Drummond supports calls for more females in parliament

Flick Drummond has endorsed key recommendations from a select committee report calling for 45 per cent of candidates to be women or political parties should face sanctions.

Mrs Drummond said Parliament ‘does not represent the country properly when only 30 per cent of MPs are women’.

The Women and Equalities Select Committee, which she sits on, has set out recommendations calling for a minimum of 45 per cent of women MPs by 2030, in addition to 45 per cent of parties’ candidates.

She said: ‘This a poor record for a democracy as old as ours and we now lie 48th in the world in terms of female representatives in equivalent institutions.

‘This situation is simply not good enough so, if there’s not a substantial improvement after the 2020 General Election, the government should look at a law to ensure more women do enter Parliament.

‘The 45 per cent target allows flexibility because 50 per cent would be too tight without leeway but we should be looking, as best as is possible, for equal representation in the Commons.’

Mrs Drummond said political parties were making it easier for women to become candidates, but progress was patchy.