Welsh Labour to appoint woman as deputy leader in 2018

A woman will be appointed as Welsh Labour’s newly-created deputy leader.

Baroness Anita Gale, shadow minister for women and equalities in the House of Lords, said it was to address gender imbalance at the top of the party.

The Welsh party does not have a deputy at present and a vote is set to be held at the party conference in April.

Baroness Gale said: “We have to have a gender balanced leadership and at least one of the leadership team has to be a woman.”

“There are big barriers there for women – we try to overcome those barriers but I think all parties have a big problem with selecting women candidates,” Baroness Gale told BBC Wales’ Sunday Supplement programme.

She said rules on who would be eligible to stand and how the election will be fought would be decided at the Welsh Labour conference.

This means the deputy could be an AM, MP or possibly a councillor.

Some efforts by Welsh Labour to increase the number of women in politics have been met with resistance.

Peter Law left Labour in protest and stood as an independent candidate, defeating Labour’s Maggie Jones.

Labour persisted with this approach and in the 2015 general election, the candidates for Swansea East and Cynon Valley were chosen from a list of women.