The House of Representatives will elect a record 335 new MPs this week, the most in modern history.
The number of newly elected members of Parliament surpassed the previous record of 327, set in 1945, the first election in 10 years after the end of World War II.
In addition to the 335 new members, 15 more will return to Parliament after a period of recess, bringing the total number of newly elected members to 350. This figure comes from the House of Commons Library, which holds records going back to 1922.
The 1997 election elected a relatively small number of new members, 257, including some returning members after periods of absence.
The Speaker of the House of Commons has been selected, subject to Royal Assent, and will be sworn in on Tuesday. Former Speaker Lindsay Hoyle has the backing of the Labour Party and is therefore certain to be re-elected.
Immediately after the Speaker on Tuesday, lawmakers will begin taking oath in order of seniority, starting with Cabinet members.
Members of the shadow cabinet, other Privy Councillors and Cabinet ministers will then be sworn in, before MPs are called in in order of seniority, in a process that is expected to continue until Thursday.
MPs have been invited to attend an introductory session on Tuesday about security, standards, practices and how the office will be run. Labour MPs (412 in all) attended the first meeting of the new Labour parliament on Monday afternoon.
Addressing MPs at the meeting, Keir Starmer said: “People have put their trust in us for now but they are not proselytizers” and said the government had a “mission of renewal”.
The Prime Minister added: “Election victories don’t fall from the sky. They are hard won, hard earned and this victory could only have been won if the Labour Party had changed.”
Parliament will be formally opened on 17 July with a King’s Speech, which will set out government policies and legislation for the next session.
Before the election, Labour and Conservative leaders were mindful that the new MPs were likely to be relatively inexperienced: a total of 132 MPs in the last parliament chose not to stand in the upcoming election, of which 75 were Conservative members.
The new Congress broke several diversity records, including the record number of women elected. According to Commons Library figures:Women currently make up 40.5% of House of Representatives members, up from 35% at the end of the last Congress.
According to a report released by the Fawcett Society on Tuesday, for the first time ever, there are a total of 693 female MPs, enough to fill all 650 seats in the House of Commons. By party, 46% of Labour MPs are women, followed by 45% of Liberal Democrat MPs, 24% of Conservative MPs and 11% of Scottish National Party MPs.
The report found that while Sarah is currently the second most common first name in the Commons, nine of the top 10 most common names are male, with the name Chris currently taking the top spot.
Starmer’s government is the most gender-equal government in history, with 12 of the 26 ministers and council members being women.
The number of ethnic minority legislators elected reached a record high of 90, an increase of 24. Analysis of the election results by the UK Future Think Tank We found that 50 of the ethnic minority legislators are women.
Additional reporting: PA Media
