A record number of female MPs have been elected to the House of Commons.

Despite the fact there were no female candidates in 11% of seats, 220 women have won seats in parliament, with one constituency still yet to declare. 

Among those to win a seat was Kate Griffiths, the estranged wife of an ex-Tory minister who was involved in a sexting scandal. 

Griffiths held Burton for the Conservatives, increasing the party’s majority by almost 4,500. 

The previous record number of female MPs was set during the 2017 election, when 208 were elected.

But this election night saw a number of high-profile women lose their seats in the Commons, including Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson. 

Swinson – who was the MP for East Dunbartonshire 2005 to 2015 and 2017 to 2019 – lost her seat to the Scottish National Party by fewer than 150 votes. 

Meanwhile, Labour’s Laura Pidcock – who had been spoken about as a potential successor to Jeremy Corbyn as party leader – failed to be re-elected in Durham North West in a tightly-fought contest between Labour and the Conservatives.  

Luciana Berger was also overlooked by constituents in Finchley and Golders Green, who re-elected Conservative candidate Mike Freer. 

Berger, who was the Labour MP for Liverpool Wavertree for nine years, stood in the London constituency after joining the Lib Dems earlier this year. 

She defected from Labour in February after describing the party as “institutionally anti-Semitic”, joining the newly-formed Change UK. She moved on to the Lib Dems four months later. 

The election saw a record 1,124 women stand as candidates, with Barking, Chippenham, Llanelli and Telford all having all-female ballots. 

More than half of Labour’s candidates were women (335 of 631), making it the only party with equal, or better-than-equal, representation for women. 

According to the BBC, of the SNP’s 59 candidates, 20 were women – about 34%.

Meanwhile, 31% of Lib Dem candidates (188 of 611) and 30% of Conservative candidates (192 of 635) were women.