Wakefield (UK Parliament constituency)

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 Metropolitan 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.

Latest boundary changes

Parliament accepted the Boundary Commission's Fifth Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies which altered this constituency for the 2010 general election, removing all three wards from Kirklees that reached far to the south-west and instead adding wards from the abolished Normanton constituency to the immediate west, since which time the seat has comprised three-quarters of the West Yorkshire city of Wakefield along with Ossett, Horbury and small outlying settlements.

The far eastern suburbs of the city and its southern part falls within the Wakefield South ward and this is in the Hemsworth seat, the largest towns of which are, by a small margin, the towns of South Elmsall and South Kirkby, which form a contiguous settlement 7 miles (11 km) to the east.

History

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. 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. 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.

Wakefield has returned Labour MPs since 1932 and since 1983 has witnessed medium to large majorities, presenting a safe seat for the party, but as of the 2010 general election the majority has moved into the bounds of marginality at 3.6% of the vote. In all general elections since 1923 the runner-up candidate has been a Conservative.

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. 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.

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. 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.

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%.

Elections in the 1910s

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;

Elections in the 1890s

Lord Milton was re-elected unopposed in the 1900 General election.