Towards a gender equal parliament: lessons from candidate selection at the 2024 election

In this blog Dr Chris Butler shares research into candidate selection at the 2024 general election. 

Whilst 2024 saw a record number of female MPs elected, progress towards a gender equal Parliament remains slow. In order to achieve equal representation at the next general election a record jump in the proportion of women elected will be needed. Further, there are reasons why a gender equal Parliament next time may be out of reach without drastic action by the parties.

One crucial step towards achieving a gender equal Parliament is for parties to select women in winnable constituencies. All British parties with the exception of the Reform Party allow members to choose their candidate from a shortlist (although both the Labour and Conservative parties appointed a number of candidates in winnable constituencies shortly before the 2024 general election). Parties also vary in how much influence the central party has over the make-up of the shortlist, with the Labour and Conservative Parties exercising a greater degree of control than the Lib Dems, SNP, Greens or Plaid Cymru.

The table below shows the proportion of women who made up a party’s candidates, candidates elected, and candidates shortlisted for winnable constituencies* at the 2024 election. Firstly it shows that the Conservatives and SNP were less likely to select women in seats that the party actually won, and the Liberal Democrats were more likely to. Similarly, the Conservatives and SNP shortlisted a higher proportion of women in winnable constituencies than were selected in constituencies won by the party, indicating that Conservative and SNP party members were less likely to select women, with the opposite being the case for the Lib Dems.

Table 1 Female candidates by party at different stages of the selection process

However, it is known that other factors affect the likelihood of candidates being selected, such as their links to the local constituency. Therefore, I analysed who won 207 Labour and 97 Conservative shortlists to determine the effects of gender on the likelihood of shortlisted candidates being selected, whilst controlling for various other factors. This revealed that the odds of a woman being selected for Labour were 1/3rd lower than for men, whilst in Conservative selections women were 2/3rds less likely to be selected. Hence the sad truth seems to be that local party members still tend to prefer men when voting for their party’s parliamentary candidate.

At previous elections, some parties made steps towards a gender balanced Parliament by imposing ‘all-women shortlists’ in winnable seats. This helped the Labour Party go from 14% women MPs in 1992 to 51% in 2019, and later adopters of AWS the Liberal Democrats go from 33% women MPs in 2017 to 64% in 2019. However, both parties were concerned about the legality of continuing with all-women shortlists when they had majority female parliamentary parties. The Scottish Labour party did run a few dual selections in neighbouring constituencies, whereby the top-placed male and top-placed female would both be selected. However, at this election no party imposed all-women shortlists.

Still, our analysis finds that parties did sometimes create women-only shortlists, but also men-only shortlists. The table below shows the number by party and reveals that aside from Labour, parties were more likely to create all-male shortlists in contests for winnable seats.

Number of all-male and all-female shortlists in winnable seats, by party

Finally, what about those cases where parties appointed candidates rather than leaving it to members to decide? Both the Conservatives and Labour directly appointed some candidates late in the Parliament rather than letting local members decide. Of the four Conservative appointments in winnable constituencies, only one was female, while only 7 of the 23 late selections by Labour were of female candidates. Whatever else the major parties were trying to achieve by imposing candidates on local associations, it clearly wasn’t ensuring gender equality.

Altogether, this suggests that major cultural changes are required by UK political parties if we are to reach a gender equal Parliament at the next election. Firstly, more work needs to be done to overcome the apparent anti-female bias of local party members when selecting parliamentary candidates. One change that they could help here would be to enact Section 106 of the 2010 Equality Act (as Centenary Action have consistently called for) which would provide evidence for members showing the anti-female bias in the selection process. Secondly, when central parties intervene in the selection process over local party associations, they need to take advantage of this centralised control by prioritising gender equality as a criteria for selections.

*‘Winnable constituencies’ are defined as:

• Seats being defended by a party with a new candidate (except Conservative defences with a majority of less than 5,000 where the MP announced their decision to step down after the election was called)
• Seats won by a party at the 2019 general election but which they had subsequently lost at a by-election
• Seats where Labour finished in 2^nd place in 2019 and were within 20% of winning
• Seats where the Lib Dems finished in 2^nd place in 2019 and were within 15% of winning
• Any seats gained by a party at the 2024 general election

Dr. Chris Butler, University of Antwerp. Chris.butler@uantwerpen.be