County South Yorkshire Major settlements Rotherham Number of members One | Electorate 63,131 (December 2010) Created 1885 | |
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Member of parliament Sarah Champion (Labour) | ||
Rotherham is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2012 by Sarah Champion, a member of the Labour Party.
Contents
History
This constituency was created in the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885.
Rotherham has returned Labour MPs since 1933 following the earlier period before 1923 dominated by the Liberal and Conservative parties. In every example the majority has been relatively large in this period, meaning that since that date the result has been a safe seat.
Boundaries
Rotherham constituency is one of three borough constituencies in the borough. The current boundary configuration was confirmed in 2005. It is formed with the Rotherham borough electoral wards:
It borders Rother Valley, Sheffield South East, Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough, Penistone and Stocksbridge, and Wentworth and Dearne.
Constituency profile
The constituency consists of Census Output Areas of one local government district: a working population whose income is on average slightly below the national average and close to average reliance upon social housing. At the end of 2012 the unemployment rate in the constituency stood at 7% and 9.6% male unemployment of the population claiming jobseekers allowance, compared to the regional average of 4.7%. This was considerably higher also than the constituencies that share the borough.
The borough contributing to the seat has a relatively high 26.6% of its population without a car compared to 20.1% in Bassetlaw and 30.3% in Sheffield. In terms of extremes of education 29.8% of the population in 2011 were without qualifications, contrasted with 17.4% with level 4 qualifications or above.
In terms of tenure 65.2% of homes are owned outright or on a mortgage as at the 2011 census across the borough. In the 10 years to the April 2011 Census the social rented sector saw a 4.9% reduction and the private rented sector a 5.3% increase; outright ownership saw a 3.8% increase.