County Greater Manchester Created 1885 Number of members One | Electorate 76,779 (December 2010) Member of parliament Lisa Nandy (Labour) | |
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Created from Wigan, South West Lancashire | ||
Wigan is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2010 by Lisa Nandy, a member of the Labour Party.
Contents
History
Wigan was one of the important places called upon to send a representative (a 'burgess') to the Model Parliament of 1295 and to another in January 1307, however was not summoned during the remainder of the medieval period to send its representative to Westminster, instead waiting until Henry VIII's grant of two members to the town which is believed to have already been incorporated as a borough in 1246 following the issue of a charter by Henry III. After the end of the Middle Ages, in the Tudor period, Wigan was one of four boroughs in Lancashire possessing Royal Charters; the others were Lancaster, Liverpool and Preston.
The seat saw a reduction of the number of its members under the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885 which imposed single-member constituencies nationwide.
The death of Roger Stott in office in 1999 made him the fourth Wigan MP in the twentieth century to die in office (uniquely for a constituency in the United Kingdom): (the others being John Parkinson, Ronald Williams and William Foster).
The seat has been held by the Labour Party since 1918, and given the solid Labour majorities is considered as a safe seat.
Boundary review
Following the 2010 general election, the Boundary Commission recommended alterations to the existing constituencies in the Wigan metropolitan borough area as part of the Sixth Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies. The electoral wards proposed in the altered Wigan constituency were:
However the boundary changes were never implemented after being defeated in Parliament 334 to 292 January 2013. Fresh proposals to reduce the number of MP's by 50 from the 2020 general election were published 12 September 2016 and proposed no changes to constituency boundaries in Wigan Borough.
Other seats within the Wigan borough are Makerfield and Leigh, while Atherton is contained within Bolton West.
Constituency profile
The seat is productive and has excellent links to Manchester as well as close links to the M6 just within its western border, however has witnessed a drop in manufacturing supporting the economy of Greater Manchester, particularly in textiles which have been unable in production of more general items to compete with the Indian subcontinent and the Far East, for this seat a lesser employer also of note in its vicinity until the mid 20th century was coal mining which has ceased in this part of Lancashire.
Workless claimants who were registered jobseekers were in November 2012 higher than the national average of 3.8%, and regional average of 4.4%, at 5.5% of the population based on a statistical compilation by The Guardian.
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 July 1914, the following candidates had been selected;