This report from Mandy Clare, CLP representative on Labour’s National Women’s Committee, outlines actions and achievements since the previous National Women’s Committee Meeting followed by a report of the November meeting and December Sub-Group.

I have asked for data showing the proportion of women on low incomes that apply/are accepted onto the Jo Cox Women in Leadership Programme.  I received the response that we do monitor that dataset, so I asked as a follow-up if I could be sent a copy of the data we have on this, so that I can see how we ask the question and how we are performing on this alongside other under-represented groups.  I am continuing to pursue an answer to this question.

I requested that rule changes be included in our planning and communications for Women’s Conference 2022 in order to reflect the rules and this has since been included – it was noted that this had been omitted in error.  I subsequently raised a concern that the National Women’s Organisation website invited women to submit motions for conference but that there was no equivalent mention of or route to submit rule changes. This has since been resolved.

I had questioned why the second delegate system had been retained and had asked if it would be possible to ensure low income women were included in the second delegate criteria list should it be retained for Women’s Conference 2022.  I was informed that it was too short notice for low income to be included as an eligible category this time and that it could be looked at for 2023 and beyond.

I had requested that we waive the fee for low income women to enable improved representation but was told there are insufficient resources to cover that and that there is a fund that CLP Secretaries can apply to.  As this involves low income delegates having to go quite publicly with a ‘begging bowl’ through a process that might not be successful, this would be a demeaning and very off-putting process for most low income members, so this does need further attention.  As low income women are such a small proportion of the female party membership and given what we know about the severe impacts of poverty on women who are raising children alone, one suggestion might be that we implement a policy of waiving conference fees and providing funding support to CLPs for any women delegates raising children on an income that is below the poverty line.  I had offered to lead on a Working Class/Low Income Women’s Inclusion Sub-committee but we are currently restricted to only one subcommittee – the reason given being limited party resources.

I had asked about what data we collate regarding the number of conference applicants, delegates, attendees and speakers that are from low income backgrounds – unfortunately the information has not yet been provided.  I will continue following this up.

I pushed hard for meetings to be held at least quarterly as we were set to have a big gap between our first (September) meeting and our second (January) meeting, despite having Women’s Conference to oversee.  There was a danger that all decisions would have been made without any involvement of the Women’s Committee.  We managed to get a November meeting as requested, our January meeting still stands, but the November meeting was described as an ‘additional’ meeting, so we will need to ensure that at least quarterly meetings are planned in.

I had asked a whole host of questions and made suggestions about areas of concern regarding Women’s Conference, including how decisions were made regarding rejection of motions and how we could ensure that those rejecting motions were not the same people hearing the appeals.  Circulation of my report and the recommendations to improve Women’s Conference democratic processes has been declined, so I don’t have feedback from WCAC on any of the issues raised by women unfortunately, although some of the concerns were picked up by others within WCAC which has been helpful and may contribute toward some improvements for next year’s conference.  I will keep pushing on every one of these issues and any we don’t achieve improvements on for this year, I will keep trying to get embedded into our processes for 2023 and beyond.

Report from National Women’s Committee – 23^rd November 2021

Let’s start with some positives!  I was pleased to see that we had been consulted on the Women’s Conference 2022 timetable and plans and also that we had been given an opportunity to make suggestions for a delegate questionnaire.  I am unclear as to whether the suggestions we made during the meeting will be taken up by WCAC and whether we will get any feedback as to which they decided to implement and which were declined or why.  As the Women’s Committee is meant to have political oversight of the whole of the Women’s Organisation, including conference, this seems a bit of a loose arrangement and greater clarification would be helpful.

Decision-making and processes for making recommendations to the NEC, WCAC and the NEC’s Equalities Committee, for example, are a little opaque.  We are also lacking a means of sharing thoughts or progressing work between meetings currently as members are not in touch with one another directly. As the meetings are restricted to two hours and a request by me for us to be able to establish subgroups as required was not taken forward, this does pose a real problem in terms of how effective and responsive this committee can realistically be to women’s wishes and views.  We have been limited to one subgroup, which is focussed on Women’s Branches.  I am on this group and the first meeting took place on 15^th December (see below).  I pushed for us to have longer meetings and will continue to do so. Longer meetings should enable us to have greater clarity in meetings so that the views and decisions of the Committee are appropriately recorded in minutes and published to members so that we can be transparent and accountable.

There was a discussion about ensuring the Conference is accessible to disabled members and the best route for channelling related feedback.  I will ensure feedback from attendees of 2021 is passed on.

The issue of papers, including minutes of the last meeting, being circulated only a couple of days before the meeting, giving little time to address amendments or check for matters arising ahead of the meeting, was raised.  This relates to the issue of meetings being far too short as I was not able to raise all the amendments and matters arising that I wanted to. I will keep pushing for an accurate record of decisions to be shared in good time and published to members.

I proposed that we have a standing agenda item at the start of the meeting for sharing any urgent issues women have raised with us directly as committee members.  It would help us to identify common themes that may be emerging and help to keep us in touch with how things are going/represent grassroots members and keep that fore grounded.  Unfortunately this was not taken forward and I hope in the future we will have a process for requesting items to be added to the agenda as, once again, there is too little time to discuss our ideas for how we would like to shape the work of the committee and prioritise.

The main two areas of focus for this meeting were Women’s Conference and Communications.  We moved on to the Women’s Conference agenda item and Teresa Clark, Chair of the Women’s Conference Arrangements Committee (WCAC) had been invited to attend and gave a 20 minute presentation, detailing how successful the event had been and sharing examples of the positive praise received by WCAC from women.

I asked Teresa whether she would be open to receiving a report of feedback send directly to me by a number of women attendees and set of recommendations that might enable us to make Women’s Conference even better and whether she would be happy to share that report and the recommendations with WCAC. Unfortunately this question was deferred and only returned to after Teresa had left the meeting.

A request was made for us to meet soon after Women’s Conference with WCAC, to enable us to be involved at the earliest stage in planning how we might want to shape follow-up consultations and be more involved in planning the detail of how we would like to shape Women’s Conference 2023.  This was also unresolved and is one to follow up.

A concern was raised that the proportion of time at Women’s Conference for actual debates did not appear to have been increased, despite some of us having raised this as a concern previously and in response to women’s feedback.  This was left unresolved and needs to be followed up.

There was very little time to discuss the draft survey for picking up member and affiliate views post-conference 2022 so I will send feedback and suggestions separately. I was a little concerned that it could be a bit ‘leading’ in some areas and vague in others.

I would like to see the survey allow for women to say what proportion of the conference they would like dedicated to debate (as opposed to presentations, speeches and so on) as there didn’t seem to be scope for a preference for more debate time to be expressed clearly by respondents, although this is something I and others on the committee tend to hear a lot from women.  I would like us to ask women an open comments question about how they feel we can better promote, support and facilitate comradely debate.  I would like us to ask women whether they would support a requirement for stats and evidence referred to in motions to be referenced (reference not included in word count) so that those drafting motions are encouraged to be mindful of ensuring their motion (where quoting statistics) is supported by good quality evidence.

Questions were asked about the deadline for Emergency Motions, which seemed quite early.  More time for compositing was requested but this was not resolved.

Areas Needing Further Attention:

Lots! We need to make sure that meetings are frequent and long enough to make time for proper discussions with a fair and consistent democratic process for achieving a resolution or for making recommendations to other committees, as per our rule book.  The Women’s Committee needs to be effective in responding to women’s needs and given the resource constraints the Party now faces and other barriers that may present themselves, that is going to need a lot of pushing.

Report from National Women’s Branches Sub-group – 15^th December 2021

A list of current branches established and their location had been requested prior to the meeting – this was requested again within the meeting.

There was some acknowledgment that there is a bottle-neck again in terms of capacity and getting branch applications ratified.  There was agreement to ratify the single CLP branches first, as they are less complex, in order to reduce the ‘queue’ and get more branches up and running sooner.

A request was made to ensure Women’s Branch Secretaries have data permissions that enable direct contact with women members.

A proposal was made that Women’s Branch Chairs and/or Women’s Officers be supported to be in touch with one another/create a support network within each region/nation.

A query was raised about ensuring the delegation to Women’s Conference reflects the female membership of the CLP and not the general membership, which would have implications for card votes and for incentivising women to build and organise locally

There was agreement that a survey would be conducted in the New Year of Women’s Officers, to ascertain an overview of what is going well/any remaining blocks to establishing branches/any issues that may be putting women off establishing branches/any additional support that may be required

Conclusion

I spent a lot of time preparing for both meetings as it felt there were so many important issues that needed to be raised, and I did my best to contribute what I felt needed saying. We need longer Women’s Committee meetings.  We need better communication between those meetings.  We need Standing Orders.  We need to be more responsive to women and have them as our top priority.  We need to be willing to address complaints.  We need more than one subgroup to hope to cover the broad range of issues that affect women and need our attention within the party and to shape up the Women’s Organisation so that it is fit for purpose.  There were so many issues that did not get covered sufficiently. But it is early days.  At least we have managed two meetings rather than one.

I’m not finding it easy to influence change or get women’s voices heard through this structure but if you have anything you would like me to try and help with, please do get in touch and please pass this report on to other women within the party.  My email is mandyclare.cheshirelabour@gmail.com and I am @SocialistMandy on Twitter.