MPs are mostly white, male and well-off... according to primary school children in Bournemouth, Brighton and Manchester.

Eighty-seven pupils were asked to draw what they thought an MP looked like as part of a fun experiment for the Equality and Human Rights Commission to coincide with political party conferences.

Three in four of the portraits were of male politicians and only one boy drew a female politician.

Only eight of the portraits reflected an ethnic minority and only one of those was female.

One in three of the students identified their politician as living in a mansion or driving a luxury car.

The experiment was conducted by the commission to focus attention on gaining better representation of women, ethnic minorities, disabled people and people from a diverse range of backgrounds in parliament.

Daniel Rasti of Moordown St John’s Primary School in Bournemouth, which took part during the recent Liberal Democrat conference in the town, said: “My MP is very intelligent and he is dressed smartly. He sorts out problems and travels around to do this.

“I’ve chosen a man because I’ve never seen any women in Parliament.”

Another pupil, Chantelle Hodgson, said: “My MP looks like this because he would have to look quite posh to go to the House of Commons.”

The pupils shared their ideas with the chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, Trevor Phillips, and high-profile politicians from each of the political parties – Lib-Dem MP Lynne Featherstone, Labour MPs Anne Begg and Sadiq Khan and Conservative MP Caroline Spelman.

Mr Phillips said: “We’ve had a lot of fun admiring the work of our young political sketchers but there is a serious point to be made here at the start of the new political term. Parliament still doesn’t get top marks for representation.

“It is encouraging that the leaders of the three main political parties are making an effort to tackle these issues but they need to make more progress if our parliament is to look like the country it represents.”