County South Yorkshire Number of members 1 European Parliament constituency Yorkshire and the Humber | Member of parliament John Healey Electorate 72,272 (December 2010) Major settlements Dearne Valley, Rawmarsh | |
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Replaced by Wentworth, Barnsley East and Mexborough Created from Wentworth, Barnsley East and Mexborough | ||
Wentworth and Dearne is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since its 2010 creation by John Healey, a member of the Labour Party.
Contents
History
Parliament accepted the Boundary Commission's Fifth Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies recommending the creation of this constituency for the 2010 general election.
Most forerunner parts of the seat of Wentworth (which only existed in its second period from 1983 until 2010) matched its record of being a safe seat for Labour in South Yorkshire that unusually rarely has any marginal seats for the Conservative Party and has no safe seats.
The present member, John Healey held a continuous period of frontbench positions, withstanding during this time various rotations of the Labour frontbench - the positions were:
In September 2015 he was appointed Shadow Minister for Housing (attending Shadow Cabinet)
Boundaries
The seat comprises satellite settlements to two large Yorkshire towns, separated by green buffers, in a band north of Rotherham and southeast of Barnsley and as such has electoral wards:
Most of the constituency succeeds Wentworth however the large settlement of Dearne was instead the largest in Barnsley East and Mexborough. The name of the seat stems from the village that shares its name with the largest private house in the country and listed gardens in the seat, Wentworth Woodhouse, in a similar manner, with a widened use of an otherwise scarcely populated settlement, as Sefton.
Constituency profile
The South Yorkshire settlements grew in the seat into primarily large town size developments from the large presence of coal leading to extensive mining in this area, coupled with convenient proximity to Sheffield, the canals and rivers network, as well as to Doncaster, York, Wakefield and Leeds. As the mining industry has suffered a decline (see UK Coal which has one mine left in this county) and agriculture employs few people, niche manufacturing, general processing (such as of food and raw materials) as well as retail and distribution are critical sectors of the economy to local employment. Workless claimants who were registered jobseekers were in November 2012 higher than the national average of 3.8%, at 5.6% of the population, based on a statistical compilation by The Guardian.
Elections in the 2010s
This seat was fought for the first time at the 2010 general election.
* Served as an MP in the 2005–2010 Parliament