County West Midlands European Parliament constituency West Midlands Number of members 1 Created from West Bromwich | Electorate 63,008 (December 2010) Member of parliament Tom Watson Replaced by West Bromwich | |
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West Bromwich East is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2001 by Tom Watson, a member of the Labour Party.
Contents
Boundaries
1974-1983: The County Borough of West Bromwich wards of Charlemont, Friar Park, Great Barr, Hateley Heath, Newton, Sandwell, and Tantany.
1983-1997: The Metropolitan Borough of Sandwell wards of Charlemont, Friar Park, Great Barr, Hateley Heath, Newton, and West Bromwich Central.
1997-2010: The Metropolitan Borough of Sandwell wards of Charlemont, Friar Park, Great Barr, Greets Green and Lyng, Hateley Heath, Newton, and West Bromwich Central.
2010-present: The Metropolitan Borough of Sandwell wards of Charlemont with Grove Vale, Friar Park, Great Barr with Yew Tree, Greets Green and Lyng, Hateley Heath, Newton, and West Bromwich Central.
West Bromwich East is one of four constituencies covering the Metropolitan Borough of Sandwell, covering the east and north-east of the borough. It includes most of the town of West Bromwich and the part of Great Barr that is in Sandwell.
The seat formerly shared some wards with West Bromwich West: before 2010 instead placed in the latter seat were a small minority of 1,697 electors in the west of the wards of Friar Park and Greets Green and Lyng, also a negligible portion of Wednesbury South was contained in West Bromwich East.
History
The constituency was formed in 1974 and took its present wards in 1997 (small parts of which remained shared until 2010, see above).
Since its formation the constituency has only elected Labour MPs. Most recent electoral results present a safe seat for the Labour Party, who won the seat with large majorities in the 1990s and 2000s, although this was not the case in the 1980s when the Conservative Party came close to winning the seat.
Constituency profile
West Bromwich itself is the main town, which has West Bromwich Albion F.C. and a historic centre, with a programme of investment in 21st century apartments as with nearby Birmingham. Since the recessions of the 1970s and early 1980s, West Bromwich East has suffered from high unemployment, and as a result of the current recession which began in 2008 unemployment peaked at 14.3%. Only Birmingham, Ladywood nearby had higher unemployment rates in all of Britain.
Workless claimants who were registered jobseekers were in November 2012 higher than the national average of 3.8%, at 7.6% of the population based on a statistical compilation by The Guardian, however this was lower than in West Bromwich West with 8.1% of its constituents of working age in receipt of this benefit, which is seen as the lower gauge of the breadth of unemployment.