Record number of women to stand in General Election next month

More women than ever are set to stand in the General Election next month.

Labour has set a record with more than 50 per cent of its candidates being women, which is a historic first for any major political party in the UK.

By contrast, about three in 10 of those standing for the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats are women.

Two of the smaller parties – the Greens and the SNP – have higher levels of female representation than both the Tories and the Lib Dems put together.

According to provisional analysis collated by PA news agency, 1,120 female candidates have registered to stand – making up 34 per cent of the total.

And while there is still some way to go for women to be given equal representation, this is the highest proportion of female candidates ever in a general election.

Figures have continued to climb from 215 which saw just 26 per cent, while 2017 saw this rise to 29 per cent.

Labour is fielding 631 candidates in this election – which does not include the newly elected Speaker, Lindsay Hoyle – and 333 of these are women, making up 53 per cent of candidates.

The overall number of candidates in December’s poll is currently 3,322, which is a slight increase from 3,304 who stood in 2017.

However, this number could change over the next few days.

For Labour, the number of female candidates has seen a big jump from 42 per cent from the 2017 election.

For the Conservatives, 190 of their 635 candidates standing in this election are women, making a total of 30 per cent – this is a small increase on the last election of 29 per cent.

Of the 611 Lib Dem candidates, 188 (31 per cent) are women – up from 29 per cent last time.

The Greens have 498 candidates and 204 (41 per cent) are women, while the 20 of the SNP’s 59 candidates are women – 34 per cent.

Meanwhile, exactly a quarter of Plaid Cymru’s candidates are women: nine out of 36.

Female candidates comprise just 54 of the Brexit Party’s total of 275, or 20 per cent.