Number of members One Type of constituency County constituency | Electorate 75,098 (December 2010) Number of members Two European Parliament constituency South West England | |
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North Devon is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2015 by Peter Heaton-Jones of the Conservative Party.
Contents
Boundaries
1950-1974: The Municipal Boroughs of Barnstaple and South Molton, the Urban Districts of Ilfracombe and Lynton, and the Rural Districts of Barnstaple and South Molton.
1974-1983: The Municipal Boroughs of Barnstaple and Bideford, the Urban Districts of Ilfracombe, Lynton, and Northam, and the Rural Districts of Barnstaple, Bideford, and South Molton. (All these Districts had been abolished in 1974).
1983-2010: The District of North Devon, and the District of Mid Devon wards of Taw, Taw Vale, and West Creedy.
2010-present: The District of North Devon.
History
A previous two-seat constituency of the same name existed from 1832 to 1885, formally titled the 'Northern Division of Devon'. In the 20th century this area had a prominent national MP, Jeremy Thorpe, who led a Liberal revival countrywide, with particular strength in the South West.
The North Devon constituency was first created for the 1832 general election, when the Reform Act 1832 divided the former two-seat Devon into Northern and Southern divisions, each of which elected two MPs using the bloc vote system of election. The constituency was abolished for the 1885 general election, when the Redistribution of Seats Act split the county into smaller single-seat divisions. Its second creation is current and began at the 1950 general election (covering a smaller area than before). Before 1950 its territory was split between the old constituencies of Barnstaple and South Molton.
The Liberal Democrats and their predecessors the Liberal Party have, since World War II, shown a strong performance in this seat, which was held for twenty years by Thorpe as the Liberal leader. He lost it in the 1979 general election amid a scandal surrounding his relationship with homosexual Norman Scott and alleged involvement in a plot to murder him, of which he was found not guilty the same year. At the 1992 general election, Liberal Democrat Nick Harvey regained the seat from the Conservatives. Harvey lost the seat 23 years later.
MPs since 1950
The Member of Parliament for the constituency since 2015 is Peter Heaton-Jones of the Conservatives.