| Swindon North | |
| Parliament: | uk |
| Map1: | NorthSwindon2007 |
| Map2: | EnglandWiltshire |
| Year: | 1997 |
| Type: | County |
| Elects Howmany: | One |
| Electorate: | 72,163 (2023)[1] |
| Mp: | Will Stone |
| Region: | England |
| European: | South West England |
Swindon North is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2024 by Will Stone, a Labour politician.
Further to the completion of the 2023 Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies, the seat was formally renamed from North Swindon to Swindon North, and first contested at the 2024 general election.[2]
North Swindon was created in 1997 and has been a bellwether since then. However, during the 2010s, the Conservatives won the constituency by much higher numbers than their national popular vote margin.
1997–2010: The Borough of Thamesdown wards of Blunsdon, Covingham, Gorse Hill, Haydon Wick, Highworth, Moredon, St Margaret, St Philip, Western, and Whitworth, and the District of North Wiltshire ward of Cricklade.
2010–2024: The Borough of Swindon wards of Abbey Meads, Blunsdon and Highworth, Covingham and Nythe, Gorse Hill and Pinehurst, Haydon Wick, Moredon, Penhill, St Margaret, St Philip, and Western.
The seat's boundaries encompass an area that before its creation made up parts of the former Swindon constituency and pre-1997 versions of North Wiltshire and Devizes. In the 2010 boundary changes, the town of Cricklade became part of the North Wiltshire constituency while this seat acquired parts of the South Swindon constituency.
2024-present: Further to the 2023 Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies, enacted by the Parliamentary Constituencies Order 2023, from the 2024 United Kingdom general election, the constituency will be composed of the following (as they existed on 1 December 2020):
In order to bring the electorate within the permitted range and align with revised ward boundaries, the districts of Covingham and Nythe will be transferred to Swindon South.
The constituency covers a northern part of central Swindon and its northern suburbs (the civil parish of Central Swindon North), and extends northward to take in Blunsdon, the market town of Highworth and the rural parishes surrounding that town.
North Swindon has an electorate of 79,488, the majority of whom live in the suburbs or close to Swindon's town centre. In 2001, 52.9% of homes were into the categories of semi-detached or detached in the Swindon Local Authority area; after a 5.0% increase in flats/apartments in 2011, this figure had fallen slightly to 50.3%. In the same period, those registered unemployed rose from 2.5% to 4.2% and those self-employed rose from 6.2% to 7.8%.[4] In 2010, the unemployment rate for Swindon South was 2.6%, compared to 3.5% in Swindon North. This is one indicator of social deprivation and compares to a rate of 11.0% in 2010 in Birmingham Ladywood, the constituency with the highest rate nationally.[5]
| Election | Member | Party | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1997 | Michael Wills | Labour | ||
| 2010 | Justin Tomlinson | Conservative | ||
| 2024 | Will Stone | Labour Party | ||
| 2019 notional result[6] | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Vote | % | |
| 27,719 | 58.5 | ||
| 14,469 | 30.5 | ||
| 3,744 | 7.9 | ||
| 1,449 | 3.1 | ||
| Turnout | 47,381 | 65.7 | |
| Electorate | 72,163 | ||