*Lucas to speak of the success of her job-sharing leadership
*Lucas: Job-sharing MPs would make politics accessible for those currently locked out.
Caroline Lucas, the co-leader of the Green Party who shares her job with Jonathan Bartley, will use a speech to later today to celebrate the benefits of job-sharing.
Lucas, who has co-led her party for almost a year, will speak in favour of job-sharing for Members of Parliament. She will say that job-sharing MPs could better ‘keep a foot in their communities’. Her speech comes as the Fawcett Society launch a pamphlet on job-sharing for MPs called ‘Open House?’.
Open House? has been edited by Professor Rosie Campbell from Birkbeck and Professor Sarah Childs, formerly Bristol University and now at Birkbeck. With forewords from cross-party MPs, it brings together essays from a number of contributors to make the case for introducing MP job-sharing.
Caroline Lucas is expected to say:
“Job-sharing MPs could keep their caring responsibilities, they could keep voluntary work, they could continue part-time in their profession. It would help more women into politics, more disabled people and more people for whom being an MP is currently unimaginable and inaccessible.”
Ms Lucas will also speak of her experience job-sharing as co-leader of the Green Party, and how it reflects her party's politics.
She will say:
"The Green Party is a party of action and this felt like a very direct way to stand up for the values and policies we champion. Job sharing complements our commitment to fairly sharing wealth, sharing resources and sharing power. And whilst breaking open and democratising the political system remains critical to the Green Party’s goals, demonstrating part of what that might look like felt like an incredibly positive step to take."