Women 'seriously underrepresented' in parliamentary select committees

Women are seriously under-represented among those who give evidence to parliamentary select committees according to new figures from Democratic Audit UK, an independent research organisation based at the London School of Economics.

Women are seriously under-represented among those who give evidence to parliamentary select committees according to new figures from Democratic Audit UK, an independent research organisation based at the London School of Economics.

According to the report, Parliamentary select committees: who gives evidence?, seventy five per cent of all witnesses were men over a four week period spanning October/November 2013. The Commons committees called marginally more men to give evidence than other committees, with 76 per cent of their witnesses being male. This was in comparison to the Lords and joint committees of both houses where 73 and 71 per cent of witnesses were men respectively. 

The report shows the greatest disparity between men and women was among those called to give evidence as ‘independent experts’. Eighty three per cent of these were men. This was true across all categories of independent experts including individuals (those without an organisational affiliation), academics, think tanks and parliamentarians (excluding ministers).

LSE policy analyst Richard Berry said: “Committees do not have a completely free hand when choosing who will appear before them to give evidence. However, gender disparities do exist among witnesses that committees have much more control over – such as independent experts. This suggests that committees are contributing to the problem of gender inequality as well as being subject to its effects.”

The report shows ‘government’ witnesses, such as ministers, civil servants and individuals employed by quangos were more representative with 25 per cent of witnesses being women (49 women out of 193 witnesses).

Breaking down the figures by committee showed some were particulary unrepresentative.The Energy and Climate Change Committee only took evidence from two women out of 32 witnesses (six per cent) and the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee from only five women out of 29 witnesses (17 per cent). At the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee 13 out of 31 committee witnesses were women (42 per cent). However, the report says this likely to because the subject of the session in question was ‘Women in STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) careers’.

The only committee to hear from more women than men was the temporary Mental Capacity Act 2005 Committee which the report puts down to the higher number of women in the caring professions.

Democratic Audit blog managing editor, Sean Kippin, said: “Although we only examined a short period of committee activity, the fact that men were over-represented among the witnesses of almost all committees across both Houses of Parliament and among every type of witness suggests this is an ongoing problem.

“Committees need to consider what steps they can take to address this, beginning with the setting of milestones for increasing the proportion of female witnesses and regular monitoring.”

The data also revealed the prominence of trade associations. Fifty five representatives of trade associations appeared as witnesses in this period – nine per cent of all witnesses. Seventy eight per cent of these witnesses were from trade associations representing the private sector, with 13 per cent from the public sector and eight per cent from non-profits or higher education.

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