Theresa May and Ruth Davidson bid to boost women candidate numbers for Tories

Theresa May will join forces with Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson to encourage more women to become candidates for the party.

The Prime Minister said that having more women in positions in power could help better decisions get taken.

The Tory leader spoke out ahead of the launch of Women2Win Scotland, which aims to encourage more females north of the border to put themselves forward for election.

Mrs May co-founded Women2Win in 2005 as part of Tory efforts to get more females into Parliament, with the Scottish branch of the campaign being launched at the Conservative Party conference in Glasgow.

She said: I am determined to build a country that works for everyone and that means bringing change to politics too.

Having more women and a diverse range of people in positions of power means better decisions get taken and ordinary working people get more from their governments.

This work is really important: I want young women to look at every level of our political system and know that it's something they can be part of too.''

There are currently 330 Conservative MPs, including 70 women, while in the Scottish Parliament six of the 31 Tory MSPs are female.

Ms Davidson said: The Conservative party has a proud record of elected women getting to the top - both of the UK's female prime ministers have come from our party's ranks and, in Holyrood, we are the only party where more of our leaders have been women than men.

However, too often women count themselves out of politics before they even put their name on a ballot paper. Something holds them back from applying to be a candidate.''

Ms Davidson added: I want the brightest and best councillors, MPs and MSPs in my team and that doesn't happen from only one half of the gender divide.''