Preparing for Labour Party Women’s Conference

Labour Party Women’s Conference takes place on 21 September in Liverpool, immediately prior to Labour’s Annual Conference. Despite being deprioritised by the Party in recent years, and reduced to a one-day tag-on to Annual Conference, it is still a great opportunity to hear women’s voices and pass policy on issues important to women.

The Campaign for Labour Party Democracy is urging women members to:

1. Attend the Conference as a delegate – deadline 12:00 midday on Wednesday 31 July. CLPs (or Women’s Branches, where they are recognised) can send up to two delegates providing one is disabled, BAME or LGBT+.
2. Nominate left candidates for the Women’s Conference Arrangements Committee (WCAC) who will fight for a democratic conference and for the voices of grassroots women members and trade unionists to be heard. The Centre-Left Grassroots Alliance is supporting Zoe Allan, Jean Crocker and Rathi Guhadasan for the WCAC. See the CLPD website for more details. Each CLP may make 3 nominations.
3. Send a motion or a rule change to Women’s Conference – deadline 17:00 on Wednesday 21 August.
4. Come to our CLPD Women’s Conference fringe meeting, 5-6pm at Friends Meeting House, 22 School Lane, Liverpool, L1 3BT on Friday 20 September.

The criteria for a valid motion is extremely narrow. Motions must be contemporary, on one subject and relate to women. It must be no more than 250 words and not be considered by WCAC as an organisational matter or rule change. Motions must not be on an issue that has been considered in the 2023 National Policy Forum report. All issues pre-dating the general election will be considered not contemporary so motions should only refer to matters that have arisen after 5 July 2024.

With this is mind, CLPs may wish to consider a rule change instead to improve the democracy within the Women’s Organisation. These will be discussed by Women’s Conference in 2024 to go forward to Annual Conference 2025 for inclusion in the rule book. Some suggested rule changes are available from the CLPD website.

Despite the criteria designed to curtail discussion of key issues at Women’s Conference, CLPs may wish to consider raising the crucial issues of the ongoing horrors in Gaza for women, and the failure to date of the Labour government to repealing the two-child benefit cap. Both of these are clearly contemporary by any usual interpretation of the word.

Suggested motions are below:

Women in Palestine 

Women’s Conference notes:

1. The ruling of the UN’s international court of justice (ICJ) on 19 July ordering Israel to end its occupation of the Palestinian territories ‘as rapidly as possible’ and make full reparations for its ‘internationally wrongful acts’.
2. The airstrike on the so-called humanitarian zone of al-Mawasi hitting a UN-run school housing displaced people on 17 July killing 50 people, adding to the 38,500+ people previously killed which includes almost 15,000 children, women and elderly people.
3. According to the UN, more than one million women and girls in Gaza have almost no access to food or safe water, with disease growing. An estimated 6,000 mothers have been killed leaving 19,000 children orphaned.

Women’s Conference welcomes the decision of the Labour government on 19 July to resume funding UNWRA, the UN’s agency for Palestinian Refugees, and believes the election of a Labour government creates a new opportunity for Britain to promote peace in Palestine and Israel.

Women’s Conference calls on the Labour government to do what it can to support the position of women in Palestine, including calling for an immediate ceasefire and a suspension of all exports of weapons and weapon systems to Israel.

Women and child poverty

Women’s Conference notes:

1. The election of a Labour government on 4/5 July after 14 years of Tory austerity represents a once in a generation opportunity to address child poverty – a critical component of Labour’s Five Missions.
2. The two-child limit on child tax credits and Universal Credit is a major driver of child poverty and has a major impact on women as primary carers.
3. Kim Johnson’s amendment to the Kings Speech reported on 18 July 2024, seeking to make this issue a priority, has achieved widespread support.
4. IFS Director Paul Johnson’s article in the Times on 22 July notes removing the two-child limit would reduce relative child poverty by approximately half a million.
5. 1.5m children live in families affected by the policy, with minority-ethnic families and single-parent families disproportionately affected.
6. Abolishing the limit would cost approximately £1.3bn pa, but the Women’s Budget Group estimates that lifting 250,000 children out of poverty could save roughly £2.3bn in societal costs.
7. Widespread support across the labour movement to scrap the limit, including former Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Scottish Labour.

Women’s Conference believes

1. Labour cannot achieve its objectivesty without scrapping the two-child limit, which would, as the End Poverty Commission suggests, be the most cost-effective way of reducing child poverty.
2. It’s immoral to treat some children as less deserving than others because of the circumstances of their birth.

Women’s Conference calls upon the Labour government to abolish the two-child limit as soon as possible as an urgent priority.