All political parties may be forced to set quotas to boost the number of women and ethnic minority people in their ranks, it has emerged.

A cross-party review by the Speaker’s Conference – an occasional body chaired by commons speaker John Bercow - has reported today after a six-month investigation into equality in Parliament. It concluded that politicians in both houses are “too white, middle class, heterosexual, male and able bodied,” and called for at least half of the new MPs entering the Commons at the next general election to be women.