From Gender Sensitive Parliaments to Diversity Sensitive Parliaments: The Good Parliament at Westminster

The Good Parliament, published in 2016 contains 43 recommendations that have the potential to transform who sits in the UK House of Commons; significantly enhance Member effectiveness; improve the quality of parliamentary outcomes; and raise the public’s approval of the institution. The report was the product of what turned out to be a year-long secondment by the author. It is no fantasy feminist report but one grounded in the institution – each recommendation is linked to a particular actor or institution within the House responsible for its implementation. Each reflects a research process that involved a cross-party panel of MPs, and advisory board of clerks and officials, and chaired by Mr Speaker, a group of ‘critical friends’ made up of the senior Clerks (all male), and a ‘feminist in residence’. Extensive meetings were held with individual and groups of MPs, as well as numerous discussions with clerks and officials. The secondment proposal was at the outset underpinned by the IPU’s GSP framework. Very soon it became clear that a diversity sensitive parliaments (DSP) approach was necessary. This was for both academic and practical reasons. This paper critically examines this conclusion. In this, I fully accept that the UK Parliament is gender insensitive. However, women are not the only under-represented group and these exclusions are also politically salient. Moreover, in reflecting back on my time in the House - when I sought to become a critical actor – the adoption of a DSP approach was strategically opportune. In too many instances, MPs, Clerks and officials (mostly but not always men) ‘heard gender’, ‘saw women’ and ‘thought discrimination against men’. In such a context a diversity sensitive approach – albeit one that maintained its commitment to GSP – proved politically astute as one means of moderating resistance to feminized change.