All three Liberal Democrat leadership contenders have accepted the Reflecting Britain leadership challenge and pledged to support the party’s Gender Balance and Ethnic Minority Election Task Forces.

Chris Huhne commented:

“I have made the equalities issue – for women, ethnic minorities and the gay community – a key priority of my campaign. I was the only candidate to mention the problem at the first hustings at the London School of Economics, and I was proud that exactly half of the parliamentarians who backed me at first were women including Sandra Gidley, Lynne Featherstone and Susan Kramer.”

Ming Campbell commented:

“Liberal Democrats have been at the forefront in promoting equality and anti-discrimination legislation since 1965. However we have not achieved fair representation in our party for women and ethnic minorities, nor indeed for other under-represented groups such as disabled people and young people. We cannot be at ease with ourselves until our Party is reflective of our diverse communities.”

Simon Hughes commented:

“I have always supported the Ethnic Minority Liberal Democrats and actively challenged the lack of Black and Minority representation both externally and internally to the Party. I have consistently supported and will continue to support the work of the Gender Balance Task Force and believe that we should support, guide, headhunt and mentor more women and Black and Minority members so that they can be candidates for our Party.”

Co-ordinator of the Reflecting Britain campaign Candy Piercy added:

“We are delighted that Chris, Ming and Simon have pledged to actively support the Liberal Democrat’s work to make our Parliamentary Party more reflective of modern Britain. It is vital that the new leader makes this issue a priority.

“We will continue to campaign over the next few weeks in order to raise the profile of the issue within the party and will ask the leadership contenders to help us with this. We are also keen to encourage as many party members as possible to consider applying to get approved as a candidate. With the party’s top target seats currently starting to select their candidates for the next general election, now is the perfect time for people to put their names forward.”

You can add your voice of support to the campaign by going here.

In an interview with online women’s lifestyle magazine nuts4chic, Jo Swinson MP gives this advice to anybody thinking of a career in politics:

Do it. I think that a lot of people get put off and think it’s not for them. And the one thing I have always said is ‘If you really care passionately about your local area, about political issues, you’re half way there.

The other stuff you can learn – you can learn how to make polished speeches, you can learn how to write a press release… you can learn how to interpret legislation. I’ve been doing a fair bit of that over the past six months. But you can’t learn to care if you dont.

So, if you care about issues, and generally if someone is considering a career in politics you would imagine they do, then really the advice is to go for it, but with your eyes open in that there’s no guarantees.

Jo has further advice for potential candidates in the interview. Reflecting Britain will be launching a new campaign to encourage people to put their names forward soon.

The Fawcett Society has welcomed the launch of Reflecting Britain and its call for more women Lib Dem MPs.

Jenny Westaway from Fawcett commented:

Fawcett supports Reflecting Britain’s campaign to increase the number of women and Black and Minority Ethnic MPs in the Liberal Democrat Party. As long-standing campaigners on women and politics, we are pleased to see the challenge to the Lib Dem leadership candidates. Fawcett believes that every party must adopt positive action to ensure that the MPs who represent us, reflect our nation more closely.