Wakefield (UK Parliament constituency)

Coordinates: 53°40′59″N 1°29′56″W / 53.683°N 1.499°W / 53.683; -1.499

Wakefield
County constituency for the House of Commons
Boundary of Wakefield in West Yorkshire.
Location of West Yorkshire within England.
County	West Yorkshire
Electorate	71,531 (December 2010)[1]
Current constituency
Created	1997
Member of parliament	Mary Creagh (Labour)
Number of members	One
1832–1997
Number of members	One
Type of constituency	Borough constituency
Created from	Yorkshire
Overlaps
European Parliament constituency	Yorkshire and the Humber

Wakefield is a constituency^{[n 1]} created in 1832 represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2005 by Mary Creagh, a member of the Labour Party.^{[n 2]}

Boundaries

1918-1950: The County Borough of Wakefield.

1950-1983: The County Borough of Wakefield, the Urban District of Horbury, and part of the Rural District of Wakefield.

1983-1997: The City of Wakefield wards of Horbury, Wakefield Central, Wakefield East, Wakefield North, Wakefield Rural, and Wakefield South.

1997-2010: The City of Wakefield wards of Wakefield Central, Wakefield East, Wakefield North, and Wakefield Rural, and the Borough of Kirklees wards of Denby Dale and Kirkburton.

2010-present: The City of Wakefield wards of Horbury and South Ossett, Ossett, Wakefield East, Wakefield North, Wakefield Rural, and Wakefield West.

History

Predecessor seats

Electors of the area, since five years before the Model Parliament of 1295 until 1826 had entitlement to vote for the two representatives for Yorkshire, the largest county in the country. Parliament legislated for, from an unusual disfranchisement in 1826 of a Cornish rotten borough, two additional MPs.^{[n 4]} From April 1784 until September 1812, one of the two members elected was William Wilberforce, internationally recognised as a leading figure in abolitionism (the anti-slavery movement). The large county was given far greater representation by the Reform Act 1832: Belle Vue's electors until 1885, alongside other Forty Shilling Freeholders non-resident in the Parliamentary Borough of Wakefield itself but owning such property in any part of the county division could elect the two members for that division: this became the West Riding of Yorkshire from 1832 until 1865 (which had its polling place in this city), after which, the relevant county subdivision became the Southern West Riding until 1885.

Creation

Wakefield became a county division under the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885, drawing in, as an extension, the Belle Vue area of the parish of Sandal Magna.^[4]

Summary of results

Wakefield has returned Labour MPs since 1932. The size of majority has fluctuated between absolute and marginal.^{[n 5]} The 2015 result gave the seat the 27th-smallest majority of Labour's 232 seats by percentage of majority.^[5]

Opposition parties

In general elections since 1923 the runner-up candidate has been a Conservative. Six non-Labour candidates stood in 2015 of whom two, those which were Conservative and from UKIP won more than 5% of the vote, keeping their deposits.

Prominent frontbenchers

Rt Hon Arthur Greenwood was succeeded by Clement Attlee as leader of the Opposition in 1945, a few months before the party's landslide election victory. He had been from 1929–1931 the Minister of State (present equivalent: Secretary of State) for Health under the Second MacDonald ministry. In this role he successfully steered the Housing Act 1930 through both Houses of Parliament under the minority government, which expended more significant subsidies for slum clearance, allowing more affordable, spacious housing to be built for residents of slums. When the wartime coalition government was formed, Winston Churchill appointed him to the British War Cabinet as Minister without Portfolio in 1940. He was generally seen in such a role as of little wartime legislative effect, but in May 1940 he emerged as Churchill's strongest and most vocal supporter in the lengthy War Cabinet debates on whether to accept or reject a peace offer from Germany.^[6] Without the vote in favour of fighting on by Greenwood and Clement Attlee, Churchill would not have had the slim majority he needed to do so.^[7]

Rt Hon Arthur Creech Jones was Secretary of State for the Colonies from October 1946 until February 1950, appropriately given that in June 1936 he pressed the Government, who were encouraging Colonies to set up memorials to King George V, to follow the example of Uganda and set up a technical educational institution.^[8] The Labour Party nominated him to the Colonial Office's Educational Advisory Committee in 1936, on which he served for nine years. In 1937, he was a founding member of the Trades Union Congress Colonial Affairs Committee, and in 1940 he founded the Fabian Colonial Bureau.

Mary Creagh, since October 2010 has been the Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, succeeding Rt Hon Hilary Benn.

Turnout

Turnout in general elections since 1918 has ranged between 54.5% in 2001 and 87.3% in 1950.

Constituency profile

The constituency has a rolling landscape with villages surrounding the city of Wakefield which is well connected to West Yorkshire in particular Leeds, Bradford and Huddersfield, however also via two junctions of the M1 to the west, to South Yorkshire such as Barnsley, Rotherham and Sheffield. The small city itself has a large central trading and industrial estate, a central park, Clarence Park which includes a national athletics training squad, a Rugby League major team, the Wildcats and its own Cathedral. Wakefield Europort employs approximately 3,000 people, a major rail-motorway hub for Northern England imports and exports with other EU countries. Horbury and Ossett and towns in the low foothills of the Pennines. In the far west of the constituency, there is the National Coal Mining Museum for England, on the site of the old Caphouse Colliery.

Workless claimants, registered jobseekers, were in November 2012 slightly higher than the regional average of 4.9%, at 5.3% of the population based on a statistical compilation by The Guardian, which is also higher than the national average of 3.8%.^[9]

Of the council wards, the Wakefield East and Wakefield North areas regularly return Labour councillors, whereas the others are marginal. The Ossett ward is particularly unpredictable, and has elected Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat and UKIP councillors since 2005. The other wards are contested between Labour and Conservative.

Members of Parliament

Elections

Elections in the 1910s

General Election 1918: Wakefield^[23]

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±
C	Unionist	Edward Brotherton	9,128	52.3
	Labour	Albert Bellamy	5,882	33.7
	Liberal	Arthur Marshall	2,448	14.0
Majority			3,246	18.6
Turnout				72.1
	Unionist gain from Liberal		Swing
C indicates candidate endorsed by the coalition government.

General Election 1914/15:

Another General Election was required to take place before the end of 1915. The political parties had been making preparations for an election to take place and by the July 1914, the following candidates had been selected;

• Liberal: Arthur Marshall
• Unionist: Edward Brotherton

Arthur Marshall

General Election December 1910: Wakefield^[24]

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±
	Liberal	Arthur Marshall	2,837	51.7	n/a
	Conservative	Edward Brotherton	2,651	48.3	-6.2
Majority			186	3.4	n/a
Turnout			5,488
	Liberal gain from Conservative		Swing	n/a

General Election January 1910: Wakefield^[24]

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±
	Conservative	Edward Brotherton	3,121	54.5	+13.7
	Labour	Stanton Coit	2,602	45.5	+8.6
Majority			519	9.0	+5.1
Turnout				90.5	+2.0
	Conservative hold		Swing	+2.5

See also

• List of Parliamentary constituencies in West Yorkshire

Notes and references

Notes

References