Tories pledge half of MPs will be women amid Neil Parish porn scandal
HALF of the Conservative MPs in the next elections must be women, the party's chairman has pledged, amid the recent Neil Parish porn scandal.
Tory Neil Parish quits as MP after watching porn in Commons
Mr Parish has been suspended from the parliamentary party and is under investigation by Parliament's standards commissioner. Two female colleagues complained earlier this week after allegedly seeing him looking at adult content on his phone while sitting near them.
Mr Parish said he had referred himself for investigation.
Conservative Party chairman Oliver Dowden warned that substantially increasing female representation would be key to tackling Westminster sleaze.
Mr Dowden told The Telegraph : “I think the single best thing I can do as chairman of the Conservative Party is make sure that we select more good female members of Parliament so that the membership of the [parliamentary] Conservative Party reflects the wider country.
“It has been my privilege to ensure that somebody like Anna Firth – brilliant MP in Southend West – got elected as a Member of Parliament.
“And I want to make sure that we get more good women like that, because I think the single best thing you can do is increase that diversity and make sure that we don’t allow any practices or conduct in Westminster that wouldn’t be acceptable in any other workplace.”
Mr Dowden said that increasing female representation would be a particular focus of the party’s general election roadmap, which is due to be launched within weeks.
Currently, slightly less than a quarter of Tory MPs are women, compared with more than half of Labour MPs.
He added: “We will be launching the road map to the next general election and part of that is getting the best-quality members of Parliament.
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“I’ve reopened the candidates list and I want to get the brightest and the best.”
It emerged on Wednesday that a female minister had reported seeing a male Tory MP viewing pornographic material while sitting beside her in the Commons chamber.
A second female Tory MP said she had tried but been unable to capture video proof of him doing so.
A Conservative spokesperson said Mr Parish has been suspended from the party whip pending the outcome of the investigation.
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In November 2020, Boris Johnson appeared to commit the party to equal gender representation in a video for the 50:50 Parliament campaign.
Mr Dowden said: “The Prime Minister set out the 50:50 goal and that starts with making sure that we get the really strong female candidates, so then associations are picking the very best as well.”