EMILY'S LIST UK was launched on February 6th 1993, exactly seventy five years after British women first gained the right to vote in Parliamentary elections. It seemed an appropriate date on which to found an organisation whose purpose was to help Labour women meet the costs of getting selected as Parliamentary candidates.

In the four years between its founding and Labour’s landslide victory in the 1997 General Election, EMILY'S LIST UK gave over £40,000 in grants to seventy Labour women who were seeking selection as Parliamentary candidates. Of these twenty six were selected as Westminster candidates and fourteen were elected as Labour Members of Parliament.

In 1998 EMILY’S LIST UK extended its Grants Scheme to cover selections in the Welsh National Assembly and the European Parliament. A total of £2,900 was given to eight Labour women, none of whom were elected. A training event for potential Labour women candidates for the Scottish Parliament was sponsored for £1,800.

In 1999 EMILY’S LIST UK gave grants to women seeking selection to Greater London Assembly seats and for women trying to get onto Labour's National Parliamentary Panel. A total of £2,685 was given to thirteen Labour women, one of whom was elected to the GLA and three of whom were accepted onto the Parliamentary Panel.

Before the 2001 General Election EMILY’S LIST UK gave a total of £3,454 to eighteen Labour women seeking selection as Parliamentary candidates, three of whom were selected but, sadly, not elected to the House of Commons. A grant of £500 was also given for a training event to encourage more Labour women to become Local Government candidates.

In 2002 there were no elections in the United Kingdom so EMILY’S LIST UK only gave out a few grants. A total of £715 was given to four Labour women, three of whom stood as candidates in the Welsh National Assembly elections in 2003 and one who stood as a European candidate in 2004.

Between November 2003 and May 2004 a total of eighteen Labour women seeking selection to Westminster seats were given grants. Five of them became candidates in the 2005 General Election, one in a highly marginal seat. Sadly, she was not elected.  In addition, EMILY’S LIST UK gave a grant of £1,000 to its sister organization, Labour Women’s Network, to run a weekend residential course for women thinking of going into public life.