Lord Rennard backs efforts to improve numbers of women in Parliament

8.00.00am GMT Fri 2nd Mar 2007

Lord Rennard, the Party's Chief Executive, describes why it is so important we do all we can to increase the number of women participating in Parliamentary politics, in an article written for Lib Dem News.

Last week I had the pleasure of speaking with Lorely Burt and others including Annette Brook, Christina Baron, Sue Doughty and Liz Evans at the Women Liberal Democrats Annual Dinner. It was a great occasion in the dining room of the National Liberal Club marking the 120th Anniversary of the formation of the Women's Liberal Federation.

We were reminded of one of Gladstone's great quotes on his statue as we entered through the doors of the Club, "Liberalism", he said, "is trust of the people tempered by prudence. Conservatism is distrust of the people tempered by fear."

In 1887, the Liberal Party had much to be proud of as the party of democratic reform. But it was to its shame that that it took so long to come round to the democratic principle of trusting women with the vote. And we in its successor party are still taking too long to give a fair proportion of women the opportunity to serve in Parliament.

For far too long, we as a party and the country have lost out, through our lack of representation in Parliament from the majority gender of the population. We are making some progress. Half of the seats that we gained at the last two General Elections were with women candidates and many very strong female candidates have been chosen for winnable seats next time.

The Campaign for Gender Balance, headed by Jo Swinson, is doing great work bringing together women and men who want to address the gender gap amongst the elected representatives of the party. Ming Campbell has been strong in his support for this objective and has ensured that we will be able to give additional support to Westminster seats where success would improve the diversity of our MPs.

But there is much to do if our party is not to suffer from its continued failure to represent the country that we seek to serve. In the discussions over House of Lords Reform, it is essential that we have a system of Proportional Representation that helps ensure that those elected fairly represent the population as well as the parties.

Of course, some of my noble friends, as I should call them in the House of Lords, are happy with the principle of an unelected second chamber. But I would ask how any Liberal Democrat could be happy with the principle of an appointed house that is so obviously failing to be representative when less than one in five of its membership is female ?

The cause of reform of the House of Lords is an important one for those who believe in liberal democracy. The stumbling block to reform has always been a chronic lack of political will. But, as Al Gore says in his fantastic film An Inconvenient Truth, political will is a renewable resource.

It is based on commitment to principles that last the centuries. Sometimes, I talk with our sister parties in other countries and they ask me what keeps us going in the Liberal Democrats. I often refer to them to the constitution of the party. Its says that, "We champion the freedom, dignity and well-being of individuals, we acknowledge and respect their right to freedom of conscience and their rights to develop their talents to the full.

"We believe that each generation is responsible for the fate of our planet and, by safeguarding the balance of nature and the environment, for the long term continuity of life in all its forms. We see ourselves as upholders of the values of individual and social justice, we reject all prejudice and discrimination based upon race, colour, religion, age, disability, sex or sexual orientation".

These words are worth re-reading when we wonder about what we do it all for. I explained to the WLD dinner that my philosophy is a simple one: that we are only on this planet for a very short period of its existence, so we should all do something to ensure that the world is a better place for us having been on it.

I ended by quoting Gladstone again on a good philosophy for conducting your life, "Be happy with what you have and are, be generous with both, and you won't have to hunt for happiness."