Party People: How should the Political Parties select their Parliamentary Candidates?

The panel

• Sarah Wollaston MP - Conservative Member for Totnes, elected by the first ever postal primary election in the UK, with a 25% turnout.
• Baroness Sal Brinton - former parliamentary candidate, Chair of the Diversity Engagement Group, Liberal Democrat Party.
• Richard Angell - Deputy Director, Progress - Labour's Progressives
• Andrew Adonis, Director, Institute for Government

At this event the Institute for Government launched its report "Party People: How do - and how should - British political parties select their parliamentary candidates?", which presents the findings of a research project on candidate selection, kindly funded by the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust and with input from Progress, IPPR, Policy Exchange and Centre Forum.

This event follows a series of similar events at the three party conferences, at which the Institute published a discussion paper on ‘What works in candidate selection?'.

How should the Political Parties select their Parliamentary Candidates?

"MPs are not chosen by 'the people' - they are chosen by their local constituency parties: thirty-five men in grubby raincoats or thirty-five women in silly hats." (Sir Humphrey Appleby, Yes Minister)

A majority of MPs are elected in "safe seats", where the chance of any other party winning are slight. In such places, it is at the preceding candidate selection stage within political parties that the MP is in effect chosen.

Recognising the importance of candidate selection, all three major political parties have reformed the way in which they choose their candidates. The parties' main objectives in reforming their selection processes have been to improve the diversity of MPs and to open out candidate selection processes beyond party members to the wider public.

Specific innovations have included primary elections, gender quotas, Labour's all-women shortlists, the Conservatives' A-List, and the Liberal Democrat "Leadership Programme" for candidates from under-represented groups. The coalition has also committed to funding 200 postal primary elections across all parties before the next election.

On Monday 14 November, the Institute for Government hosted a cross-party discussion to discuss these developments and to address the question of how the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat Parties should select their parliamentary candidates for the 2015 election.

More information

• Download the report Party People: How should the Political Parties select their Parliamentary Candidates?