Vote for Abortion Rights, Child Poverty and Public Order Act as priorities

If you are a CLP delegate to Labour Party Annual Women’s Conference (AWC) you should by now have received your priorities ballot to cast your vote on the THREE topics you want to be discussed in the policy debates at this year’s Women’s Conference. The email came from womensconference@labour.org.uk on the afternoon of Thursday 21 September and the deadline for voting is 12 noon, Tuesday 26 September. The vote will be calculated according to the membership total each delegate represents for their organisation.

[Please scroll down for important information about events before and during the Women’s Conference.]

CLPs have three votes and the top three priorities voted for by CLPs will proceed to compositing and debate. The top three priorities voted for by affiliates also proceed – we understand that Women and Pensions, Equal Pay and Women in the Workplace will be prioritised by trade unions so CLPs do NOT need to vote to prioritise these important issues.

Following the result of the ballot there will be compositing – if you would like to co-ordinate with other left delegates, please get in touch via clpdwomen@gmail.com.

CLP delegates are encouraged to prioritise the following topics:

1. Abortion Rights – Currently, in England, two women are facing life imprisonment for ending their own pregnancies. Under the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act, it is a crime for a woman to end her own pregnancy outside a hospital or clinic at any gestation. The crime carries a maximum life sentence, the harshest in the world, and was passed more than 50 years before women even had the vote. Decriminalisation is a longstanding demand of the women’s and labour movement and was a pledge in the 2019 manifesto but has not been accepted as a commitment by the current Labour leadership.

2. Child Poverty – this topic heading contains motions on scrapping the two-child cap on benefits. This is a critical issue – 1.5m children live in families affected by the policy, with minority-ethnic families and single-parent families disproportionately affected. Abolishing the cap would lift 250,000 children out of poverty and reduce poverty for 850,000 more. It is a disgrace that Labour is not committed to repealing the policy, which has a particularly detrimental impact on women.

3. Public Order Act – these important motions note the restrictions placed on protest by the Tory government, and the particular impact this will have on women. It calls on the next Labour government to defend the right to protest and repeal the Public Order Act, which is not yet a commitment and really must be.

Labour’s Women’s Conference has the opportunity to have its voice heard on these key issues. Please make sure you return your ballot by 12 noon on Tuesday 26 September.

There are many other important topics that women should have the opportunity to debate – and it is good  that childcare may be discussed under women in the workplace, although a shame that CLP resolutions on this topic were not put in the same category. Had the Labour Party organised a two-day standalone women’s conference in the Spring as it should have done, we could have debated many more topics rather than being tagged back onto Annual Conference – a backwards step.