Clause 1 - Exclusion of candidate selection from 1975 act
Sex Discrimination (Election Candidates) Bill
10:30 am
Dr Ian Gibson (Norwich North, Labour)
Will my hon. Friend address a problem of mine? I have read the book, ``Shephard's Watch'', by her colleague, the right hon. Member for South-West Norfolk (Mrs. Shephard), which addresses some of the problems that she has mentioned. I wonder whether there is an inherent genetic problem within her party, because one of its members recalls being asked, on attending a selection committee, whether she thought that she was too short to be an MP. A second lady was told that she would need to spend a lot of time in London and was asked whether she was up to that. A third member, a Conservative activist now representing her party in the House of Lords, was asked whether her husband knew that she was applying for the seat, to which she very quickly replied,
``Yes, and so do my Mummy and my Daddy.''
In her book, the right hon. Lady mentions the interview of the late MP, Judith Chaplin, who served for 10 months after the 1992 election, having been a local councillor and political adviser to two very prominent members of her party. The person introducing her to the selection committee said that she was divorced and was there with her second husband, who lived and worked in Norfolk, and that they had nine children between them. She was invited to address the assembled throng from behind a lectern so high that it obscured all but her eyes. As she said afterwards, ``I was not at my best.'' What would my hon. Friend do to eliminate such prejudice?