Female MSPs are stepping up calls for gender balance on the Scottish parliament’s ruling body amid concerns that initial impetus for change after the revelations of sexual harassment that rocked Holyrood last month is losing momentum.

The Scottish parliamentary corporate body (SPCB), the group of MSPs that oversees the running of Holyrood, remains almost exclusively male more than a month after cross-party demands for action and one week after the parliament passed in principle a bill mandating all public boards in Scotland to be gender balanced.

The SNP MSP Jenny Gilruth, who was one of the first women to call for equal representation on the SPCB during a highly charged Holyrood debate, told the Guardian: “We need to continue the pressure to gender balance the corporate body. Stage one passed last week on mandating public boards to be gender balanced.

“But we still have week after week of ‘manels’ [male panels] giving evidence to parliamentary committees. We won’t change culture in Holyrood until the parliament takes leadership.”

Monica Lennon, the Scottish Labour MSP who revealed last month how senior party figures had joked about an incident where a powerful official assaulted her in front of colleagues, added her voice to demands for this highly symbolic rebalancing.

“Women are under-represented in the Scottish parliament and that has consequences for how parliament is run and for the decisions we make here,” she said.

“Holyrood is not immune from sexism and misogyny but we can lead by example here and a zero tolerance approach to male-dominated committees and witness panels isn’t much to ask for. Some MSPs fail to see the problem.”

The original calls for action came during an intense session of questions to the then all-male SPCB on 9 November, made by an informal cross-party coalition of mainly female MSPs that was coordinated by the SNP’s Gillian Martin and the former Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale.

The debate took place a few days after Scotland’s minister for childcare and early years, Mark McDonald, resigned his cabinet post after admitting “inappropriate” behaviour towards women. Since then, McDonald has been suspended by the SNP, while Scottish Labour suspended Alex Rowley, who stepped aside as its interim leader after his former partner made a series of claims about his behaviour during and after their relationship.

On the day of the chamber grilling, the SNP’s Gordon MacDonald resigned from the SPCB because of illness, and was immediately replaced by Sandra White. Following the debate, Andy Wightman of the Scottish Greens announced he would step down as soon as Holyrood had agreed a mechanism for more gender-balanced appointments.



The Liberal Democrats, who do not have any elected women to nominate, have said that they will adopt “whatever is parliament’s preferred mechanism”.

There is a strong expectation that Scottish Labour’s new leader, Richard Leonard, will replace the current nominee, David Stewart, with a woman when he appoints his new cabinet imminently.

Meanwhile the Scottish Conservatives have confirmed their male representative, Jackson Carlaw, will remain in post “and will be working hard to ensure that the parliament’s efforts to deal with sexual harassment and sexist behaviour more generally are maintained”.

This lack of movement has become a focus of frustration for many women MSPs and campaigners who worry that, after the first flurry of activity and two high-profile suspensions, Holyrood is in danger of returning to business as usual.

There is profound concern that, despite the launch this week of a comprehensive survey of Holyrood staff and an ongoing inquiry by the standards committee, the kind of institutional shifts necessary to embed change have yet to materialise.

The Scottish Labour veteran Jackie Baillie warned: “Early steps have been taken but there is much more to do and we are still in the position where the corporate body is nearly all male. A systemic culture change is needed across the whole organisation.”

Meanwhile Martin threw down the gauntlet to the Holyrood lobby: “I look up at the press gallery every week during FMQs and I’m lucky to see one female journalist. I don’t feel gender-based work of MSPs gets equal coverage.

“If the parliament is taking steps to address its culture then those who engage with us and write about us have a duty to reflect on their own culture.”



Talat Yaqoob, whose Women 50:50 campaign was instrumental is securing the recent legislation on public boards, argued: “Achieving gender balance on the corporate body won’t fix institutional sexism or harassment culture in Holyrood overnight, but it would be a significant statement of intent.

“Many women who work in and around Holyrood are deeply worried that, after a few high profile cases and the announcement of a survey and an inquiry, there is a sense that it’s all been dealt with. But Holyrood is still rife with casual sexism.”