To ask the Minister for Women and Equalities, whether she plans to (a) enact section 106 of the Equality Act 2010 and (b) take steps to improve gender representation in candidates for (i) local and (ii) devolved elections ahead of those elections.

I am proud that progress is being made, with 40% of MPs now women, but we want to see this replicated at all levels of Government. Last summer my Ministerial colleague Bridget Philipson met with members of 50:50 Parliament, where they discussed the importance of gender equality in parliament and the barriers that women can face.

The government is committed to commencing the Equality Act 2010’s provision requiring registered political parties to publish anonymised data relating to the diversity of their candidate selections. We are currently exploring when to commence the section 106 provisions. We believe that every party has a duty to demonstrate greater progress towards better representation of the population that they seek to serve.