Women Members of Parliament

This briefing paper provides a list of all the women who have ever been elected to the House of Commons, since the passage of the Parliament (Qualification of Women) Act 1918, which allowed women to stand as parliamentary candidates from 1918.

Following the 2019 General Election, of the 650 seats in the House of Commons, 220 were held by women MPs. At that time, this was the highest number of women MPs ever to sit at the same time in the House of Commons.

Since the General Election, Dame Cheryl Gillan has died and Tracy Brabin stood down, following her election as the first Mayor West Yorkshire. But four new women MPs have won by-elections:

• Jill Mortimer, in Hartlepool, on 6 May 2021; 
• Anum Qaisar-Javed, in Airdrie and Shotts, on 13 May 2021; 
• Sarah Green in Chesham and Amersham, on 17 June 2021; and
• Kim Leadbeater, in Batley and Spen, on 1 July 2021.

So, the total number of women MPs has reached a new record of 222.

In total, since 1918, there have been 556 women MPs.

This list provides the names of the women MPs in order of first election, the party they were first elected for, the constituency or constituencies they represented and the dates during which they sat as MPs.

In 2018, to mark the 60th anniversary of the first female life peer, the House of Lords Library compiled a list of current and former female peers. The note has been updated since then:

• House of Lords Library, Lords Membership: List of Current and Former Female Peers, LLN-2018-0014.