A senior Tory Peer today said her party must consider selecting parliamentary candidates using all-women shortlists if it loses female MPs at the next election.
Baroness Jenkin of Kennington said Tories could not be seen to be ignoring “50 per cent of the talent”.
She accepted the idea might cause anger in Tory associations opposed to the shortlists, but said the party could not let the number of female MPs fall again.
It comes after Ed Miliband last week highlighted how there was not a single woman sitting on the Coalition front bench at Prime Minister’s Questions.
Baroness Jenkin told the Standard: “If the number of women MPs ends up retreating at the next election... we need to be considering all the options.
“That includes all-women shortlists, but also other things like postal ballots and primaries.”
Baroness Jenkin launched the Women2Win movement in 2005 with Theresa May to get more Tory women into Parliament. Since then the number of Tory women MPs has increased from 17 at the 2005 general election to 49 in 2010.
She said: “If you want to look and sound contemporary... you can’t deny 50 per cent of the talent.”
