Simon Hughes has signed the following statement:

If elected as leader, I will:

1. Ensure that both the Gender Balance Task Force and the Ethnic Minority Election Task Force receive the neccessary political support and financial resources in order to carry out their work in mentoring, training and supporting new parliamentary candidates;
2. Support the specific goals of at least 1 new black or minority ethnic MP and at least 40% of new MPs and 25% of the Parliamentary Party overall being female after the next General Election;
3. Wherever possible, personally support initiatives to ensure that the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Parties are more reflective of British society.

Simon Hughes

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What system would be your ideal way of making the Parliamentary Party more gender balanced? Do you support all women shortlists as a way of increasing the number of Lib Dem women MPs?

I am conscious that more than half of British citizens are women, and that approaching 1 in 10 of settled British residents are black or from minority ethnic communities.

I do not support all women short lists or all black or BME short lists.

If elected leader in March, I intend to seek agreement between federal and state party officers, European, British and Scottish Parliamentarians, Welsh and London Assembly Members, officers of the GBTF, WLF, EMTF and EMLD and representatives of the PCA on new formulae to maximise gender balance and fair ethnic representation. I shall convene a two day ‘summit’ of these people on the first practical occasion in May or June after local elections with a view to new procedures being agreed for immediate recommendation to federal and state parties and if necessary supported by motions to autumn, federal and national conferences. Among the ideas I shall ask colleagues to consider are:

• specific invitations to every female, black and ethnic minority member to attend a recruitment day in each country, region or county;
• specific approaches to each councillor;
• proposals for twinning or grouping seats to achieve appropriate gender and ethnic mix;
• new rules for maximising numbers of female and BME candidates on short lists for parliamentary and assembly elections, and
• new rules for zipping both by gender and ethnicity where appropriate for European and other list elections.
• I shall ask colleagues to consider targeted advertising for female and BME supporters to become members and candidates and shall invite briefings at this summit to discuss Conservative and Labour practice, practice in other EU countries, and contributions from the Fawcett Society, CRE, OBV and other appropriate organisations. We must agree processes for succession planning in held seats which give better gender and ethnic mix. We must have new systems in place and candidates selected in target seats for the next GE by the summer of 2007 and ideally with similar lead in times for all other elections.

At the next Lib Dem conference in Harrogate, a motion has been proposed to set up an Ethnic Minority Election Task Force on a comparable basis to the Gender Balance Task Force. Will you personally be voting for this motion? What will you do to ensure greater representation of ethnic minorities within the Parliamentary Party?

I shall be voting for the motion. The genesis of this motion was the motion I proposed to the Blackpool Conference last September, and which then re-emerged from the London regional conference in Bermondsey before Christmas where I spoke in support. It is however only a starting point with not enough specific bite.

7 out of 12 Lib Dem MEPs are women, while 1 MEP is Asian. In 1999 the English party used “zipping” to ensure that 50% of candidates were women. In 2004 it used a quota system to ensure that at least 1 of the top 3 candidates of each regional list, and a third overall, had to be of either sex. How would you favour selecting candidates for the 2009 European Elections?

We should keep at least as strict a zipping regime as we had in 2004. I would prefer alternate female and male names on the list. We need also to address ethnic mix on these lists and ensure ethnicity is reflected fairly by country and region.

The Gender Balance Task Force has always struggled with resources. In 2001 it was agreed that it should be given an annual budget of around £30,000, including the cost of a member of staff, but in practice it has never received this. Are you personally committed to ensuring that the Gender Balance Task Force receives greater funding than in the last Parliamentary cycle and that the Ethnic Minority Election Task Force is funded to a comparable degree? How do you propose ensuring that sufficient funds can be raised?

At my instigation the FE has agreed a diversity and equality review of the party. I intend this to address the question of the funding of the GBTF taskforce and what I hope will be a merged Ethnic Minorities Liberal Democrats/ Ethnic Minority Task Force. I am committed to separate women’s and BME support officers as central party staff working with the candidates office and campaigns offices as part of a diversity team in headquarters and regionally. I shall seek ring fenced funding from outside the party for this task and for supporting female and BME candidates.

What positive steps have you personally taken to ensure that the Parliamentary Party is more reflective of wider society? What other things should the party be doing in general to encourage diversity?

1. I have throughout my career sought to recruit, retain and promote women, black Asian and other ethnic minority candidates at every level in the party, both for party office and for publically elected office.
2. I was in the first group of mentors for the CRE/OBV mentoring schemes and have mentored one Pakistani and one Chinese Briton so far and am shortly to take on my third person.
3. I supported candidates and campaigns in the run up to the last GE in Haringey, Hounslow, Waltham Forest, Bexley, Tower Hamlets, Lambeth, Ealing, Lewisham, Brent, Leicester, Luton, Birmingham, Surrey, Essex, Stockport and Manchester.
4. I initiated the EMLD pledge card for the last General Election and have appointed a deputy president for BME issues.
5. I have led and lead for the party on equality and human rights issues.
6. I proposed the amendments to the Race Relation (Amendment) Bill which included indirect discrimination and which were later accepted by the government.
7. I have spoken at many black, Asian, African, Latin American, eastern European, Cypriot and Arab, and many Hindu, Sikh, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist and Christian events over 25 years, some with audiences of up to 20,000 and appeared on many BME radio and television programmes.
8. I have personally recruited many women and black and Asian members and encouraged and supported them to be candidates, councillors and parliamentary candidates and MP.