Committees

Gender Sensitive Parliament

Inquiry

Women MPs in the House of Commons, like their counterparts globally, continue to face barriers to gender equality. Today the Women and Equalities Committee is launching a new inquiry to assess recent progress and make recommendations to create a more ‘gender-sensitive’ Parliament.

Following The Good Parliament report in 2016 by Professor Sarah Childs, a gender-sensitive audit was carried out on the UK Parliament in 2018 finding that barriers included:

• The culture of Parliament as highlighted in recent reports of bullying and harassment, and sexual harassment;

• The challenges that working in Parliament poses for family life, including the unpredictability of business and potential long hours;

• The financial impact of standing for Parliament; and

• Online threats and threats to physical security, in particular gender-based intimidation, harassment and violence against female Parliamentarians and female candidates.A series of actions includes a new Proxy Voting scheme for those on parental leave (and for COVID-related reasons) and an Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme containing a Behaviour Code for the whole Parliamentary Community.

This work is in line with action internationally where the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) has published Guidelines for the elimination of sexism, harassment and violence against women in parliament and the Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians has published the Gender Sensitising Parliaments Guidelines: Standards and a checklist for Parliamentary Change.

Committee Chair Caroline Nokes MP said:

“While there has been progress and important changes in recent years, Parliament still remains too much of a “boys’ club”, and this can be experienced negatively by men as well as women. We are launching this inquiry during Women’s History Month to look at how the House of Commons has progressed in implementing changes set out in previous reports, and how far there is still to go in making it more gender sensitive. If we want to see equal representation, we need to create a Parliament where equal treatment and modern working conditions can be taken for granted by future generations of women and men, whatever their background.”

Upcoming events

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No upcoming events scheduled

Past events

Wednesday 15 September 2021
2:00pm Private
2:30pm Public
Gender Sensitive Parliament - Oral evidence 15 September 2021
2:30pm
  • Ian Todd (Chief Executive Officer at Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA))
  • Amanda Colledge (Business Case Director at Parliamentary Works Sponsor Body)
3:30pm
  • Dr John Benger (Clerk of the House at House of Commons)
  • Marianne Cwynarski OBE (Director General at House of Commons)
  • Sarah Davies (Clerk Assistant and Managing Director of the Chamber and Participation Team at House of Commons)
  • Sarah Petit (Cultural Transformation Director at House of Commons)
Room 8, Palace of Westminster
Wednesday 14 July 2021
3:15pm Public
Gender Sensitive Parliament - Oral evidence 14 July 2021
3:15pm
  • Rt Hon Karen Bradley MP (Chair at Procedure Committee)
  • Chris Bryant MP (Chair at Standards Committee (SP))
  • Sir Charles Walker MP (Chair at Administration Committee)
4:00pm
  • Rt Hon Jacob Rees-Mogg MP (Leader of the House at House of Commons)
4:45pm
  • Thangam Debbonaire MP (Shadow Leader of the House at House of Commons)
Virtual meeting
Wednesday 9 June 2021
2:30pm Public
Gender Sensitive Parliament - Oral evidence 9 June 2021
2:30pm
  • Professor Sarah Childs (Professor of Politics and Gender at London University Royal Holloway College)
  • Dr Alexandra Meakin (Research Associate at University of Manchester)
  • Ken Gall (President at Trade Union Side, UK Parliament)
Virtual meeting

Contact us

We receive a significant number of emails each day. All requests and invitations are considered but we do not respond directly to everyone. Please be aware, the committee does not look at individual cases or specific complaints.