Last week saw the first major reshuffle of the government since the election in 2019. Of course, there have been a number of minor changes, as individual ministers have issues they need to deal with, but this is the first time Boris Johnson has made a significant change to the ministerial team.

I found myself remarkably untroubled by telephone calls from No10 whilst the reshuffle went on. I adored being a minister and when I was asked to move on to make way for a more diverse and younger generation of ministers, I was bitterly disappointed. But minsters are required to sign up to 35 hours per week working in their departments, and I have found, as I make way through my second decade as Wyre Forest’s MP, that I much prefer the work of looking after constituents and making changes where I choose.

The reshuffle did achieve its objectives. We now have the most diverse government in history and, I am told, in the EU. With 40 out of 82 ministers being women, this proportion far exceeds that of the 1 in 4 female members of Parliament. Half the Great Offices of State (Prime Minister, Chancellor, Foreign, and Home Secretaries) are women. I don’t get any sense, though, that any woman was promoted out of tokenism. In the same way as the 2016 leadership contest, when we chose the two best candidates for leader as women, these new ministers are strong and talented individuals. I look forward to working with them all.

This is all in strange contrast to the opposition party. Labour have always been ahead of Conservatives with recruiting women MPs, but one finds herself embroiled in a row, advised to stay away from their conference due to concerns over her safety. Rosie Duffield MP is the victim of sustained abuse for her views on gender. This is not a one off. Luciana Berger had to bring security to her conference a few years ago, giving credibility to the accusation that Labour had an antisemitism problem.

This is all important. The reality is that only a third of people coming forward to be MPs are women. I use to co-chair the Conservative Party’s Women2Win campaign and we fund that the most frequent reason given for women not coming forward was abuse.

No one should feel intimidated from being an elected representative, especially not from within their own party. It is high time this was dealt with.