Wrexham amongst the five worst counties in Wales for under-representation of female candidates

Wrexham is amongst the five worst counties in Wales for under-representation of female candidates.

Analysis of candidates in Wales carried out by ERS Cymru and Deryn with support from Democracy Club estimates that just one in three candidates, (33.5 per cent), standing in this year’s Welsh local elections are women.

This is an increase of just under 4 per cent from the last round of elections in 2017, however ERS Cymru say it exposes the ‘glacial’ progress Welsh councils are making towards achieving gender equality in county halls.

Experts estimate that at this rate it will take until the middle of the century for Wales to see candidate lists where half of those standing are women.

Five counties in Wales have the lowest amount of female candidates running in the election on May 5 – with Wrexham making the list.

According to ERS Cymru across Wales, none of the five main parties (those fielding over 100 candidates across Wales) have a gender-balanced candidate list – the party with the highest proportion of female candidates is the Green Party with 46 per cent, followed by Labour with around 41 per cent.

Campaigners are also calling for the implementation of Section 106 of the Equalities Act that would require collection and publication of data on the representation of other protected characteristics, such as race and ethnicity, disability and sexual orientation to increase diversity.

Despite the Act becoming law in 2010 the provisions which would require parties to publish this data are yet to be enacted.

Evelyn James, Diverse5050 Campaign Manager at WEN Wales said: ”We now need more than ever legally binding quotas to secure at least 50 per cent women candidates with strong diversity measures to ensure that Welsh local government is reflective of the population it serves.

“The Diverse 50:50 coalition is calling for political parties to implement Section 106 of the Equalities Act 2010, which would require all parties to publish diversity data on candidates standing in elections.”

Jessica Blair, Director, the Electoral Reform Society Cymru said: “These figures should worry anyone concerned about equal representation in Welsh politics. The glacial pace of change in increasing the number of women standing for election means that we are unlikely to see gender equality in our local councils until 2050.

“Our local authorities make important decisions about the areas we live and work in and yet do not reflect the communities they serve. The need for action to improve the representation of women in our councils is plain to see. We need to grasp the nettle and introduce positive action measures, such as quotas and targets if we are to truly to make progress on representation.

“We also urgently need to put in place stronger data measures, requiring parties to collect and publish data on the diversity of their candidates including protected characteristics, such as race and ethnicity, disabilities, age and sexuality. Having this data will help us identify where we need to take action to improve the representation of black and ethnic minority people, disabled people and the LGBTQ+ community.”

Natasha Davies, Policy and Research Lead at Chwarae Teg added: “All political parties have had ample time to address the unequal representation of women at a local level. While there are some examples of political parties taking steps to diversify their candidates and support a wider range of people to stand for election, the time for warm words is over.

“We must see action from political parties and institutions to ensure that our councils are gender-balanced and truly reflect the diversity of Wales.

“We need more women of colour, disabled women and LGBTQ+ women elected to the institutions that take decisions that affect our day-to-day lives.

“The solutions to this problem are well known. We need to improve party selection processes and remove bias, we need widespread use of positive action to ensure women are selected in winnable seats.

“We need to maintain measures that open up our political institutions, such as remote attendance, while introducing new ways of working including job-sharing. Setting targets and publishing action plans about how said targets will be met are also an important part of the solution.

“We wait to see how many women will be elected in May’s elections but considering that just a third of candidates are women, it is inevitable that we will not achieve the goal of gender-balanced and truly representative local government in these elections. We cannot and must not be in this same position in five years’ time.”