Labour leadership contenders commit to gender balanced leadership

22 AUGUST 2016

The Labour Leadership contenders, Owen Smith and Jeremy Corbyn, have both made commitments to gender balanced leadership and maintaining women’s representation after boundary changes, the Labour Women’s Network have announced.

Fawcett CEO Sam Smethers responded:

“Fawcett welcomes the commitments made by both Jeremy Corbyn and Owen Smith that they will deliver a gender balanced leadership of the Labour Party. This is long overdue.

“We are also pleased to hear that they are committed to maintaining the number of labour women MPs after proposed boundary changes take effect. There is a real risk that these changes will see a reduction in women MPs in parliament. We are currently 48th in world rankings for women’s representation. We need all the political parties to commit to ensuring that we don’t go backwards and instead drive to increase the proportion of women in parliament.”

The Fawcett Society has looked into the affects of the boundary reviews on women's representation in Parliament.

A briefing note on the consequences of the review and recommendations can be found here: Women’s representation in the House of Commons

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