2015 United Kingdom Parliament Election - Number of women in UK Parliament rises by a third

 

In another major change to Britain’s political landscape, the number of women in Parliament has risen by about a third.

About 29 % of MPs are women - up from 23 % before the May 7 election to the 650-member House of Commons, representing the largest increase since 1997

The proportion of female Conservative and Labour MPs has increased, despite an overall fall in the number of Labour MPs.

The ruling Conservatives has 68 women MPs now compared to 47 in 2010. The Labour has 99 woman lawmakers compared to 87 last time.

But the biggest rise in female representation in the Commons came from the Scottish National Party, which now has 20 female MPs, up from just one.

All seven Liberal Democratic women who were MPs in the last Parliament have lost their jobs

Note

For many decades, female MPs made up less than 5%

This reached double digits for the first time under Margaret Thatcher in 1987, but shot up as a consequence of Labour’s 1997 landslide, when Tony Blair’s party increased its number of female MPs by 173 %.

Before the election, the regions of the UK with the highest proportions of female MPs were north-east England, London and north-west England.