Women's Representation in Scotland and Wales

The Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly Women’s Representation in Scotland and Wales 5 May 2011 Report and Analysis cfwd Contents 2 Introduction 6 Women’s Representation and Wales 12 Women in the Scottish Parliament Women’s Representation 2 in Scotland and Wales Introduction Once upon a time, British democracy assumed encourage them to stand and to be elected. that there was a clear difference between However, we need to begin, perhaps, with an being able to vote and being eligible to be understanding of where we are now. elected. Whole groups and classes of people were excluded from the franchise, but not from Parliament, and many would have agreed with Putting it into Colonel Reginald Applin, MP for Enfield, who observed in 1928, ‘It (the vote) is not a right Perspective for any individual. The individual who is not capable or fit ought not to have the vote. I have Let us look at both Britain as a whole, and been deprived of a vote all my life because I Scotland and Wales in their own right. am a soldier. I have never complained. …. I have never in my life voted for a Member of The UK likes to think of itself as being at the Parliament.’1 forefront of democracy, and in some ways it is, but it also lags behind many comparable This situation, which existed until 1929, countries when it comes to electing women. seems almost inconceivable to the modern Of the major western European nations democratic mind, which accepts universal only Italy, France and Ireland have a lower suffrage as the default position and would percentage of women in their national not consent to be governed by those who parliaments than the UK. Sweden, Iceland, could not vote.2 Yet the fears of people like Finland, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, Colonel Applin – that once large numbers of Spain and Germany are all in the top twenty women and working class men had the vote worldwide, with Andorra on 54%, – second they would replace people like him – have only to Rwanda in the international league only partially turned out to be true. Neither in table3. If the Welsh Assembly (40% female) gender nor class (nor, indeed, ethnicity) do our and Scottish Parliament (35% female) were democratic institutions reflect those who elect to be included, they would rank eighth them. and eighteenth respectively. At 22%, the Westminster parliament currently languishes In the case of women, this is particularly in 55th place. In this context, Cardiff and pertinent. Women constitute 51% of the Holyrood don’t seem to be doing too badly. 1. Hansard, 29 March 1928 during world’s population, yet they are in a minority in the debate on the Representation of every legislature except Rwanda and Andorra. Whatever the problems of recent years, the People (Equal Representation) Bill, Politics seems everywhere to have remained both the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish quoted in A Great Act of Justice: The an overwhelmingly male occupation, with Parliament have levels of women members Flapper Election and After, CFWD 2009. women required either to adapt to it or stay out to which Westminster and Stormont can (something about heat and kitchens is often only aspire in the distant future. In Wales the 2. Except, of course, for a few dozen quoted). Liberal Democrats are led by a woman (Kirsty hereditary peers in the current House of Williams, who held her seat in the general Lords. This report is about women in the 2011 rout of her party in 2011), and in Scotland 3. Figures from Scottish and Welsh elections, and like both Labour and the Conservatives have had the International Parliamentary Union almost every work of this nature it includes recent women leaders (Wendy Alexander and website, accessed 21 June 2011 http:// justifications of why it is important to have Annabel Goldie respectively). At the time of www.ipu.org/wmn-e/ classif.htm women in politics, and what can be done to writing, two of the eight Cabinet Secretaries Introduction Women’s Representation in Scotland and Wales 3 appointed by the Scottish First Minister are possible for their evolved progenitor on the women, as are three of the seven appointed Thames. In Scotland this followed a sustained by the Welsh First Minister. The picture may campaign by women’s groups, and although not be one of parity, but it compares well with it ultimately proved legally impossible to do, the UK as a whole, and, given that there was there was even an attempt to enshrine 50:50 actually a small increase in women in Scotland representation in law. In Wales, women were and only a relatively small decrease in Wales, less organised, but still managed to secure some may feel we are nitpicky in our concern. real concessions. Inside and outside both countries, therefore, it has been reasonable to We would disagree. In part, it’s a matter of assume that gender equality would remain a expectation. In 2003 Wales achieved the priority, and the success achieved in Wales in enviable distinction of becoming the first 2003, in particular, fed this assumption. national elected assembly in which half of the members were women, and in the same Yet 1999 also represents missed elections 40% of successful candidates for opportunities. The failure to resolve the legal the Scottish Parliament were women. In both problems and include a legislated commitment cases, the percentage of women members for both bodies meant that delivering the was more than double that of the Westminster election of women was effectively left to Parliament, which then stood at 18%. There market forces. Across the UK, responsibility was a feeling that, in both countries, some for achieving genuinely representative kind of Rubicon had been crossed, and democracy has been sloughed off onto the that they now had something to tell England shoulders of political parties. These are all (and Northern Ireland) about how to make voluntary organisations with varying levels of democracy more representative. commitment to gender equality, and they have to function at the mercy of varying electoral It came as a bit of a disappointment, therefore, fortunes. In Scotland and Wales the use of to find that in both countries there was proportional representation (PR) for those subsequently a distinct falling away from the elections has enabled the parties to be more 2003 high. Yet we should not be surprised proactive than they feel able to be elsewhere – the achievements of both were always under First Past the Post (FPTP), but electoral dependent on factors other than the collective systems are not in themselves sufficient to political will, and in some cases assumptions ensure diversity. were made that have since turned out to be frail, to say the least. The results of this approach have been patchy. In both countries, as at Westminster, high levels of women members are both Seizing the Day created and sustained by the actions of one or two parties rather than the body politic When the devolved institutions were set up as a whole. In Wales both Labour and Plaid in 1999, they had a unique opportunity to Cymru use some form of positive action, and start from scratch and to think in advance although both rowed back a little for the most about what kind of legislature they wanted. recent set of elections, between them they As a result, both made formal commitments still contribute the bulk – 19 out of 24 – of the to gender equality that had never been women elected, with 50% of members of the Introduction Women’s Representation 4 in Scotland and Wales Labour group in the Assembly being women. in Scotland – that women would be able to change the political culture, to ‘feminise’ what In Scotland, the position is more stark. Forty- had hitherto been a very male activity. It was nine per cent of the Labour group of MSPs is generally (if perhaps mistakenly) believed female, but only 28% of the SNP’s majority that gaining a critical mass of thirty per group, and although women constitute 40% of cent women in any legislature would enable Conservative MSPs, their actual numbers are cultural change to take place. Moreover, both very small, there being only six of them. bodies made conscious attempts to organise themselves along different lines to those at Detailed analyses of the 2011 results are Westminster and to put equalities issues much contained in separate sections of this report, closer to the hearts of their governments. but even on the most superficial assessment of the results it is evident that any change This certainly made for wider discussion of in policy on the part of a small number of some of the issues seen as being of special political parties will result in a collapse in the interest to women, but whether it caused number of women legislators in one or both an irreversible cultural change is a matter for devolved bodies. Thus, although the high debate. In Scotland there is a strong view levels of women in both Wales and Scotland that in recent years a ‘Westminsterisation’ are certainly an achievement, they are an of Edinburgh politics has meant that ‘the old achievement for individual organisations, not adversarial and party-bound style of politics for politics as a whole. (has) reasserted itself with a vengeance … not least through the traditional “yah-boo” This situation leads in turn to pressures on politics of First Minister’s Questions, and sustainability, which has contributed to the through fierce party whipping’4. In Wales, a recent decline. strong attempt to frame the Assembly on a ‘consensual’ model collapsed when faced with the pressure of day-to-day politics.

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