Intersectionality, NGOs and executives: who has which minister’s ear?

To what extent do the most powerful political office-holders engage with extra-parliamentary representatives from the most marginalised groups? To what extent and how are these relationships intersectional? In order to answer these questions, this article offers a novel analysis of over 78,000 UK government ministerial meetings and 293 equalities organisations. The findings show that white male ministers engage least with equalities organisations, and minoritised women engage most, even when controlling for additional factors. Additionally, women’s organisations enjoy far greater access than those focused on race, or those led by and for intersectionally marginalised groups. This matters because NGOs play a critical role in constituting the interests of marginalised groups: a necessary pre-condition for the substantive parliamentary representation of those interests. The relationship is particularly important in relation to executives, where the small number of roles offers limited opportunities for descriptive representation, but exceptional powers of substantive representation.