All three leadership contenders sign up to Reflecting Britain

10.22.08am UTC (GMT +0000) Thu 2nd Feb 2006

All three leadership contenders support the current efforts and will continue to support the efforts of the diversity campaigns within the Liberal Democrats

All three Liberal Democrat leadership contenders have accepted the Reflecting Britain leadership challenge and pledged to support the party's Gender Balance and Ethnic Minority Election Task Forces.

Chris Huhne commented:

"I have made the equalities issue - for women, ethnic minorities and the gay community - a key priority of my campaign. I was the only candidate to mention the problem at the first hustings at the London School of Economics, and I was proud that exactly half of the parliamentarians who backed me at first were women including Sandra Gidley, Lynne Featherstone and Susan Kramer."

Ming Camphell commented:

"Liberal Democrats have been at the forefront in promoting equality and anti-discrimination legislation since 1965. However we have not achieved fair representation in our party for women and ethnic minorities, nor indeed for other under-represented groups such as disabled people and young people. We cannot be at ease with ourselves until our Party is reflective of our diverse communities."

Simon Hughes commented:

"I have always supported the Ethnic Minority Liberal Democrats and actively challenged the lack of Black and Minority representation both externally and internally to the Party. I have consistently supported and will continue to support the work of the Gender Balance Task Force and believe that we should support, guide, headhunt and mentor more women and Black and Minority members so that they can be candidates for our Party."

Co-ordinator of the Reflecting Britain campaign Candy Piercy added:

"We are delighted that Chris, Ming and Simon have pledged to actively support the Liberal Democrat's work to make our Parliamentary Party more reflective of modern Britain. It is vital that the new leader makes this issue a priority.

"We will continue to campaign over the next few weeks in order to raise the profile of the issue within the party and will ask the leadership contenders to help us with this. We are also keen to

encourage as many party members as possible to consider applying to get approved as a candidate. With the party's top target seats currently starting to select their candidates for the next general election, now is the perfect time for people to put their names forward."

The Reflecting Britain's website can be found at http://www.reflectingbritain.org.uk

For more information, a quote or an interview, please phone James Graham on 07956 487515 or Candy Piercy on 07976 968892.