More than 200 women have been voted into the House of Commons, in a historic high for female MPs.
The number of female MPs rose from 191 in the 2015 election and surpassed the 196 MPs elected during the course of the last parliament, including by-elections. There are now 207 women in Parliament, an increase of 10 as a result of the General Election.
Overall 32 per cent of MPs are female but with variations between the parties. For Labour the figure is 45 per cent, and 21 per cent for the Conservatives.
Of those voted in Amber Rudd, the Home Secretary, held her seat of Hastings and Rye. Caroline Lucas held her Brighton Pavilion seat for the Green Party.
Furthermore, Labour’s Preet Kaur Gill became the first female Sikh MP after winning the Birmingham Edgbaston seat.
2015 marked a year where the total number of female MPs in history surpassed the number of male MPs in a single parliament (454).
Constance Markievicz was the first woman elected in 1918 following the Parliament (Qualification of Women) Act, allowing women to stand as candidates. However, she was a member of Sinn Fein and did not take her seat in the Commons.
Conservative Nancy Astor was the first woman to take her seat in the Commons after she won a by-election in 1919 for the Plymouth Sutton constituency.
In further news, Conservative Philip Davies was re-elected to his Shipley seat despite the Leader of the Women’s Equality Party, Sophie Walker, having launched an election campaign to oust him.
He won the West Yorkshire seat with more than 4,500-votes more that his Labour rival Steve Clapcote.
Walker launcher her campaign against Davies following his attempts to derail legislation aimed at protecting women and girls from male violence after his comments over “feminist zealots” exaggerate their gender inequalities.
When she kicked off her campaign Walker said: “Shipley deserves an MP that will represent the needs and interests of all its constituents, instead of one who spends constituency time on a self-indulgent anti-women campaign.”
Walker won 1.9 per cent of the vote with 1,040 ballots cast for her. Clapcote won 22,736 votes, but Davies finished with more than 4,500 over Clapcote.
The Liberal Democrat candidate Caroline Jones secured 2,202 votes.
