster, the European Parliament, the Scottish Parliament and National Assembly of Wales and local government elections although not the election of the Mayor of London (House 1 I would like to thank Philip Cowley, Philip Norton and Mark Wickham-Jones for their assistance in the research for this article. 2 of Commons 2001a). The Bill has a ‘sunset clause’ (Clause 3) that causes ‘the provisions of the Bill to expire at the end of 2015’, unless a statutory instrument is passed to ensure its continuation.2 The issue of positive action for candidate selection had previously engendered both inter- and intra-party debate, and there had been expectations in Government that the Bill would meet stiff opposition in the Lords. Yet, a clear consensus was evident in both Houses of Parliament although this partly reflected the Bill’s permissive rather than prescriptive nature (Childs 2002b).3 At Second Reading in the Commons, both Conservative and Liberal Democrat front benches supported the Bill. Evan Harris, (Liberal Democrat Spokesperson for Health), recognized that his party had a ‘problem’ with the election of women to the House of Commons and acknowledged ‘that we bring that recognition to our support for the Bill’. Theresa May, (Shadow Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions), stated: ‘We support both the aim and the principle that underlie the legislation’. Women Members of both Houses spoke disproportionately in the debates with male Members (especially backbenchers) conspicuous by their absence (Childs 2002b). Only three MPs, all women, spoke against the Bill at Second Reading in the Commons - Ann Widdecombe, Virginia Bottomley (both Conservative) and Lady Sylvia Hermon (Ulster Unionist). The cross-party consensus eased the Bill swiftly through its legislative stages - there was no division in the Commons or in the Lords - though there was inter-party exchanges regarding AWS and the Government’s assertion that the Bill was compatible with EU Law on equal treatment, the European Convention on Human Rights and other international human rights law (Childs 2002b). The Sex Discrimination (Elections Candidates) Bill gained Royal Assent on 26 February 2002. 2 See Childs, for a more extensive discussion of the Bill. 3 There is some difficulty in discussing this Bill caused by the Government’s use of the term positive action for procedures, such as the ‘reservation of places for women’, that are normally considered positive discrimination (Lovenduski 1993, 8-11). 3 This paper analyzes MPs’ and Peers’ discussion of the Sex Discrimination (Elections Candidates) Bill, at Second and Third Reading in the Commons and Second Reading in the Lords. It identifies the arguments employed by Members of both Houses of Parliament in support of the Bill and analyzes them in light of feminist conceptions of representation. Concepts of Representation In arguing for the Bill, many MPs and Peers, from all parties, stated that women should be present in the House of Commons in greater, if not proportionate, numbers. Labour MPs argued, at Second Reading, that, ‘our democracy is deformed’, ‘a men’s democracy,’ (Fiona Mactaggart); that, ‘it is a nonsense to maintain that democracy is well served by a Parliament in which women make up only 18 per cent of the Members’ (Joan Ruddock); that there was a ‘democratic deficit’ (Ruddock and Lorna Fitzsimmons); that women’s presence was necessary to secure ‘balanced representation’ and a ‘healthy democracy’ (Stephen Hesford and Charlotte Atkins respectively). Such sentiments were also evident in the other main political parties. For the Liberal Democrats, Patsy Calton commented that women’s absence is ‘the supreme example of the failure on the part of a parliamentary democracy to achieve true representation of the people’ and from the Conservative backbenches Andrew Lansley asserted that the Members of the House ‘do not represent the society that we wish to serve’.4 Similar statements were also made in the Lords.5 4 Labour’s MacTaggart and Atkins agreed. These sentiments were reiterated in Third Reading by Nick Raynsford, Ruddock and Alan Whitehead (Labour), Tyler (Liberal Democrats) and Bottomley and Spelman (Conservative). 5 See contributions by Baronesses Jay, Gibson, Goudie, Morgan (Labour), Walmsley (Liberal Democrat), Seccombe (Conservative) and Howe (Cross bencher) and Lords Williams, Brooke (Labour) Dholakia and Rennard (Liberal Democrat). 4 Thus, in the Commons and the Lords and amongst Members of the different political parties, there was a shared view that women should be present in greater numbers in the House of Commons. Even the three women MPs who spoke against the Bill at Second Reading in the Commons supported this principle: Widdecombe declared that she had ‘always advocated greater numbers of women in Parliament’; Bottomley stated that she felt ‘strongly about the need for more women in Parliament; and Lady Hermon noted that there ‘is little doubt that women are grossly under-represented in political life in Northern Ireland. But assertions that women should be present in the Commons, do not, in themselves, explain why women should be present. While many of the speakers, either explicitly or implicitly, argued that women were currently ‘under-represented’ in Parliament they did so in ways that suggested that the meaning of women’s political representation was simple or uncontested and which left why women’s presence matters un-theorized.6 Feminist theorists have considered precisely this question of why women’s presence matters.7 The justice argument holds that women’s absence from elected political forums is evidence of a prima facie case of injustice that should be redressed. This straightforward and widely accepted argument does not hold that women representatives will have any differential impact upon politics. The second argument is that the presence of women is important for symbolic reasons. It demonstrates that women are equally capable of participating in politics and enhances the legitimacy of political institutions. As with the justice argument, it does not require that women representatives make a difference in any substantive sense, although they are often considered to have a ‘role model’ effect. The third argument for women’s political presence is that women have a different political style. 6 Lord Norton acknowledged that the concept of representation

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