We believe that Parliament, and the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Party in particular, needs to better reflect the diversity that can be found within 21st Century Britain. More than a half of the population is female and just under 10 per cent of the public is from an ethnic minority, yet just 20 per cent of MPs are women and 15 MPs (2%) are members of ethnic minorities.

The Lib Dems have made real progress in improving their own record over the past few years. One third of its new MPs in 2005 were women and in 2004 Parmjit Gill was elected in a by-election as the first ever Lib Dem Asian MP. But Parmjit was not re-elected in the last General Election and we believe the party needs to do much more to ensure that significant progress is made in the next General Election.

With a leadership contest now under way, the three candidates are looking for members to support them. We are asking them to sign our Leader’s Challenge to demonstrate their commitment to this issue. And we are asking members of the party to sign our petition to demonstrate the importance they place in this issue.

The Reflecting Britain Campaign has been set up by Candy Piercy (Vice Chair, Lib Dem Gender Balance Task Force), Sandra Gidley MP (Chair, Gender Balance Task Force), Jo Swinson MP (Vice Chair, Gender Balance Task Force) and Fiyaz Mughal (Chair, Ethnic Minority Liberal Democrats).