| Warwick and Leamington | |
| Parliament: | uk |
| Year: | 1885 |
| Type: | Borough |
| Electorate: | 66,278 (December 2010)[1] |
| Region: | England |
| Party: | Labour |
Warwick and Leamington is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since the 2017 general election by Matt Western of the Labour Party.[2]
2024-present: The District of Warwick wards of: Bishop’s Tachbrook; Leamington Brunswick; Leamington Clarendon; Leamington Lillington; Leamington Milverton; Leamington Willes; Radford Semele; Warwick All Saints and Woodloes; Warwick Aylesford; Warwick Myton & Heathcote; Warwick Saltisford; Whitnash.[3]
Minor changes to align boundaries with those of wards in the District of Warwick. Budbrooke transferred to Kenilworth and Southam in exchange for Radford Semele.
2010–2024: The District of Warwick wards of Bishop's Tachbrook, Brunswick, Budbrooke, Clarendon, Crown, Manor, Milverton, Warwick North, Warwick South, Warwick West, Whitnash, and Willes.
The 2010 boundary changes reduced the constituency's area by removing outlying villages, reflecting population and housing growth.
1997–2010: The District of Warwick wards of Bishop's Tachbrook, Brunswick, Budbrooke, Clarendon, Crown, Cubbington, Lapworth, Leek Wootton, Manor, Milverton, Radford Semele, Warwick North, Warwick South, Warwick West, Whitnash, and Willes, and the District of Stratford-on-Avon wards of Henley, Tanworth, and Tanworth Earlswood.
1983–1997: The District of Warwick wards of Bishop's Tachbrook, Brunswick, Budbrooke, Clarendon, Crown, Cubbington, Lapworth, Leek Wootton, Manor, Milverton, Radford Semele, Warwick North, Warwick South, Warwick West, Whitnash, and Willes.
1974–1983: As 1950 but with redrawn boundaries.
1950–1974: The Boroughs of Warwick and Royal Leamington Spa, the Urban District of Kenilworth, and the Rural District of Warwick.
1918–1950: The Boroughs of Warwick, Royal Leamington Spa, and Stratford-on-Avon, the Urban District of Kenilworth, the Rural Districts of Warwick and Alcester, and parts of the Rural Districts of Stratford-on-Avon and Brailes.
1885-1918: The existing parliamentary borough of Warwick, the municipal borough of Royal Leamington Spa, and the local government districts of Milverton and Lillington.[4]
The seat comprises the two eponymous towns, with modest hills surrounding them, in the upper valley of the River Avon.
The towns of Warwick and Royal Leamington Spa are still distinct, however, and form, in the modern seat, a contiguous urban area. Both towns are relatively affluent, although there are pockets of deprivation in Leamington. Warwick, with its historic castle, is an internationally advertised tourist destination, while Leamington's economy is more dependent on storage, distribution, manufacturing, processing, engineering and industry. Leamington is also more ethnically diverse (e.g. five per cent of the constituency's population is of Asian ethnicity) and is home to some students of the University of Warwick that lies close to Coventry.
Unemployment claimants who were registered jobseekers were in November 2012 significantly lower than the national average of 3.8%, at 2.2% of the population based on a statistical compilation by The Guardian.[5]
The constituency was created under the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885, partially replacing the earlier and ancient Warwick constituency which until that year had sent two MPs to Westminster.[6]
Represented solely by Members of Parliament from the Conservative Party for 87 years from 1910-97, the seat was for much of this time a safe seat; seeing frequent majorities of more than 10,000 votes, and the seat was uncontested at both the 1918 and 1922 general elections. The seat had not been expected to change hands at the 1997 general election: as such James Plaskitt's defeat of Dudley Smith was a Portillo moment, without the decapitation of a government frontbencher. Plaskitt increased his majority at the 2001 general election, but on a lower turnout. At the 2005 general election, Warwick and Leamington was 85th on the Conservative list of target seats, meaning that to gain it they would have required a somewhat greater swing than was seen nationally. With a greater swing from Labour to the Liberal Democrats, Plaskitt narrowly retained the seat with a majority slashed from nearly 6,000 votes to a mere 266.
However, minor boundary changes in Labour's favour took effect at the 2010 general election and the winner was variously predicted. In 2010, the seat was gained by a Conservative, Chris White, with a majority of 7% of the vote. On this occasion, the Conservative Party was the main beneficiary from swings away from the Labour Party and the Green Party. White held the seat in 2015 with an increased majority of 6,606 votes. The Labour candidate, Matthew Western gained the seat from the Conservatives on a swing of 7.6% at the 2017 snap general election, overturning a majority of 6,606 votes.[7] (this was the fourth-largest lead overturned by Labour at the 2017 general election). This made Matt Western the second MP for Warwick and Leamington from the Labour Party in the history of the constituency. At the 2019 general election, Western held the seat with a slightly reduced majority, and in 2024 Western was re-elected with an increased majority of 12,412 votes, the largest majority for a Labour candidate in the seat's history.
From 1923-57, the seat was represented by Sir Anthony Eden, who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1955-57.
For part of the early-1920s, the Solicitor General for England and Wales, then Attorney General for England and Wales, represented the seat, Sir Ernest Pollock. Eden's successor, Sir John Hobson, was also in all of those senior positions for part of the early-1960s.
Warwick prior to 1885
| Election | Member | Party | Notes | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1885 | Arthur Peel | Liberal | Speaker of the House of Commons 1884–95 | ||
| 1886 | Liberal Unionist | ||||
| 1895 by-election | Alfred Lyttelton | Liberal Unionist | |||
| 1906 | Thomas Berridge | Liberal | |||
| Jan 1910 | Ernest Pollock | Conservative | Solicitor General then Attorney General (1919–1922) | ||
| 1923 | Sir Anthony Eden | Conservative | Leader of the Conservative Party and Prime Minister (1955–1957), resigned January 1957 | ||
| 1957 by-election | John Hobson | Conservative | Solicitor General then Attorney General (1962–1964), died December 1967 | ||
| 1968 by-election | Dudley Smith | Conservative | |||
| 1997 | James Plaskitt | Labour | |||
| 2010 | Chris White | Conservative | |||
| 2017 | Matt Western | Labour | |||
General Election 1939–40:Another General Election was required to take place before the end of 1940. The political parties had been making preparations for an election to take place from 1939 and by the end of this year, the following candidates had been selected;