UK should allow breastfeeding and use quotas to increase diversity: report
A report commissioned by the speaker of the House of Commons has outlined 43 recommendations for combating sexism in the UK’s Parliament. The good parliament report calls for breastfeeding to be permitted in the chamber, for 40% of journalists and committee witnesses to be women and for the installation of gender neutral toilets, amongst other measures.
The House of Commons should install gender neutral toilets, allow MPs to breastfeed in the chamber, and introduce quotas to ensure that at least 40% of political journalists and committee witnesses are women, according to a report commissioned by the Speaker.

The good parliament report sets out 43 recommendations for tackling current sexism in parliament and transforming it into an “international showcase” for equality and inclusion.

The Speaker, John Bercow, endorsed the report by Prof Sarah Childs of Bristol University, but acknowledged that “not everyone will agree with every recommendation”.

The reports calls for an end to the ban on breastfeeding in the chamber to allow all members to “fully participate in house business”. Such a change would signal the Commons as a role-model, parent-friendly institution, it says.

It notes that allowing babies into the chamber could lead to “considerable media criticism” but also cites the late MP Jo Cox, who had urged the Commons to confront the media on the issue. She is quoted in the report as saying: “We should take on the popular press if it’s critical and say: ‘This is what women do, get over it.’”

Restoration of parliament buildings will also offer a chance to change the culture of the Commons, says report. Photograph: Dominic Lipinski/PA

The report says “unisex/gender neutral toilets” should be provided as part of a gender-sensitive audit of parliament. “Failure to do so will limit who can visit, participate in the formal activities of, and work in parliament,” it says. It points out that gender neutral loos would help single fathers with daughters, single mothers with sons, as well as members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities.

And the report sets out a series of recommendations on quotas to ensure great diversity in the Commons. These include statutory sex and gender quotas for the 2025 election if parties fail to select female candidates for at least half of their target seats and held seats that fall vacant for the 2020 election.

It calls for rule changes to ensure all select committee witness panels are sex and gender diverse in the next parliament. It says that by 2020 40% of lobby passes should go to women, noting that currently only a quarter of lobby journalists are women. “A homogenous parliamentary press gallery risks a narrow representation of parliamentary politics, offering a particular ‘take’, or at worse a distorted account,” says the report.

Prejudice in the media could be tackled by an audit at the midpoint of every parliament on the “sexist, racist, disablist, classist and homophobic treatment of MPs by the print media”, it says.

Other recommendations include having more portraits of women on the walls of parliament and the Common’s gift shops selling more postcards and books that celebrate the diversity of MPs. The report calls for relaxation of parliament’s dress code to make it more gender neutral, so male MPs would not have to wear suits and ties. As part of the inclusive overhaul it urged MPs to trial operating normal business hours and allowing MPs to vote remotely away from the chamber, noting that “evening sittings symbolise a house that excludes rather than includes”.

The report points out that, as it stands, the Commons falls well short of the Inter-Parliamentary Union’s standard to be “truly representative”.

It says the planned restoration programme for parliament, when MPs will be expected to move to another building, provides an opportunity to change the culture of the institution. It suggests trying out different ways of holding the prime minister to account than the current “masculinised style” of prime minister’s questions.

“There are alternative or additional formats which could challenge the pattern of ‘scrutiny by screech’,” it says. “Backbenchers – drawn by lot – could hold a more deliberative committee session with the PM; more radically still, public questions could be gathered via YouTube, or the PM might be questioned by the public on internet TV.

“The substantive point being made here is that different ways of holding the prime minister to account can – and should – be tried.”