The Parliament in Britain

Firstly, there are two Houses of Parliament in britain which are the House of Commons and the House of Lords. Both of them have a big power, but the House of Commons has more power than the House of Lords because the House of Commons decides the national policy but the House of Lords not.

MPs is the Members of Parliament and each one represents a geographical area, In the United Kingdom, there are 659 constituencies, 529 in England, 72 in Scotland, 40 in Wales and 18 in Northern Ireland. The size of them depend on the density of population to each area, so they are not all the same geographical size.
It is essentail to poll and choose a MP, So when there is a general election,  people start advocating to the candidate who is in their eyes. Than people vote for a person to be the MP for their constituency. Whole vote system is called "first past the post", it is easy to understand, who got more vote, who could become the MP. After the general election, a political party with most MPs forms will be set up.


In addition, I have done some research about women MPs:

Election year	Female MPs	%	Con	Lab	Lib	Others	Candidates
1945	24	3.8	1	21	1	1	87
1950	21	3.4	6	14	1	-	127
1951	17	2.7	6	11	-	-	77
1955	24	3.8	10	14	-	-	92
1959	25	4	12	13	-	-	81
1964	29	4.6	11	18	-	-	90
1966	26	4.1	7	19	-	-	81
1970	26	4.1	15	10	-	1	99
1974 (Feb)	23	3.6	9	13	-	1	143
1974 (Oct)	27	4.3	7	18	-	2	161
1979	19	3	8	11	-	-	216
1983	23	3.5	13	10	-	-	280
1987	41	6.3	17	21	2	1	329
1992	60	9.2	20	37	2	1	571
1997	120	18.2	13	101	3	3	672
2001	118	17.9	14	95	5	4	636
2005	128	20	17	98	10	3	720
2010	143	22	49	81	7	6	861

This chart shows that the women MPs & parliamentary candidates since 1945, so there are 143 women MPs now in 2010.



The first female MP in Britian is called Janet 'Jennie'  Lee who was born in 1904, she was elected to Parliament as Labour MP for North Lanarkshire in March 1929 when she was 24 years old. Unfortunately,

Resourse:
http://www.ukpolitical.info/FemaleMPs.htm

http://www.parliament.uk/mps-lords-and-offices/mps/

http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/parliamentary-archives/archives-highlights/archives-the-suffragettes/archives-the-first-women-in-parliament-1919-1945/