Ceasefire NOW!

Debate on Women’s CAC Report

Delegates raised objections on many things which Women’s CAC members – who, despite requests, saw the report for the first time that morning – had striven hard to prevent, for example: reduction from a two-day standalone event; not starting first thing; not enough visitors’ places or room; late information.

Also the suspension of Diane Abbott, a valued supporter of Conference from the 1980s; no printed copies; ruled-out motions; with a question on where motions will go that did not make it through the Priorities Ballot (no National Policy Forum process being due).

There looked to be about a third against in the vote.

Good things

As WCAC members we did our best to make the Conference as democratic and inclusive as possible. Six debates rather than four, allowing more CLP motions to reach conference floor; evening compositing meetings, so that more delegates could attend; an important sentence in the Delegates’ Guide: “the decision on the final wording of the composite is in the hands of the elected delegates”; some stalls. After much opposition we had a weekend for our duty of reading and considering all motions – this is fundamental to proper consideration of CLP and affiliate submissions. Despite disruption we have made progress on videos to help women navigate conference procedure, and provided material informally. There was a well-attended and lively CLPD fringe. And crucially and centrally, women spoke passionately in debate and shared their experience and expertise.

Motions sent to Labour Conference:

Violence Against Women and Girls from CLPs

Equal Pay from Affiliates.

The future

CLPD has an honourable history of working steadfastly for democracy and the voice of members. We seek to continue in that tradition for Annual Women’s Conference, expecting a hard road but hoping for better. The CLP reps on Women’s CAC will propose changes for next year. If you want to contact us, please do so at CLPDwomen@gmail.com.

The Scottish Labour in-person 2023 Women’s conference took place in Glasgow on Saturday 25 November. This elected a new Women’s Committee and women to fill the two reserved Women’s seats on the Scottish Executive Committee. A motion was selected to go to UK Annual Women’s Conference, and four priority motions were chosen to go to the Scottish Labour Spring conference (16-18 Feb 2024 Glasgow).

The last two years have seen minimal staff support for the work of the Women’s Committee in Scotland, which is disappointing given the strong input on many topics at the Conferences from a number of CLPs, Women’s Branches, and affiliated trade unions.

Very few Women’s Branches have been established, there has been no co-ordination or support to Women’s Officers, and little evidence of the Women’s Conference priority motions being implemented.

The loss of the standalone UK Spring Annual Women’s Conference in 2023 and 2024 makes the input from Scotland very difficult, as nearly a year will have passed between them. In 2023 Scottish Labour staff did not even manage to submit the motion from Scottish women by the deadline.

Although there is a reserved seat on the National Women’s Committee (NWC) for a nominee from the Scottish Women’s Committee, this becomes fairly meaningless if there is no time on the NWC meeting agendas.  At the Liverpool Women’s conference there was no acknowledgement of the work of Labour women in Scotland – no speakers from the Scottish Women’s Committee were heard at the Women’s Reception, or as a speaker to the Women’s Conference. This is frustrating and is not an effective way of building a Labour Women’s organisation which acknowledges and takes strength from the devolved nations.

In Wales the rules were changed following Welsh Labour (WL) conference 2019 so that WL women’s conferences would be delegate based and policy making. The conference (due in November 2019) was cancelled because of the general election. With the pandemic WL Women’s Committee did not meet until late 2021. At the AGM left candidates were elected as officers. WL Women’s Conference was held in November 2022 using transitional rules following the 2019 WL conference decisions.

It was a well-attended conference. There were high quality contributions from delegates. The balance between these and lead speakers, such as Jane Hutt (member and Minister for Social Justice and Chief Whip in the Welsh Senedd/Parliament), was better than other LP conferences I have experienced. Jane showed in her responses that she’d really listened to us. There was a cross section of ages represented, women from the LGBTQ+ community and women with disabilities. It wasn’t ethnically diverse which speakers noted. Excellent motions covered Cost of Living, Community Food Service Providers, Violence against Women and Girls, Sexual Harassment and Care Workers.

However, there were organisational issues that were not resolved in time, including what happens to motions.  We thought that one motion should be sent to WL Conference.  We were told that this would not happen because Women’s Branches can send motions directly to WL Conference, yet motions agreed at the WL Women’s Conference should carry more weight. Motions go to Welsh Policy Forum which has not met for a long time.

We knew that the Scottish Women’s Conference prioritises a motion to UK Women’s conference. Then in October this year we were told that the WL Women’s committee could submit a motion.  We argued that in future such a motion should be submitted from the WL Women’s Conference but were told there is too long between that and Annual Women’s Conference.  If the latter reverted to being in the Spring that would help.

To address diversity my local CLP have this year submitted a motion arguing at least one of two delegates from CLPs should be a woman with a protected characteristic, like for UK Labour Women’s Conference. The WLW Committee has lively discussions and has said the conference should be hybrid for accessibility and the creche facility at WL Conferences needs to be advertised better as there’s little ‘take up’.  We are keeping up with campaigning and there has been progress with women’s organisation across Wales.

Alison Scouller (vice chair of Welsh Labour Women’s committee, Job share Women’s Officer of Cardiff West CLP and secretary of Cardiff West Women’s Branch).