THE de-selection of Anne McIntosh shows the Conservative Party still believes woman should be “making the tea”, Labour claimed.

Harriet Harman, the party’s deputy leader, hit out at the lack of Tory woman candidates in the region, after the Thirsk and Malton MP confirmed she was giving up her fight to retain her seat.

Miss McIntosh was deselected in favour of estate agent Kevin Hollinrake, who will be expected to win a solid Tory seat with a more-than-healthy majority of 11,281, back in 2010.

All the other Conservative MPs in North Yorkshire are men; in Richmond (William Hague), Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones), Scarborough and Whitby (Robert Goodwill), Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith), York Outer (Julian Sturdy) and Selby and Ainsty (Nigel Adams).

And the party’s only two MPs in the North-East – in Stockton South (James Wharton) and Hexham (Guy Opperman) – are also male.

With Rishi Sunak hoping to replace Mr Hague in Richmond, it raises the likelihood of all-male representation throughout the region, after the May general election.

Speaking at Westminster, Ms Harman said: “I think this is a message to women that the Tory party thinks that it is perfectly alright for men to be making the decisions and women to be making the tea.

“I think that that is old fashioned, it means that their policies lag behind and that lies behind the reason that, in so many things the Government has done, women have lost out since 2010.

“I do not see the Tory's campaign on women to women, where is it? Have you sighted it anywhere?”

This week, the Electoral Reform Society (ERS) predicted that women could make up almost 30 per cent of MPs after polling day, its highest ever proportion.

It suggested 192 women could be elected, up 44 from the current 148, with the Conservatives among parties likely to see their female representation rise from (16 per cent to 20 per cent).

However, that figure would still be less than half of Labour’s (expected to be 41 per cent) - and Westminster would still languish at 36th in the world rankings for women MPs.

The Conservatives have said they will consider the use of all-women shortlists for following general elections, if little progress is made in boosting female representation in May.

Ms Harman has been criticised for her touring ‘pink bus’, but insisted it had proved popular as a way to discuss issues such as childcare face-to-face with women.