UK politics can be measured through elections, the people who contest them, the money spent on campaigns and the make-up of the institutions they produce. The figures below focus mainly on the 4 July 2024 UK general election, with historical comparisons and related representation statistics where the measurement period is different.
Contents
- The scale of the 2024 general election
- Voting, seats and election costs
- Campaign spending and election rules
- Candidate safety and political participation
- Women in the House of Commons
- Ethnic diversity in UK political institutions
The scale of the 2024 general election
The 2024 UK general election involved 4,515 candidates standing for Parliament. They came from almost 100 political parties, giving voters a field that extended well beyond the parties that usually dominate coverage. The Electoral Commission’s 2024 UK Parliamentary general election report records both the number of candidates and the breadth of party participation.
The contest also took place across a changed parliamentary map. There were new constituency boundaries for 584 seats, excluding four constituencies where only the name changed. A related Electoral Commission figure describes the election as involving 584 constituencies with new boundaries or changed electorates. These measures describe the scale of boundary and electorate change rather than a change in the total number of Commons seats.
The 2024 election returned a House of Commons of 650 Members of Parliament. That total is also recorded for the December 2019 UK Parliamentary general election in the GOV.UK publication on the costs of that election. Comparing results across elections therefore needs to separate changes in representation from changes in the size of the chamber: the Commons had 650 seats in both of these election contexts.
The 2024 contest also marked several administrative changes. It was the first UK general election to use the digital-imprints requirements introduced by the Elections Act. It was also the first UK general election to use party spending limits uprated in line with inflation. In addition, it was the first UK general election after the donation-reporting threshold changed from £7,500 to over £11,180. These are procedural milestones, not measures of turnout or party support.
Voting, seats and election costs
The GOV.UK figures for the December 2019 UK Parliamentary general election provide a useful baseline for participation and public cost. The registered electorate was 47.57 million people, and 32.28 million people cast a vote. Turnout was 67.9%.
The same GOV.UK source reports that the total paid from the UK Government’s Consolidated Fund for the costs of the December 2019 general election was £147,415,582. That is an election-cost figure for the 2019 contest, not a spending total for political parties or campaigners. Keeping those categories separate matters: public administration costs, campaign spending and donations answer different questions about politics.
| Measure | Figure | Election or period |
|---|---|---|
| Registered electorate | 47.57 million | December 2019 general election |
| Votes cast | 32.28 million | December 2019 general election |
| Turnout | 67.9% | December 2019 general election |
| MPs returned | 650 | December 2019 general election |
| Consolidated Fund cost | £147,415,582 | December 2019 general election |
| Parliamentary constituencies with new boundaries or changed electorates | 584 | 2024 general election |
The figures show why a headline about an election should identify its year and its denominator. A count of votes cast is not the same as the registered electorate, while turnout is a percentage derived from participation. Similarly, the 584 constituencies affected by new boundaries describe the 2024 electoral map, while the 650 MPs describe the size of the resulting Commons.
Campaign spending and election rules
The Electoral Commission’s general election spending release reports total spending of £94.5 million for the 2024 general election. Within that total, larger parties and campaigners that spent £250,000 or more spent £69.3 million in the year leading up to the election.
Those two figures should not be treated as interchangeable. The £94.5 million figure is the reported total spending measure for the 2024 general election, while £69.3 million is associated with larger parties and campaigners meeting the £250,000 threshold, measured over the year before the election. The threshold identifies a group within the spending data; it does not mean that £69.3 million was the entire campaign total.
The same election introduced or applied several rules that shape the political information voters encounter. Digital imprints were used for the first time at a UK general election under the Elections Act requirements. The election also used party spending limits linked to inflation, and it followed the increase in the donation-reporting threshold to over £11,180 from £7,500. The Electoral Commission’s 2024 UK Parliamentary general election report records these as changes in the regulatory environment.
The candidate pool was correspondingly broad: 4,515 people stood, representing almost 100 political parties. The number of candidates and the number of parties are participation measures. They do not indicate how many seats each party won, nor do they establish how evenly votes were distributed between parties.
Candidate safety and political participation
The Electoral Commission’s 2024 election report found substantial levels of reported concern among surveyed candidates. Fifty-five percent felt they had some kind of problem with harassment, intimidation or abuse, while 13% said they had a serious problem with abuse. Seventy percent experienced at least one of the abuse or harassment scenarios measured in the survey, and 26% experienced four different types at least once.
Some specific experiences affected about one in three candidates. One third said they were intimidated or intentionally made to feel unsafe at least once during the campaign. One third said campaign assets were torn down or destroyed at least once, and 30% said their property or campaign assets were defaced or damaged.
Fear of abuse also changed campaign behaviour. Fifty-six percent of respondents avoided some form of campaign activity at least once. Forty-four percent avoided campaigning on their own, rising to 66% among female respondents. Thirty-two percent avoided talking about or giving opinions on controversial topics to avoid harassment. The report also records that 23% avoided using social media, 20% avoided putting up campaign materials and 17% avoided attending face-to-face campaign activities at least once.
Reporting and institutional support were uneven. Only 21% of candidates who experienced abuse, harassment or intimidation reported it to the police. Among surveyed single points of contact officers, 61% said they knew where to direct candidates for advice or reporting. Fifty-three percent of responding officers said the number of reports of threats, abuse and intimidation had gone up compared with previous elections.
The Electoral Commission’s candidate-safety work with police and prosecutors included the National Police Chiefs’ Council, the College of Policing, the Crown Prosecution Service and the Police Service of Northern Ireland. These figures describe survey responses and reported experiences during the 2024 campaign; they are not a count of every incident across the UK.
Women in the House of Commons
The House of Commons Library’s 2024 women in politics insight records 263 women elected to Parliament on 4 July 2024. Women therefore held 40% of the 650 Commons seats after the election. The number of women MPs rose by 43 compared with 2019, from 220 to 263.
There were 330 MPs elected for the first time in 2024, of whom 129 were women. The House of Commons Library also reports this as 129 of 322 newly elected MPs, equal to 40%, in the relevant comparison of new MPs. Because these figures use different groupings, they should be retained as reported rather than combined into a new estimate.
Among new MPs by party, women made up 31% of new Conservative MPs, 41% of new Labour MPs and 38% of new Liberal Democrat MPs. Of the 15 former MPs who returned in 2024, 10 were women, equal to 61%.
| Election year or period | Women elected or present | Share where reported |
|---|---|---|
| 1979 | 19 | 3% of MPs |
| 1992 | 60 | — |
| 1997 | 120 | 18% of MPs |
| 2001 | 118 | — |
| 2019 | 220 | 34% of MPs |
| 2024 election | 263 | 40% of Commons |
The longer historical series shows a rise from 19 female MPs elected in 1979 to 263 in 2024. The House of Commons Library reports 60 women elected in 1992, 120 in 1997 and 118 in 2001. By May 2024, before dissolution, the House contained 226 female MPs. Since 1918, a total of 693 women have been elected to the House of Commons.
The 2024 post-election figures also show party differences in the representation of women. Labour had 190 female MPs, equal to 46% of its female MPs measure as reported by the House of Commons Library; the Liberal Democrats had 32 female MPs, equal to 44% of Liberal Democrat MPs; and the Conservatives had 29 female MPs, equal to 24% of Conservative MPs. These percentages use each party’s relevant parliamentary total, not the full Commons.
Ethnic diversity in UK political institutions
The House of Commons Library’s ethnic diversity briefing states that 16% of the UK population was from a minority ethnic background in 2024/25. In the briefing’s 2021 comparison, the minority ethnic population share ranged from 3% in Northern Ireland to 19% in England. These are population measures for specified periods and geographies, not estimates of voter behaviour.
Following the 2024 general election, an estimated 90 MPs, or 14%, were from minority ethnic backgrounds. If the Commons mirrored the UK’s ethnic makeup, it would have about 104 MPs from minority ethnic backgrounds instead of 90. The word “estimated” is important: the comparison is a representation benchmark, not a direct census of every characteristic of every MP.
Of the 90 minority-ethnic MPs, 66 represented Labour, 15 represented the Conservatives and five represented the Liberal Democrats. The figures identify party representation within the reported group; they do not account for all parties separately in the supplied breakdown.
The same briefing gives figures for devolved and London institutions. In the Scottish Parliament, six of 129 members, or 4.5%, were from minority ethnic backgrounds. In the Senedd Cymru, three of 60 members, or 5%, were from minority ethnic backgrounds. In the Northern Ireland Assembly, none of the 90 members were recorded as being from a minority ethnic group. The Mayor of London plus seven of the 25 London Assembly members were from minority ethnic backgrounds, equal to 28% of the Assembly.
Workforce figures provide further context, although they measure public-sector staff rather than elected politicians. In NHS England, 32% of staff reported being from a minority ethnic background in 2025. The corresponding figure for doctors was 50%, including 33% from an Asian background. Eighteen percent of nurses were from an Asian background in 2025. In England, 24% of social workers were from minority ethnic backgrounds in September 2022, including 13% from a Black background.