UK Inquiry Tracker

Gender Sensitive Parliament

Women and Equalities Committee Closed Inquiry

Opened: 23 Feb 2021 Closed: 12 Dec 2022 Parliament page

Women MPs in the House of Commons, like their counterparts globally, continue to face barriers to gender equality. Today the Women and Equalities Committee is launching a new inquiry to assess recent progress and make recommendations to create a more ‘gender-sensitive’ Parliament. Following The Good Parliament report in 2016 by … Read more Women MPs in the House of Commons, like their counterparts globally, continue to face barriers to gender equality. Today the Women and Equalities Committee is launching a new inquiry to assess recent progress and make recommendations to create a more ‘gender-sensitive’ Parliament. Following The Good Parliament report in 2016 by Professor Sarah Childs, a gender-sensitive audit was carried out on the UK Parliament in 2018 finding that barriers included: • The culture of Parliament as highlighted in recent reports of bullying and harassment, and sexual harassment; • The challenges that working in Parliament poses for family life, including the unpredictability of business and potential long hours; • The financial impact of standing for Parliament; and • Online threats and threats to physical security, in particular gender-based intimidation, harassment and violence against female Parliamentarians and female candidates.A series of actions includes a new Proxy Voting scheme for those on parental leave (and for COVID-related reasons) and an Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme containing a Behaviour Code for the whole Parliamentary Community. This work is in line with action internationally where the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) has published Guidelines for the elimination of sexism, harassment and violence against women in parliament and the Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians has published the Gender Sensitising Parliaments Guidelines: Standards and a checklist for Parliamentary Change. Committee Chair Caroline Nokes MP said: “While there has been progress and important changes in recent years, Parliament still remains too much of a “boys’ club”, and this can be experienced negatively by men as well as women. We are launching this inquiry during Women’s History Month to look at how the House of Commons has progressed in implementing changes set out in previous reports, and how far there is still to go in making it more gender sensitive. If we want to see equal representation, we need to create a Parliament where equal treatment and modern working conditions can be taken for granted by future generations of women and men, whatever their background.” Show less

12 Recommendations

5 Conclusions

1 Report

4 Oral sessions

13 Letters

4 Events

Activity timeline 22 events

7 Dec
2022

Correspondence

Letter to the Chair of the Administration Committee regarding Gender Sensitive Parliament report

7 Dec
2022

Correspondence

Letter to the Leader of the House regarding Gender Sensitive Parliament report

30 Nov
2022

Correspondence

Report from the House of Commons Commission to the Committee on the outstanding recommendations from the Good Parliament and Gender Sensiti…

2 Mar
2022

Report published

Fifth report - Equality in the heart of democracy: A gender sensitive House of Commons

2 Dec
2021

Correspondence

Correspondence to the Chair from the Chief Executive and Accounting Officer for IPSA relating to our inquiry into a Gender Sensitive Parlia…

25 Nov
2021

Correspondence

Correspondence to the Chair from the Trade Union Side President relating to his oral evidence in June

19 Nov
2021

Correspondence

Correspondence to the Chair from the Leader of the House relating to our inquiry into a Gender Sensitive Parliament

15 Sep
2021

Oral evidence

Oral evidence session

15 Sep
2021

Formal meeting (oral evidence session) · Room 8, Palace of Westminster

Committee event

18 Aug
2021

Correspondence

Correspondence to the Chair from the Leader of the House relating to our inquiry into a Gender Sensitive Parliament

11 Aug
2021

Correspondence

Correspondence to the Chair from Chris Bryant MP relating to our inquiry into a Gender Sensitive Parliament

20 Jul
2021

Correspondence

Correspondence from the Chair to the Shadow Leader of the House of Commons relating to our inquiry into a Gender Sensitive Parliament

Oral evidence sessions 4 sessions

15 Sep 2021

View on parliament.uk

Amanda Colledge · Parliamentary Works Sponsor Body Dr John Benger · House of Commons Ian Todd · Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) Marianne Cwynarski OBE · House of Commons Sarah Davies · House of Commons Sarah Petit · House of Commons

14 Jul 2021

View on parliament.uk

Gender Sensitive Parliament

Chris Bryant MP · Standards Committee (SP) Rt Hon Jacob Rees-Mogg MP · House of Commons Rt Hon Karen Bradley MP · Procedure Committee Sir Charles Walker MP · Administration Committee Thangam Debbonaire MP · House of Commons

23 Jun 2021

View on parliament.uk

Chris Bryant MP · Standards Committee (SP) Karen Bradley MP · Procedure Committee Mike Freer MP · House of Commons Owen Thompson MP · Opposition Department Thangham Debbonaire MP · House of Commons

9 Jun 2021

View on parliament.uk

Dr Alexandra Meakin · University of Manchester Ken Gall · Trade Union Side, UK Parliament Professor Sarah Childs · London University Royal Holloway College

Reports 1 report · click to expand

Title	HC No.	Published	Items	Response
Fifth report - Equality in the heart of democracy: A gender se…	HC 131	2 Mar 2022	17	Overdue

Recommendations & Conclusions

17 results

1 Recommendation

Fifth report - Equality in the hea…

There has been significant progress, particularly since 1997, towards women’s equal representation in the House...

There has been significant progress, particularly since 1997, towards women’s equal representation in the House of Commons. However, women still only make up just over a third of the House of Commons’ 650 MPs. There are considerable variations in women’s … Read more

Government Equalities Office

Gender Sensitive Parliament

Activity timeline 22 events

Oral evidence sessions 4 sessions

Reports 1 report · click to expand

Recommendations & Conclusions

There has been significant progress, particularly since 1997, towards women’s equal representation in the House...

The rise of online abuse and harassment of female parliamentary candidates and MPs, including rape...

We urge the Government to respond positively to the recommendations in the Report of the...

The proxy voting scheme for parental absence is a huge step forward for gender sensitivity...

Like the House of Commons’ proxy voting for parental absence scheme, the Independent Parliamentary Standards...

We welcome the recent extension of the extended leave fund to cover a greater range...

We note that the last Equality Impact Assessment (EIA) of IPSA’s Scheme of MPs’ Staffing...

Publication of MPs’ staffing and business costs incurred in relation to parental leave and other...

Provision of dedicated car parking bays for MPs with young children would be a simple...

It is clear that gender sensitivity was not embedded in the Restoration and Renewal programme...

The Government has acted to return to pre-Covid 19 procedures in the House of Commons...

There has been significant progress towards making the House of Commons a more welcoming and...

The Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme, alongside the Behaviour Code, Valuing Everyone training and the...

We welcome the recent changes to Standing Orders that are intended to allow the triggering...

In other workplaces, suspension of employees under investigation for sexual misconduct is rightly considered the...

We welcome the clarification by the House of Commons’ Clerk Assistant and Director of the...

Despite recent progress in several areas, the House of Commons currently lacks a comprehensive and...

Correspondence 13 letters