The Conservatives have outlined plans to boost the number of female Tory MPs today, as they try to diffuse the burgeoning row over sexism and laddish behaviour in Parliament.
Party chairman Oliver Dowden this morning reiterated a commitment from Boris Johnson to ensure half of Conservative candidates for the Commons are women.
It came as the Conservatives found themselves under huge pressure to act in the wake of Neil Parish’s Commons’ porn shame.
The Tiverton and Honiton MP has said he will quit politics after admitting he was the Conservative seen by disgusted female colleagues watching porn on his phone while sitting on the green benches.
It has give rise to further claims of laddish and debauched behaviour by MPs in Westminster.
In an interview with the Sunday Telegraph, Mr Dowden said the Tories need to ensure their candidate lists ‘reflects the fact that half the population are women’.
‘We will be launching the road to the next general election and part of that is getting the best-quality members of Parliament,’ he told the Telegraph.
‘I’ve reopened the candidates list and I want to get the brightest and the best.’
Around a quarter of Conservative candidates at the 2019 election were women, but Labour managed to ensure women represented more than half of its candidates.
And earlier this week, Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries suggested ensuring ‘a majority of women’ in Parliament could help tackle Westminster sleaze.
But Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng today spoke out against all-women shortlists being used.
He told Sky News the party needed a lot more more female MPs ‘as we should have more people from a wider range of backgrounds’.
But asked if he would support all-female lists he said: ‘I’ve never been a fan, frankly, personally, of quotas and shortlists.
‘I’ve never really advocated that but obviously we should do all we can to see how we can get more women and more people from diverse backgrounds into politics.’
MPs are facing increasing pressure to clean up Westminster politics amid a wave of sordid claims about booze-fuelled behavior that has left Parliament’s reputation in the gutter.
An extra-ordinary rap sheet of sexist and misogynistic behaviour has been revealed in the wake of Neil Parish’s resignation for watching pornography while sat in the Commons.
Among then are a minister accused of having ‘noisy sex’ in his parliamentary office, a Tory MP who sent a ‘d**k pic’ to a female colleague and another who has been given repeated warnings for his use of prostitutes.
Another MP is also said to have drunkenly licked men’s faces which cavorting in one of Parliament’s many bars.
The Sunday Times alleged today one MP got so drunk on champagne at a posh parliamentary bash they had to be escorted out, while in a separate incident a female researcher got so drunk she vomited in a Commons’ bar and was later found passed out.