| Beaconsfield | |
| Parliament: | uk |
| Year: | 1974 |
| Type: | County |
| Population: | 99,387 (2011 census)[1] |
| Electorate: | 72,315 (2023)[2] |
| Party: | Conservative Party (UK) |
| Region: | England |
| Towns: | Beaconsfield, Marlow, Bourne End, Burnham |
Beaconsfield is a constituency in Buckinghamshire represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2019 by Joy Morrissey of the Conservative Party. She succeeded Independent and former Conservative Dominic Grieve, whom she defeated following his suspension from the party. The constituency was established for the February 1974 general election.
The constituency was created in 1974, mostly from the former seat of South Buckinghamshire, since which date the area has formed the southernmost part of Buckinghamshire — before 1974 the notable settlements of Slough and Eton, as well as less well-known Langley, Wraysbury, Sunnymeads and Datchet were in the county.
This leads to the shape of the constituency, further accentuated in irregularity by the Thames meander containing Cookham, Berkshire to the west and southwest.
In the 1982 Beaconsfield by-election caused by the death of Sir Ronald Bell, the third-placed candidate was Tony Blair for the Labour Party. Conservative Tim Smith was the first and only person ever to have beaten Blair in an election and won; Liberal Paul Tyler was in second place. Tyler later became an MP for North Cornwall, meaning that, most unusually, the three main-party candidates subsequently served in the House of Commons at the same time.
Incumbent Dominic Grieve's win in 2010, with 61.1% of the vote, was the second highest share of the vote in the general election for a Conservative candidate after William Hague in Richmond (Yorks).
Beaconsfield is estimated to have voted 51% remain in the 2016 referendum on the UK's membership of the EU.[3] [4] Although estimates of the constituency results have not been confirmed, the official UK Electoral Commission EU referendum results detail the area of South Buckinghamshire, which contains the Beaconsfield constituency, as voting to leave the EU with a percentage of 50.7%.[5]
The constituency was formed largely from southern parts of the abolished constituency of South Buckinghamshire (Beaconsfield and the Rural District of Eton). The parishes of Hedsor and Wooburn were transferred from Wycombe.
Gained areas to the east of High Wycombe (parish of Chepping Wycombe) from Wycombe. The parts of the former Rural District of Eton, including Datchet, which had been transferred from Buckinghamshire to Berkshire by the Local Government Act 1972 were included in the new constituency of East Berkshire.
Minor change (transfer of Little Marlow from Wycombe).
Marlow transferred from Wycombe.
In April 2020, the Districts of South Bucks and Wycombe, together with those of Aylesbury and Chiltern were merged into the new unitary authority of Buckinghamshire Council. Accordingly, the current contents of the constituency became:
The seat then consisted of Beaconsfield, most of Burnham (including Burnham Beeches forest), Denham, Dorney, Farnham Common, Farnham Royal, Fulmer, Hedgerley, Iver, Stoke Poges, Taplow and Wexham (excluding Wexham Court); Hedsor, Little Marlow, Marlow, Wooburn and Bourne End and the Flackwell Heath settlement of Chepping Wycombe.
Further to the 2023 Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies which became effective for the 2024 general election, the constituency is composed of the following (as they existed on 1 December 2020):
The electorate was reduced to bring it within the permitted range by transferring the town of Gerrards Cross to Chesham and Amersham.
South Buckinghamshire prior to 1974
| Election | Member | Party | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| February 1974 | Ronald Bell | Conservative | ||
| 1982 by-election | Tim Smith | |||
| 1997 | Dominic Grieve | |||
| September 2019 | Independent | |||
| 2019 | Joy Morrissey | Conservative | ||
| 2019 notional result[11] | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Vote | % | |
| 29,211 | 55.5 | ||
| Others | 16,276 | 30.9 | |
| 5,211 | 9.9 | ||
| 1,935 | 3.7 | ||
| Turnout | 52,633 | 72.8 | |
| Electorate | 72,315 | ||