Labour’s National Women’s Committee (NWC) met on 23^rd November 2021, 20^th January 2022, and a Working group looking at Women’s Branches met on 15^th December. Wales Labour women have now nominated their NWC member, Morgan Fracknell, and she joined the Committee in November. Karin Smyth MP represents the Westminster PLP women. Anneliese Dodds MP, Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities and Party Chair, also attends the meetings.

The NWC meeting on 23rd November was additional to the original schedule, for which the Committee had asked when we met in September last year. The main agenda item was the Annual Women’s Conference (AWC) 2022. The Chair of WCAC was in attendance. The NEC had agreed in 2019, that the Conference would be held annually in the spring. The consequences of COVID19 had seen the 2020 Conference cancelled, and the 2021 had been held online in June 2021. Although the turn round time was tight for 2022, it was agreed to fix dates for March 2022, to establish the annual cycle. Conference and Events team had made a provisional venue booking, and the Committee looked at the feedback from 2021, and discussed key topics and improving participation.

The Committee requested improvements in the information sent out to women with regard to the procedures on motions and rule changes; more support for Women’s Branches that were facing difficulties in becoming established and approved (in particular where more than one CLP was involved); regional variations noted; financial support for all NWC members to attend Annual Women’s Conference in ex officio capacity; and members of the Committee indicated they were keen to be actively involved in the event, but also in the preparation of the agenda. More information on the Disability Working Group was also requested, with Committee members happy to be more involved. Members asked that training sessions at Conference did not run concurrently with policy debates and encouraged the inclusion of fringe meetings and activities. COVID guidance to be clear throughout.

The Chair of WCAC reported on recent meetings. Concerns were raised about the decision to disregard the Rules of the Women’s Organisation with regard to the criteria for delegates to AWC. In particular the constraints on ‘second delegate’ from CLPs and Women’s Branches appeared to create a hierarchy of delegates, removed young women from the criteria, and was not applying the Rules. The WCAC Chair restated the intention to apply the same delegate criteria as in previous years. Governance and Legal Unit agreed to look again at compliance with the Rulebook, and the Committee members restated their concerns about the application of the Rules. It was advised that this may need to go back to the NEC.

Committee also asked for longer compositing meetings, more clarity over the ownership of those composite meeting decisions, and for more time on policy debates at the Conference. The proposed deadline for Emergency motions was very early, and the Committee members recommended it be pushed back. Additional topics were added to the proposed women member survey.

One additional agenda item was taken briefly at the November meeting, to allow Anneliese Dodds to report on the All-Women Shortlists (AWS) working group. Committee members were invited to share their views on the Party’s ongoing commitment to increase women’s representation, and to follow up by emailing Anneliese as the meeting came to a close. Points raised in the meeting included: consistency in the application of AWS; support for women in Open selections as well as AWS seats; shorter selection processes; support for costs during selection processes; build a campaign for amendments to the Equality Act (sunset clause on AWS 2030); improving Equality monitoring and including the information for selection panels; looking at local authority and devolved administrations selections too.

The Scottish Labour Women’s Committee (SLWC) has agreed to arrange for Anneliese and Jackie Baillie MSP (Scottish Labour Deputy Leader) to meet with us to discuss this important work.

NWC Women’s Branches Working Group meeting 15^th December 2021.

This was a very constructive meeting. Terms of Reference are to be firmed up, but a framework was agreed as looking at barriers and challenges to establishing Women’s Branches, and to ensure more are set up.

 The working group discussed a number of issues, including: delays in Regional sign-off due to staff shortages, smaller CLPs finding setting up Women’s Branches a challenge, confusion about changing from Forums to Branches, the extra bureaucracy involved (for example, the need for a bank account), quorum, concerns about tensions in meetings, lack of direct contact with women members, access to data and knowing who’s eligible to vote.

The working group also discussed issues of the structure of Women’s Branches, and the relationship between single CLPs and multi-CLP Women’s Branches. Questions were raised about how to bring active women together, then who convenes the meeting and gets access to the data. There was a lack of clarity about the communications between Women’s Officers, Women’s Branches and WB Secretaries across CLPs, particularly as many women members want to build up networks across CLPs.

It was agreed to recommend that Regional Office sign off was only needed for multi CLP Women’s Branches, which would speed up the process. (We understand that the NEC has now signed this off.)

Following the positive experience in Scotland around the pre-AWC delegates call, and setting up our Whats App (WA) group for Scottish delegates, I suggested that all Regional offices be asked to facilitate a pre-AWC delegates meeting (online) and encourage WA support too. Other areas reported they had used WA effectively during the 2021 AWC. Regions were to be encouraged to support networking events to promote women’s branches.

The SLWC chair has now agreed to consider a date for a Scottish delegates (online) meeting, following the closing date for delegate nominations of 11th Feb, but before the motions deadline of 21st Feb – and SLWC members can be assigned to support delegates. There will be a standing agenda item on SLWC agenda for update on progress with Women’s Branches in Scotland

National Women’s Committee meeting 20^th January 2022

This meeting was well attended and had a very full agenda.

Trade union delegates raised concerns over the limit on the Committee of the two hour meeting length, which is inadequate for dealing with the Committee’s remit and responsibilities. The National Women’s Officer was thanked throughout the meeting for her work, but we asked NEC members present to raise the lack of additional staff support to the Committee, and the impact that the staff reductions in the Equalities team, and in the Conference and Events team, would have on actually supporting and building the Party amongst women.

A decision had to be taken rapidly before Christmas about AWC 2022, following the spread of the Omicron COVID virus, and the Party has reverted to an online format for the 19/20 March Women’s Conference. This alters some of the planning. The online Conference provider is now contracted to deliver the 2022 Conference, and will be taking on board the lessons learned from 2021. The Disability/Accessibility Working Group met last week to follow through on some of its recommendations for improvements.  The Chairs and Vice Chairs of the Women’s Committee and the WCAC have met once, and will be meeting again, to support each other and clarify the role of each. The NWC has primary responsibility to set the agenda and oversight of the AWC.

This is the first Women’s Conference with a Women’s Committee in place, so we were keen to ensure an Annual Report is prepared for AWC, and that members were fully involved in attending, chairing, hosting fringes, running training, and other activities. Various amendments were proposed to the draft agenda, including: longer for policy discussions; better groupings of the topics chosen for debate; more input offered from Shadow Cabinet and from the Women’s PLP; requests for informal sessions where delegates could meet each other (this might turn into an event with Women’s PLP members, for example); overarching themes to include Labour’s response to the cost of living crisis; and reporting back on what had actually happened to the motions from 2021.

I’ve raised again the fact that the motion from Caithness, Sutherland & Ross Constituency Labour Party was not taken at AWC, but referred to the NEC Organisation Committee, and nobody has heard anything since.

I asked for time to be identified on the AWC agenda to include any Rule changes to be proposed and heard (this is the first year that a Motion or Rule change can be submitted) and confirmation that all would be taken, as happens at Annual Party conference; and for specific time to be allocated for the motions from Wales and from Scotland to be taken, standing alone. (as SLWC proposed and was supported at NWC in September). The SLWC has also agreed to seek confirmation that this will be the case, and that there is provision for the NWC members from Scotland and Wales to move these motions.

I had also put forward a motion to ask the NWC to work with WCAC on improving delegates understanding of why motions and all the emergency motions were rejected last year, to avoid similar mistakes in drafting by CLPs in the future; and suggested that the appeals process be reviewed as currently a CLP appeal on a WCAC decision is heard by the same WCAC that ruled out a motion in the first place. My motion was not taken, but these points were all raised in the meeting, and the NWC Chair and Vice Chairs will be meeting again with WCAC Chair and Vice Chair. (Chair Teresa Clark, Vice Chair Anne Dean (GMB Scotland member))

The National Women’s Officer will get back to the NWC members with an update on what can be supported for fringe events; the Standing Orders governing the running of the conference; guidance for all NWC members to attend and chair sessions; and, following a discussion in the meeting, another circular will be sent out by the General Secretary to confirm the deadlines for WCAC nominations remain as 10 March, CLP and affiliate delegate deadlines 11 Feb, and motions and rule changes deadline 21 Feb.

Staff resources prevent holding another meeting of the NWC prior to Annual Women’s Conference. This means there can’t be, for instance, any NWC discussion on attitudes to Rule Changes nor is there the option for the NWC to propose any rule changes, statements, or carry out other key roles – as happens with the NEC which meets prior to Annual Conference, and indeed the Scottish Executive Committee which meets prior to the start of Scottish Party conference. This was noted to be very unsatisfactory and it was agreed that in future years the NWC schedule of meetings must include this.

Other agenda items included a report on the Policy Forum process. Contributions from Ann Black NEC member and NPF Chair, and Anneliese Dodds as Party Chair, confirmed that the process was not working.

Anneliese Dodds gave an update on the AWS discussions, which also included some comments on women’s representation more generally. Fifty/fifty in the PLP did not mean that it would not regress; one female Metro Mayor was not good enough but AWS wasn’t an easy answer for single positions (reference also to the Police and Crime Commissioners); local authority selections, which can also regress quickly even where progress is made. Some of the points raised in the discussion included: need for better equality data which includes other protected characteristics/intersectional; AWS not the only mechanism we can use, or should be campaigning for; exit interviews would help identify and evidence trends in women’s experiences; bullying and misogyny in local Labour groups and its consequences; discussion on merits and negative points around shortening selection processes; and recognising physical barriers and accessibility issues in selection campaigns. The Committee has requested a report which includes the equality monitoring data, on the Jo Cox Leadership programme, and the Future Leaders programme.

Anneliese also gave a brief update on the new complaints procedure, as agreed at Annual conference autumn 2021. The recruitment is underway for the independent committee, chairs are Margaret Prosser and Bob Kerslake. Although sexual harassment procedures had been much of the focus, the new procedure applied to all protected characteristics. The NEC would be discussing this further on 25 January. The Terms of Reference for the new Complaints procedure are framed on three key points – Party Codes of Conduct, Equality law, and the Party Rulebook. NWC members asked again for the equality monitoring report on current complaints procedure and cases; spoke of the current inadequate support arrangements in place for those raising complaints; (reference was made to a support agency the Party is now using – details to be shared); difficulties with the current online process; assurances needed that patterns of bullying or sexual harassment, or racism, will be picked up by the new procedures; and multiple complaints need to be joined together. Further information on the new procedures will come after the NEC meeting.

The meeting was barely able to complete the agenda, and the Chair and Vice Chairs were tasked with finalising the redrafted Minutes from both September and November 2021 (neither of which have yet been signed off by the NWC); working with the Women’s Officer on a draft Standing Orders for the work of the NWC; and meeting with WCAC to take forward the Committee’s views on AWC 2022. The meeting had also agreed earlier that a workplan should be prepared for the coming year, which could in outline be shared with the AWC 2022. Input from NWC members was invited on all these matters.

INPUT FROM SCOTLAND

This was the third meeting of the NWC. I had submitted a full written report on behalf of the SLWC, including the Annual report we took to our recent Scottish Labour Women’s Conference, which covered three years of work. The National Women’s Organisation Rules require Wales and Scotland to submit reports to the NWC, and I submitted it in plenty of time 8 or 9 days before the meeting. A message was passed to me by the Chair to say that it could not be circulated to the NWC as it had not been ‘signed off’. There is no guidance at all on this. I asked the Scottish General Secretary to sign it off and this was done but the paper was still not shared. It was agreed in the meeting that Scotland Wales and other reports could be on the agenda of future meetings, but there is still no clarity over papers.

The Scottish Labour Women’s Committee agreed at its recent meeting to work with the Party to clarify a workable procedure which ensures a full report (of our own) can be shared regularly with the National Women’s Committee.

Ann Henderson

ahendersonlab@gmail.com

Ann Henderson is the Scotland rep on the National Women’s Committee and a Vice Chair of CLPD. This report is updated from one discussed at the Scottish Labour Women’s Committee meeting on Saturday 22 January.