ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the traditionally unrepresentative pattern of the social characteristics of MPs, notes changes in them over time and examines attempts to make MPs more representative, particularly of a more proportionate balance between the sexes and of ethnic diversity. The central consideration in a parliament being 'representative' is its political representativeness: the requirement that the composition of the elected legislature conforms to the political choices of the voters. Demographic representation, also referred to as descriptive representation, involves a parliament being representative in the sense that its members comprise a microcosm of the population. The professionalisation of politics has been assisted by increasing specialisation in all occupations. The justice argument claims that women's absence from elected political forums is evidence of a prima facie case of injustice that should be redressed. The social characteristics of Conservative and Labour MPs were transformed across the nine decades following the achievement of full adult franchise in 1929.
