Cameron’s bid to get women into Commons

David Cameron indicated yesterday he was ready to force Conservative associations to adopt female candidates to fight the next general election.

In a move that will anger sections of his party, the Tory leader said he was now prepared to impose all-women shortlists for the first time.

The move represents a significant shift for Mr Cameron, who has refused to endorse such a strategy despite his bid to increase female representation on the Tory benches.

Appearing yesterday before a parliamentary inquiry into the lack of diversity in the Commons, he admitted many of the party’s preferred female A-list candidates had been overlooked.

He said he hoped he would have “nearly 60” women Tory MPs after the next election – up from 19 now – in the event of a one-seat Conservative majority. But that was less than half of the 120 to 140 women MPs that Prime Minister Gordon Brown projected for Labour – the only party so far to adopt all-women shortlists.

John Strafford, chairman of the Campaign for Conservative Democracy, said grassroots members were “spitting blood” over Mr Cameron’s apparent conversion to all-women shortlists.

Mr Strafford accepted that not enough Tory candidates were women, but said this should be countered by encouraging more women to put themselves forward for consideration.

Mr Brown last night praised the way Aberdeen South Labour MP Anne Begg, who uses a wheelchair, has paved the way for more disabled MPs at Westminster.

However he was embarrassed by a complaint from one Asian backbench Labour MP that his Cabinet is too heavily reliant on “white Scottish men” and should be more representative.

Mr Brown told Miss Begg, who has led the inquiry: “I believe you have yourself sent a huge signal by the success you have had as an MP.”

He added there were still only 2.5% of candidates selected to fight the next general election who are self- declared as disabled, and agreed they face financial as well as mobility barriers. Miss Begg said later it was nice of Mr Brown to make the comment.

The complaint about Scots came from Labour MP Parmjit Dhanda, who said that before Mr Brown took over in Downing Street there were two ethnic minority members of the Cabinet.

Mr Dhanda said: “There are none now, yet there are four white, Scottish men. Do you think this an acceptable state of affairs?”

Mr Brown said seven woman are entitled to attend Cabinet meetings without holding full departmental responsibility, and he had appointed the first Asian Cabinet minister responsible for transport and the first black woman English attorney general, Baroness Scotland.

He was accused of sexism by former housing minister Caroline Flint when she quit the Cabinet in June, accusing him of treating women as “window dressing”.

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg said he would also consider introducing all women shortlists, but only if the party’s total of women MPs did not improve at the next election. He also acknowledged that his party was “woefully unrepresentative of modern Britain” with no black or Asian MPs.

“That is a source of real, real regret to me and needs to change. I am hopeful it will change and change dramatically,” he said.