Congratulations to all our women candidates and MPs (CAMPAIGN FOR GENDER BALANCE)

CAMPAIGN FOR GENDER BALANCE <info@genderbalance.org.uk>

Congratulations to all our women candidates and MPs

May 26, 2010 10:20 AM

Tessa Munt, MP for Wells As the dust settles after the election, we just want to take the opportunity to congratulate all our woman candidates for the amazing work that they have done over the past weeks, months and years. Particular congratulations go to Tessa Munt, the new MP for Wells, and all our re-elected woman MPs - Jo Swinson, Lorely Burt, Annette Brooke, Lynne Featherstone, Sarah Teather, and Jenny Willott.

The recent General Election has resulted in the election of 142 women MPs in total across all the political parties - only 22% of the total 649. Unfortunately, the number of Liberal Democrat women MPs has fallen from 9 to 7 - a decrease from 15% to 12%. We were obviously very disappointed to see that the representation of women within the Parliamentary Party has fallen, especially since CGB worked hard to ensure that we had many strong women candidates standing in notionally winnable seats.

This is, to some extent, a reflection of the overall results for the Party across the country. Unlike the other major political parties, we do not have 'safe' seats. However, the Party had significantly improved the number of women standing in strong seats - approximately a third of our most notionally winnable seats had women candidates, and half our retiring MPs were replaced with women candidates.

We are determined to further improve this situation in the coming Parliamentary cycle, and continue to focus our efforts on increasing the numbers of women coming forward for approval and selection within the Party. There is now a renewed sense of optimism about creating a fairer and more representative political culture, and achieving gender balance within the Parliamentary Party should be a key part of this.

If you are a woman who would like to stand as a candidate, please get in touch - it's never too early to start considering your first steps!