County Merseyside Number of members 1 European Parliament constituency North West England | Member of parliament Alison McGovern Electorate 56,238 (December 2010) Major settlements Heswall, Bebington | |
Replaced by Wirral, Bebington and Ellesmere Port Created from Wirral, Bebington and Ellesmere Port | ||
Wirral South is a constituency in Merseyside represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2010 by Alison McGovern of the Labour Party.
Contents
History
In 1983 Wirral South arose for election following the national boundary review by taking over parts of two seats that were abolished to create it: Wirral and Bebington and Ellesmere Port, held by the Conservative Party since 1923 and 1979 respectively.
Barry Porter (Con) won the seat the first time when it was fought and at the next two general elections. He had ousted the Labour party candidate from Bebington and Ellesmere Port in 1979 which he held until the election in 1983. Following the death of Porter in late 1996, a by-election was held in February 1997, the last by-election of that Parliament, held a matter of weeks before the general election was called. It was won by Ben Chapman (Lab), who held the seat until retiring following controversy over his expenses. Labour narrowly managed to hold on in the 2010 general election.
Boundaries
Since its creation in 1983, the constituency has consisted of the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral wards of Bebington, Bromborough, Clatterbridge, Eastham, and Heswall.
The constituency is one of four covering the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral, covering the south of the borough. It contains the towns of Heswall and Bebington (both wards) and the villages of Bromborough (also a ward), Eastham, Brimstage and Thornton Hough.
Constituency profile
Workless claimants who were registered jobseekers, which is a proportion of total unemployed claimants, were in November 2012 much lower than the national average of 3.8%, at 2.3% of the population based on a statistical compilation by The Guardian. This was also lower than the regional average.
2015 general election
The terms of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 mandated that the election was held on 7 May 2015. Alison McGovern was the sitting Member of Parliament for the Labour Party. The Conservative Party selected John Bell. Bell had previously stood for election in Clwyd South (2010) and Delyn (2005). He had also stood twice to be a Welsh Assembly Member. He stood in a local council by-election in 2011, for Wrexham County Council.