Number of women in UK cabinet falls

The move decreases the chance of David Cameron being able to fulfil his pledge to have women in a third of the ministerial positions by the end of this government term. When he became leader of the Tory party, Mr Cameron called the lack of women in government a “scandalous under-representation.” However, the departure of party chairman Baroness Warsi and Welsh Secretary Cheryl Gillan will exacerbate the Conservative party’s problem with female voters. The resignation last month of Louise Mensch, one of the most high profile Tory MPs, because she and her husband were “unable to make the balancing act work for our family” was a further blow. Three of the four women remaining in the Cabinet – Theresa Villiers, Theresa May and Justine Greening – do not have children. Miss Greening was moved from the influential Transport role to the Department for International Development. Yvette Cooper, the Shadow Home Secretary and Minister for Women & Equalities, attacked the move, saying that Mr Cameron had a "blind spot when it comes to women." She pointed out that in Mr Cameron's first cabinet five out of 29 were women, but in his new government there are only five women out of 31. "Time and again, David Cameron has shown he fails to understand the pressures on women and families across the country. This Government has repeatedly attacked women and families - taking twice as much in tax and benefit changes from women as from men," said Miss Cooper. "Women's voices at the cabinet table have been weakened even further by David Cameron's reshuffle, and women across the country will lose out as a result." Maria Miller, the former under-secretary at the Department for Work and Pensions, replaced Jeremy Hunt as Culture Secretary. Ceri Goddard, Chief Executive of the Fawcett Society, criticised the reshuffle, saying the Prime Minister had chosen to further marginalise women’s influence on politics. “The failure to increase the number of women around the top table of politics also sends a message to other walks of life that excluding women from positions of power is acceptable,” she said. The Liberal Democrats also lack any senior women, with no female Lib Dems in the Cabinet. Sarah Teather, a junior education minister, was axed and replaced with David Laws during the reshuffle. Last year, Mr Cameron had to apologise after telling one female MP that he knew she was “extremely frustrated” and another to "calm down, dear" during a Commons exchange. Women MPs have begun privately to complain about the “blokey culture” being fostered by Mr Cameron at the top of government. Katie Ghose, from the Counting Women In group, which campaigns for equal representation of men and women in government, is not happy about the decline in the number of female cabinet ministers from five to four. She says: "We cannot go on like this in the 21st Century, where we have decisions being made and yet we ignore the views, the experiences, the wishes of half the population."