How are our local parliamentary candidates going to support women and gendered issues? This was the topic of Thursday's hustings at Ruskin College, hosted by the Fawcett Society, a leading UK charity campaigning around women's issues and rights.

The fact that female candidates outnumbered their male counterparts caused a murmur of approval as the night kicked off. On the panel were Larry Sanders and Ann Duncan from the Green Party, Layla Moran from the Liberal Democrats and Sally Copley and Andrew Smith from Labour. I guess Nicola Blackwood was busy that night.

Each party delivered a five-minute opening statement before the chair opened it up to the floor for questions. In keeping with the topic of the night, the Green candidates highlighted their female-top leadership before outlining policies to ban zero-hour contracts, create shared maternity/paternity leave, a citizen's income and pension and a reversal of the government's position on the NHS.

Labour also highlighted policies that would improve the lives of women, such tax-free childcare funded by a bank tax, compulsory sex education in schools and a scrapping of Police Crime Commissioners to fund the protection of refuges. Both the Greens and Labour highlighted the rise in the gender pay gap to 19%; Labour also want businesses of over 250 workers to publish their pay gap. Labour certainly took the lead on throwing out the facts and figures: we are now seeing the most expensive rates in childcare and out of those affected by the bedroom tax, women have been hit the hardest.

Moran spent much of her opening speaking about her female role models in parliament and describing her global outlook before getting into the nitty gritty of a more progressive tax, shared parental leave and a consideration of flexible working hours in every business.

The floor was briefly sabotaged by a man demanding to know why the Fawcett Society had not included two socialist parties on the panel. As this question was not directed to the panel, it was rejected, but as white men with entitlement sometimes do, the accuser decided to carry on talking, well shouting, anyway. At least the need for a women-focused hustings was effectively highlighted.

There were no further disturbances for the rest of the evening. On education, Moran outlined life-long learning credits that would allow you to pick up education at any point in your life, as well as compulsory sex education (which the Conservative's free schools are exempt from). There was little chance of her avoiding the topic of tuition fees so she admitted to a Lib Dem failure on their promise to students, but remarked that at least students now don't start paying back their loans until they are earning over £21,000 - a point which doesn't really address the issue of 'free' education.

Labour also slightly skirted around the topic of education and instead emphasised the horrors of tax avoidance and their promise to try and prevent it. This also allowed them to take a stab at Blackwood for accepting money from a man who uses tax avoidance schemes.

The Greens are going to scrap tuition fees with a progressive tax system. So that's that.

Specific concerns over education in Oxford were not addressed, none of the candidates having much knowledge of the proposed closure of Ruskin’s Women’s Studies MA course. Similarly, talk of NHS reform was at a national level and therefore can be easily found in each party’s manifesto (the Greens’ will be available later this month/early next month) rather than me relaying it here.

A feisty discussion of housing prices in Oxford brought local concerns back into focus. The Greens are committed to building council and social housing, although Labour’s Andrew Smith claimed it is deluded of the Greens to think that urban expansion won’t extend onto the Green Belt. There is zero affordable housing planned in the Westgate development and less than the agreed percentage in the Barton and Jericho development plans. The Greens think that a bigger role for the council and a doing away with the government’s cap on the amount that councils can put into housing could start to provide a solution.

Moran thinks discontent with planning stems from the fact that planning regulations are confusing and full of grey areas. She wants to get communities involved with building in their areas in the planning stages. Moran also said that transport must be factored into development. After all, what good is the swanky new Bicester development without good transport links to the city?

As well as returning to local concerns, the discussion occasionally had to be steered back towards the topic of the hustings – what will the political parties do for women? The candidates were unanimous in recognising the importance of supporting women and girls in developing countries, in investing in childcare services, in adopting a more cumulative assessment of policies and in sustaining and supporting Oxford’s Rape Crisis Centres. They are all supporters of the No More Page 3 campaign, well, apart from Layla Moran, who couldn’t remember if she’d signed the petition or not… All agreed that women have suffered the most from cuts to benefits and Copley condemned the disgusting and harmful narrative about benefit claimants that Chancellor Osborne has helped to instil in the nation. A question about trans issues left most candidates looking uncomfortable but all agreed to learn about trans issues. Labour also proposed to strengthen laws on trans discrimination.

I hope that there will be many more of these kind of events in Oxford in the run up to the General Election, it's a great way to get to know the local candidates and learn about party policies.