Leadership for Inclusion: What Skill and Qualities Do Parliamentarians Need to Be Able to Promote Inclusive Change?

Strong democracies need legislation and policies which recognise, measure and plan for the specific needs of, and impacts on, all citizens. In particular for people who have been, and are minoritised and marginalised, legislation and policy are needed that improves and secures their rights. However, political leadership is essential for inclusive legislative change to be successfully realised. We define inclusive legislative change as legislation and policy which has explicitly recognised, measured and planned for the specific needs of, or impacts on marginalised groups, and improves and/or secures the rights for these groups. Whilst the scope of inclusive legislation is broad, in this report we look at gender, LGBTQ+ and disability related legislation and rights. Research has demonstrated the structural barriers to progress for inclusive change at the institutional level (e.g., evidence, resources, etc). However, there is far less evidence on the skills and qualities that political leaders utilise to support inclusive legislative change, particularly at the parliamentary leve