ABSTRACT
Constitutional reform in the United Kingdom and the creation of national-regional assemblies in Wales and Scotland has seen significant progress made towards ending the earlier marginalisation of women in politics. The first elections to the National Assembly in 1999 resulted in Wales’s swift progression from a country with a lamentably poor record of electing women as political representatives to being the UK polity with the highest proportion of women parliamentarians. Following elections in 2003, further progress was made when the Welsh Assembly became the first national government body in the world to achieve gender parity among its elected representatives. A recent UK government report summarised recent developments:
devolution has provided a new political settlement in Scotland and Wales, creating new contexts within which work on equality and human rights must operate. The different political, social and cultural environments, and the provisions for promoting equality of opportunity within the Scotland Act and the Government of Wales Act will have important implications for these nations.2
