Theresa May

Official portrait, 2016

Theresa May (née Brasier; born 1956) is a Conservative politician. She was elected as the MP for Maidenhead in 1997 and was MP there until 2024 when she stood down. She served as Home Secretary from 2010 to 2016. She became Prime Minister in 2016, succeeding David Cameron and stepped down in 2019, being succeeded by Boris Johnson. Her time as Prime Minister was dominated by the negotiations over the UK's exit from the European Union.

LGBT issues

Her voting record on LGBT issues has been mixed. In 1998 she voted against equalising the age of consent, and in 2000 she voted against the repeal of Section 28. However she later told Question Time: “I have changed my view. If those votes were taken today, I would take a different vote.

She was the one to suggest the Conservatives were planning to look at introducing gay marriage in 2010 and later said she had changed her mind on gay adoption. She was responsible for helping draft the Marriage (Same-Sex Couples) Act 2013 with Equalities Minister Lynne Featherstone. In her book on the passage of the law, Baroness Featherstone praised Ms May as the “unsung hero” in the push for gay marriage against the furious protests of some elements of the Tory grassroots. But it has been claimed that the conditions and treatment of LGBT asylum seekers had worsened during her tenure as Home Secretary.