Preserved county Gwent Created 1918 Member of parliament David Davies Welsh assembly South East Wales | Electorate 65,432 (December 2010) European Parliament constituency Wales Number of members 1 | |
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Created from Monmouth Boroughs, North Monmouthshire and South Monmouthshire Major settlements Abergavenny, Chepstow, Monmouth Replaced by Monmouth Boroughs, North Monmouthshire, South Monmouthshire | ||
Monmouth (Welsh: Sir Fynwy) is a county constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom (at Westminster). It elects one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post of election. The constituency was created for the 1918 general election. Since 2005 the MP has been David Davies of the Conservative Party.
Contents
The Monmouth Welsh Assembly constituency, created in 1999, has normally the same boundaries as the Westminster constituency.
History
The constituency has traditionally favoured the Conservative Party though has fallen to Labour in three general elections in addition to the 1991 by-election.
The current MP is the Conservative David Davies, elected in 2005 and a former member for the Welsh Assembly seat of the same name. To avoid confusion with the Yorkshire Conservative David Davis, he is named in Hansard as "David T.C. Davies".
1983 onwards
The constituency is one of eight covering the preserved county of Gwent. The other seven are Blaenau Gwent, Caerphilly, Islwyn, Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney, Newport East, Newport West and Torfaen. Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney, however, straddles the boundary with the preserved county of Mid Glamorgan. It covers most of current local authority of Monmouthshire, with the main towns being Chepstow and Monmouth.
For the 2010 general election, there were no changes to the boundaries of the Monmouth constituency stemming from the Fifth Review of the Boundary Commission for Wales. Likewise there were no boundary changes in 1997
1918 to 1983
As first used in the 1918 general election, the constituency was a creation of the Representation of the People Act 1918 as one of six constituencies covering the county of Monmouth. Prior to the 1918 election the county had been covered, nominally, by the county constituencies of Northern Monmouthshire, Southern Monmouthshire, and Western Monmouthshire, and the Monmouth Boroughs borough constituency. By 1918, however, administrative county boundaries were out of alignment with constituency boundaries. The new constituency boundaries took account of the new local government boundaries.
The other Monmouthshire constituencies defined by 1918 legislation were the county constituencies of Abertillery, Bedwellty, Ebbw Vale and Pontypool, and the borough constituency of Newport. This general pattern was maintained until 1983, nine years after the administrative county they were based on had been abolished, but there were some boundary changes during the 1918 to 1983 period.
In 1918 the Monmouth constituency was defined as consisting of the municipal boroughs of Abergavenny, and Monmouth, the urban districts of Caerleon, Chepstow, and Usk, the rural districts of Abergavenny, Chepstow, Magor, Monmouth, Cwmbran and Pontypool, and part of the rural district of St Mellons, and the same boundaries were used for the general elections of 1922, 1923, 1924, 1929, 1931, 1935 and 1945.
New boundaries, created by the House of Commons (Redistribution of Seats) Act 1949, were used for the 1950 general election, and the Monmouth constituency was defined as consisting of the municipal boroughs of Abergavenny, and Monmouth, the urban districts of Caerleon, Chepstow, Cwmbran and Usk, and rural districts of Abergavenny, Chepstow, Magor and St Mellons, Monmouth, and Pontypool.
For the 1951 general election, there was some alteration to the boundaries of rural district of Magor and St Mellons.
The constituency was redefined again for the 1955 general election, taking account of new local government boundaries. The result was the same list of boroughs and districts as for the 1951 election. 1951 boundaries were used also in the general elections of 1959, 1964, 1966, 1970, February 1974, October 1974 and 1979.
In 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972, the local government county of Monmouth was abolished. For the 1983 general election, new constituency boundaries were drawn, taking account of new local government boundaries.
Members of Parliament
The following list does not include MPs who actually represented Monmouth Boroughs: