Assembly Presiding Officer takes “get involved” message to women in north Wales
14 June 2012
The National Assembly for Wales’s Presiding Officer, Rosemary Butler AM, will welcome women from all over north Wales to a ‘Women in Public life Seminar’, in Caernarfon, on 21 June.
It’s part of a series of seminars taking place around Wales, and organised by the National Assembly, aimed at encouraging more women to get involved in public life.
It will take place at the Galeri, Caernarfon, between 12.30 and 14.30, and the panel will be chaired by the Galeri’s Artistic Director, Mari Emlyn.
Other members of the panel are Chair of the Women’s Institute’s Federations of Wales Committee Margaret Lloyd Jones, Professor Helen James, Pro Vice-Chancellor of Glyndwr University in Wrexham, and Nina Sardar, founder of north Wales business networking firm Free2Network.
“Throughout my time as a local councillor in Newport, the percentage of women in the council chamber was between about 10 and 20 per cent of the total council membership, which was not representative of the population,” said the Presiding Officer ahead of the event.
“At the Assembly we’ve managed to do a little better with 41.6 per cent of Members being female - at one point, a few years ago, 51.6 per cent of Assembly Members were women – a world first.
“But In recent years, however, the political parties have retreated from their previous strong positions on gender balance. There are doubtless many reasons for this, including a continuing backlash against positive measures to promote female candidates and the retirement of some of the first generation of post-devolution female politicians.
“But this demonstrates that we cannot rest on our laurels and that much more work needs to be done in encouraging more women, and young women in particular, to step up, engage and have real influence on policy making in Wales.
“That’s why we have organised this series of seminars around Wales, to encourage more women to get involved, and I hope to see as many women from the north Wales region attending our event in Caernarfon as possible.”
Any member of the public interested in attending the event should register their interest by contacting the Assembly’s booking line at Assembly.bookings@wales.gov.uk or by ringing 0845 0105500.