County Shropshire Created 1983 Created from Oswestry and Wrekin Member of parliament Owen Paterson | Electorate 77,673 (December 2010) Number of members One Number of members Two | |
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Major settlements Wem, Whitchurch, Ellesmere, Oswestry, Market Drayton Replaced by Oswestry, Telford and Wrekin | ||
North Shropshire is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 1997 by Owen Paterson, a Conservative.
Contents
Established for the 1832 general election, North Shropshire has been continuously held by the Conservative Party for its entire existence. However, the constituency was abolished in 1885 and re-created in 1983.
History
From its first creation in 1832 to the abolition of the first creation in 1885 it covered approximately half of the county and elected two members, formally Knights of the Shire. In 1885 the county was (together with South Shropshire) - divided between four constituencies: Ludlow, Newport, Oswestry and Wellington.
In 1983 the constituency was revived in a smaller form and elects one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post system of election.
The Electoral Reform Society considers it to be historically the safest seat in the country. Taking into account the intermediary seats roughly covering its boundaries, the Society considers that the seat has been held continuously by the Conservative Party since 1835 - in political terms since the days of the Tamworth Manifesto and before Queen Victoria's accession to the throne. However, the result of the 2001 election was more marginal than most Conservative seats and the 2010 election saw it just outside the top third of seats in percentage terms held by the Conservative Party, with the 103rd largest share of the vote for the party.
Owen Paterson was appointed to be the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in May 2010 and from the September 2012 Cabinet reshuffle, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, until another reshuffle in June 2014.
Boundaries
1983-1997: The District of North Shropshire, the Borough of Oswestry, and the District of The Wrekin wards of Church Aston, Edgmond, Ercall Magna, Newport East, Newport North, and Newport West.
1997-present: The District of North Shropshire, and the Borough of Oswestry.
The constituency is rural and is north of Shrewsbury, west of Newcastle-under-Lyme and south of Cheshire, having five small towns.
MPs 1832–85
Elections in the 2010s
Class War originally selected Al Derby as a candidate here, but he changed to Wolverhampton North East.