More LGBT+ MPs than ever before

Since 2017, I’ve been keeping track of the number of LGBT+ MPs that have a seat in the UK Parliament.

I started doing this to help me at work but since then this dataset has been used by news outlets like the BBC and Sky News, by academics at institutions like the London School of Economics, and by governmental organisations like the Equality and Human Rights Commission and United Nations Development Programme. Open data, for the win!

On 4 July 2024, the UK went to the polls for its most recent General Election. On 5 July, the results started rolling in and new MPs were returned to the House of Commons.

This is what we know about the composition of Parliament today:

More than 10% of MPs are LGBT+

Of the 650 MPs returned, 71 of them are openly lesbian, gay, bisexual or trans, or have another minority sexual orientation or gender identity (LGBT+). (Though I should note that, whilst we have had a trans MP in the past, there appear to be no trans or non-binary MPs in this Parliament).

By “openly LGBT+”, I mean that there is a trustworthy publicly available source to verify that they are definitely LGBT+. This might be a public statement from the person, or an interview they’ve done, or other reporting from a reputable journalistic or academic source. The dataset includes the sources, so you can look at them yourself.

At more than 10% of MPs, there are more than 3 times more LGBT+ people in the Commons than you would expect based on the demographics of the national population.¹

Most LGBT+ MPs are from the Labour Party

Of the 411 MPs elected for the Labour Party at this election, 56 of them are LGBT+. That’s more than 13% of the Parliamentary Labour Party and more than double the number of LGBT+ MPs Labour had at the start of the previous Parliament.

Of the remaining 239 MPs elected in other parties:

• 8 Liberal Democrat MPs are LGBT+
• 5 Conservative MPs are LGBT+
• 1 Green MP is LGBT+
• 1 SNP MP is LGBT+

The most LGBT+ MPs ever

Whilst initially it appeared there had been a slight reduction in the number of MPs elected to Parliament this time around had decreased; the number has actually gone up!

Over the past few weeks, half a dozen or so volunteers — people I don’t know but have popped up on GitHub — have offered up public sources to evidence that there are even more MPs who are LGBT+.

The dataset is now up to date reflecting that. (And if you know of any we’ve missed, please do let me know!)

See the detail

The full list of LGBT+ MPs from this Parliament is available online at www.lgbt.mp.