Women will lose out in Labour’s response to the boundary changes, as new internal rules and changing demographics inadvertently conspire against them.

I want to start by saying that the Labour party has been put in an invidious position. The reduction in MPs and ensuing boundary changes are going to create such upheaval there was never going to be a perfect way to sort the mess out.

But the process which has been agreed focuses on finding sitting MPs a seat ahead of every other consideration: a sitting MP who doesn’t have a territorial claim to a seat will, at the very least, be given automatic shortlisting rights in seats where an MP retires. This really does put the party at risk of going backwards on women’s representation. NEC members have said retirements should sort this issue out – and result in an increase of the proportion if not number of Labour women MPs. But the evidence makes this claim shaky at best.

At worst we could undo the best part of two decades of painstaking work to increase women’s representation in parliament.

The tiered process, through territorial claim, NEC judgement on territorial claim, closed shortlist and automatic shortlisting rights, excludes All-women shortlists until every sitting MP that wants a seat in the next parliament has one or at least a chance to go for one that we notionally hold.

Women currently make up 31 per cent of the parliamentary Labour party. We have more women MPs than all the other parties combined. The introduction of All-women shortlists, originally in 1993, caused a jump in women’s representation in 1997 and further incremental increases in 2005 and 2010.

This won’t happen this time because incumbency trumps everything else. Given nearly 70 per cent of our MPs are men, it’s self-evident that the party can no longer ensure 50 per cent of new candidates in seats where an MP has retired are selected on all-women shortlists. In 2001 there were no all-women shortlists and the number of women MPs fell.

So could the number of retirements resolve the issue in any case?

Last year saw a record 148 MPs hand in their parli pass for good. 100 of these were Labour MPs. Obviously expenses accounted for a good number of premature retirements in all parties but as ever the prospect of defeat after a period of government also encouraged some to ‘seek new challenges’ earlier than they otherwise might have. Neither is going to be a factor for Labour in 2015.

In fact, last year’s very high number of retirements could see a lower than usual turnover next time – particularly if it looks like Labour could win.

The number of retirements at each election is normally below 80 across parliament and often even fewer. Even at the upper end, we’d only expect to see 30-35 Labour MPs stand down. Democratic Audit‘s boundary calculations showed Labour would lose 18 of the 50 seats to be scrapped.

Although we know Democratic Audit won’t be spot on, their assessment is instructive – a 15 to 20 seat loss for Labour seems to be the agreed ball park. At the very best we could expect around 15-20 seats to become available where a current MP doesn’t claim at least a shortlisting right. And this is the absolute best case scenario. In reality, given so many people who might’ve normally been expected to retire in 2015 have probably already gone, it could actually be just a handful.

To start to redress the balance the NEC could say that all of the remaining seats where an MP stands down and no sitting MP stakes a claim are going to be all-women shortlists – as yet they haven’t.

In addition, there’s no evidence that retirements in and of themselves will help improve the proportion of women in the PLP. The thesis is: the older the MP the more likely they are to retire and the less likely they are to be women. While it’s true that women’s representation gets better as age decreases the numbers aren’t compelling. There are 30 Labour MPs who will be 70 or older at the next election, six of them (20 per cent) are women. Obviously not all of them will retire so with numbers so small one retirement either way will dictate whether either gender is disproportionately represented.

There’s then a much larger number of MPs who will be between 60 and 70 at the next election, but, as I said above, the proportion of women increases as age decreases. This makes it more likely that women will be among those who retire from this group.

Since the boom year of 1997, even with all-women shortlists we’ve only seen women’s representation increase of a few percentage points each time. And as I said at the beginning, the absence of all-women shortlists in 2001 saw a drop in the number of women.

We’re the only party that has ever taken this issue seriously. If Labour lets the momentum go, it lets the other parties off the hook. But worse, the legislation that allows all-women shortlists has a sunset clause. It’s 2015. It’s possible that these could be the last set of elections that allow us to take positive action to address the woeful underrepresentation of women in parliament. We shouldn’t squander it just because the Tories are trying to gerrymander the next election.

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Sarah Hayward is cabinet member for communities, regeneration and equalities on Camden council

Photo: James Bridle