FORGET party political debates and the concerns of constituents, Janet Anderson has revealed the biggest challenge facing the country's female MPs is the battle for the ladies' loos.

The MP for Darwen and Rossendale was speaking at a gathering of East Lancashire businesswoman about the tough life of being a female MP in the gentleman's club that is the House of Commons.

And she revealed to the conference, at Ewood Park, the toil of finding a toilet and how she has battled to keep her private life private.

Janet started off as Blackburn MP Barbara Castle's secretary.

But she revealed that it was not all plain sailing having her daughter Katie forced into hiding as the press hounded the family when her marriage to corporate lawyer Vincent Humphreys broke up in 1998.

This followed a political storm when, as Shadow Minister for Women, she gave an interview to the Daily Telegraph which resulted in an October 1996 headline saying 'Women to be More Promiscuous Under Labour.'

However she said she was determined that women should continue to make their way at Westminster and that now there were more than 100 female MPs, the House of Commons was a better place.

Mrs Anderson was speaking at a conference staged by Unique, the self-help network for women entrepreneurs, entitled A Woman in a Man's World which also featured tips on how to survive in the corporate jungle, from I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here survivor Toyah Wilcox.

The singer and actress .who had 13 top 40 singles in her 18-year career, spoke about how women could make the best of their qualities to succeed in the male-dominated world of business.

Other speakers included Tricia Calway, the first North West Women's Champion, and Alwin Thompson, chief executive of Blackburn's Inter Link Foods, the reigning Lancashire Evening Telegraph Business of the Year.

Mrs Anderson said when she first went to Westminster to work for the late Baroness Castle in 1974 when there were 27 female MPs (4.7 per cent of the total) and there were two Lady Members Rooms, one used by Labour and one for the Tories, although there was a cross-over as only one of them had an iron, ironing board and hair dryer.

She said Baroness Castle had to fight hard to get one of the bedrooms on the Cabinet corridor turned into a ladies' toilet, of which there were only a handful.