Tag Archives: job sharing

Tom Brake writes… Job sharing for MPs – an idea whose time has come

There’s something about our system of electing one person to represent one, relatively small part of the country which makes MPs very territorial. Their constituency is “their patch” on which no one else must trespass, and by extension we all find ourselves utterly consumed by the job.

The consequence is that politics becomes available only to people who are able to give themselves to it to the exclusion of all else. Working age women in particular have been seen to self-select out of the job, and many more simply never enter it. Westminster hand-wrings often about …

Posted in Op-eds | 12 Comments

Job-share MPs: what Lib Dem members think

Lib Dem Voice polled our members-only forum recently to discover what Lib Dem members think of various political issues, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. Some 650 party members have responded, and we’re publishing the full results.

reformIt has been proposed the Liberal Democrats should be able to allow job-share candidates to stand on a joint ticket for election to Parliament to open up the role of MP to a wider group of people than at present. If elected, agreed protocols around voting, serving on select committees and other

Posted in LDV Members poll | Also tagged | 11 Comments

Job shares for MPs?

reformIt seems that journalists in the national media now make time to read Liberal Democrat policy consultation papers, even before they are discussed at Conference.

Following the Mail’s rant about the so-called ‘jewelry tax‘ (from the Tax Policy consultation paper), we now have a more reasoned appraisal by the Guardian of one of the proposals in the consultation paper on Political and Constitutional Reform.

This major consultation is very wide ranging, and begins thus:

Our recent policy on constitutional and political reform has tended to focus on altering the democratic structures of the United Kingdom. We have sought pluralism in our electoral system, strength and legitimacy in our Parliament, and radical decentralisation of power to national, regional and local institutions.

Posted in News | Also tagged , and | 20 Comments

Opinion: Job share MPs – an idea whose time has come

As regular LDV readers may know, I’ve long advocated the idea of allowing candidates to put themselves forward for election on a job-share basis (letting constituents decide whether they want to elect job-share MPs). Today a Bill making this possible will be presented to the House of Commons.

The Representation of the People (Members’ Job Share) Bill will be introduced as a Private Member’s Bill by Labour MP John McDonnell. It will be interesting to see how much cross-party support the Bill gets. Individual Lib Dems have certainly been sympathetic to its aims. Mark Williams MP tabled an Early Day Motion …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , and | 16 Comments

Opinion: Cross-Party Support for Job-Sharing

What do Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn, the Conservatives’ Peter Bottomley and our own Jenny Willott have in common? They’ve all signed up to this Early Day Motion tabled by Liberal Democrat MP for Ceredigion, Mark Williams.

Mark’s motion welcomes a recent report, Job-Sharing at Senior Level: Making It Work, highlighting that job-sharing can stem the ‘female brain drain’ by enabling more women to progress into senior roles while combining work with family. It notes a striking finding that 80% of highly qualified women wish to work part-time and calls on the Government to consider the implications of this in the context of …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , and | 8 Comments
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