Labour Women’s Network (LWN) was set up in 1988 by four women – Barbara Follett, Barbara Roche ( both of whom became Members of Parliament ) Hilary De Lyon and Jean Black – who were disappointed and frustrated by the low number of Labour women elected to the House of Commons in the 1987 General Election. Since then it has grown nationally and is known within the Labour Party throughout Britain. LWN is an enabling, rather than a policy making, organisation which encourages, assists and supports all women in the Labour Party who wish to stand for public office.

The 1997 General Election saw a large increase in the number of women in the House of Commons with 101 Labour women MP’s, 13 Conservative women, 3 Liberal-Democrats, and two Scottish Nationalist Party women a total of 119 plus Betty Boothroyd, the Speaker of the House. After nearly ten years of campaigning, the advent of 101 Labour women MPs elected in the 1997 landslide victory, was also a victory for LWN. Booklets on Labour’s selection procedures had been published; telephone helplines initiated; subscriber newsletters mailed; fringe meetings organised, and a stand staffed at major Conferences.

These increases were the result of many years work by women from a broad spectrum of the Labour Party and the Party’s policy of quotas with women-only short lists in some of the key seats made a significant contribution to the result.

However, an Industrial Tribunal judgement before the election had ruled that all women shortlists (AWS) were illegal, and they were therefore not used for selections in the run-up to the 2001 general election.

During these selections LWN supported potential women candidates and organised training events. However, as a result of the lack of positive action the number of women in Labour held seats decreased in 2001; where women retired or died (eg. retirements of Betty Boothroyd and Tess Kingham  or the death of Audrey Wise) they were replaced by male candidates. This highlighted the effect of not having a mechanism to ensure positive action in favour of female candidates.

After the 2001 election the Labour Government, recognising that more needed to be done, legislated to allow political parties to use positive action to increase the representation of women if they so chose; this legislation remains in force today and is the reason why such action is legal.

By the time of the General Election in 2005 the restoration of the AWS mechanism for selections had played a huge part in ensuring more women were returned to the House of Commons. Twenty-two of the new Labour MPs were women. However, some of the seats Labour expected to win were lost and the total of Labour women MPs did not regain the peak of the 1997 result, but despite this there was nevertheless an increase on the 2001 result.

At the dissolution of parliament in April 2010 there were 94 Labour women MPs – 7 fewer than in 1997. As a result of the use of AWS, especially where Labour MPs retired, Labour  stood 190 women candidates at that election – more than ever before. 81 were elected.

 

 

VAL PRICE

Val Price was a Labour activist and ‘modern day’ suffragette. Her support for other women ranged from founding a hostel for battered wives in Slough to mentoring future MPs.

She joined the Labour Party in 1964 in Slough along with her husband, Fred, when Fenner Brockway – then MP for Slough – lost by eleven votes in the General Election. She remembered that moment in 2007 when writing for The New Statesman:

“We were horrified. He had been vilified by the local and national press through the Tories for his support of the anti-apartheid movement and his work with ethnic minorities.

That was why we joined the Party- so that as well as voting Labour which we had ever since we could vote at the age of 21, we could actually work for a Labour victory at the next General Election.”

According to her obituary in the Maidenhead Advertiser, in 1977 Val was a founder member of Slough Women’s Aid, a hostel for battered women and their children, helping establish two houses for use as hostels. She worked with it for seven years, on a 24 hour rota, taking phone calls and often going out at night to help women who had called her with no-one else to turn to.

In the 1970s she was elected to Windsor and Maidenhead Borough Council as a Labour member, an incredible achievement in a Home Counties area. Val also stood as the Parliamentary Candidate for Labour in Windsor and Maidenhead in both 1979 and 1983.

Val was the National Co-ordinator of the Labour Women’s Network. She worked tirelessly over the years leading up to the 1997 election, and continued until her death, supporting and nurturing women in the Labour Party who were putting themselves forward for selection as parliamentary candidates and then for election as MPs. In her work for Labour Women’s Network and Emily’s List UK, Val provided advice, training and mentoring to women aspiring to enter the bear garden of politics at Westminster.

Hilary De Lyon’s tribute to Val on the Emily’s List UK website states: “Politics, community and family were central to Val Price. Her whole life was focused on making the world a better place, and there are few people who can look back on a life as selflessly lived as hers.” Fiona Mactaggart, current MP for Slough, paid the following tribute to Val on her death from cancer: “Val helped me get selected by Slough labour Party to stand as Slough’s MP. In the same selection she helped at least two other women too. That’s how she was, generous and truly committed to helping women in our party. She never grabbed the limelight, always pushed others in. She was wise and kind, and brave”.

Val Price was an inspiration to a whole generation of Labour women politicians. Her own words reflect the impact of committed, values-led political activism: “We really do have the ability to change people’s lives, and that is a very humbling experience” [New Statesman, 27 September 2007].