Labour in Blackpool: Delegates back all-female shortlists: Patricia Wynn Davies and Nicholas Timmins report on how a quotas policy was endorsed

QUOTAS designed to end male domination at Westminster were emphatically endorsed yesterday as delegates gave heavy backing to all-female shortlists of parliamentary candidates in half of all safe seats with retiring Labour MPs, and half of the winnable marginals.

While endorsing Sunday's National Executive Committee statement that the scheme, launched last year, would be operated with 'flexibility and sensitivity' - interpreted in some quarters as a watering down of the commitment - the high command was left in no doubt over the strength of support for the policy.

The committee has the power to impose all-female shortlists where too few constituencies volunteer or one refuses to co-operate.

Delegates brushed aside protests that the scheme was tokenist and was causing difficulties for many local parties. Paul Nowak, from Wirral, was both cheered and hissed as he insisted that quotas 'don't change attitudes; they simply create hostility and suspicion'. He called for all candidates to be selected on 'merit'.

But Gavin Laird, general secretary of the AEEU engineering section, brought a standing ovation from female MPs. Questioning why there were only 39 of them, Mr Laird said: 'Are they less capable? Is it because they are less caring? Are they less political? The Liberal Democrats had more women candidates at the last election. That is intolerable.'

If successful, the policy will see between 80 and 90 female MPs elected if Labour wins the next election, making up about one-quarter of the parliamentary party.

Bernie Davies, of the public service union Unison, said: 'Of course no one likes change, not least those old-fashioned vested interests used to running the show.' Jeannie Evans, of Wokingham, said that after one unsuccessful selection she was told that her suit had been too severe.

The scheme could mean men who have cultivated political careers in their locality being disappointed. But, closing the debate, Clare Short, shadow Minister for Women, reminded delegates that John Smith was convinced the system was the best one. She said: 'All we are asking is that women be selected for half of the available vacancies. If the world were fair, half of our MPs would be women.'

The system was always designed to be flexible and sensitive 'but the system also requires that the numbers will be reached'.

Figures supplied to the Independent show that Labour is already close to hitting its target for female MPs in London and parts of the South. But a big culture change is needed in Labour's heartlands if the party's aim of 50 per cent female MPs is to be reached. In the South and West, where Labour has only four MPs half are women. In London, where the party has 35 seats, 11 - just over 30 per cent - are held by women. But in Scotland, Wales and Labour's Central region, fewer than 10 per cent are women; in the North and Yorkshire, the party has just six women among the 63 MPs it returns to Parliament. Wales returns one woman, Ann Clwyd, out of its 26 Labour MPs. Judith Church, a national executive member who became MP for Dagenham in the June by-election, said the analysis showed that in London 'the party has developed a culture which allows women to be selected. Attitudes there have changed. But it is clear that it is very hard for women to break into the heartland, particularly where seats are seen as industrial ones in the ownership and gift of the main local trade union'.

In the South-west, the only region so far to tackle the women's quota, four of the nine constituencies affected have volunteered to have all-female shortlists.

----------------------------------------------------------------- PROPORTION OF WOMEN LABOUR MPs BY REGION ----------------------------------------------------------------- Region MPs Men Women % Women South & West 4 2 2 50 Greater London 35 24 11 31 West Midlands 30 24 6 20 South & East 5 4 1 20 North-west 44 37 7 16 North & Yorks 63 57 6 10 Central 14 13 1 7 Scotland 49 42 4 8 Wales 27 26 1 4 Total 271 232 39 17 -----------------------------------------------------------------

(Photograph omitted)