| Liverpool, West Derby | |
| Parliament: | uk |
| Year: | 1885 |
| Type: | Borough |
| Elects Howmany: | One |
| Previous: | Liverpool |
| Electorate: | 70,730 (2023)[1] |
| Mp: | Ian Byrne |
| Party: | Labour |
| Region: | England |
| County: | Merseyside |
| European: | North West England |
Liverpool, West Derby is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2019 by Ian Byrne of the Labour Party. On 23 July 2024, Byrne was suspended from the Labour Party and had the whip withdrawn for six months, for voting to scrap the two child benefit cap. He now sits as an Independent.[2]
1885–1918: The Municipal Borough of Liverpool ward of West Derby.
1918–1950: The County Borough of Liverpool wards of Anfield, Breckfield, and West Derby.
1950–1955: The County Borough of Liverpool wards of Croxteth and West Derby.
1955–1983: The County Borough of Liverpool wards of Clubmoor, Croxteth, Dovecot, and Gillmoss.
1983–1997: The City of Liverpool wards of Clubmoor, Croxteth, Dovecot, Gillmoss, and Pirrie.
1997–2010: The City of Liverpool wards of Clubmoor, Croxteth, Dovecot, Gillmoss, Pirrie, and Tuebrook.
2010–2024: The City of Liverpool wards of Croxteth, Knotty Ash, Norris Green, Tuebrook and Stoneycroft, West Derby, and Yew Tree.
The constituency is one of five covering the city of Liverpool and covers the northeast of the city, including Croxteth, Gillmoss, Knotty Ash, Norris Green, Tuebrook, and Stoneycroft as well as West Derby itself.
Following their review of parliamentary representation in Merseyside, the Boundary Commission created a modified West Derby constituency, which was fought at the 2010 general election. The commission's initial proposal to create a cross-border "Croxteth and Kirkby" constituency (which would have contained electoral wards from Knowsley borough, as well as from Liverpool) was dropped on its public consultation.
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 wards (as they existed on 1 December 2020):
The constituency will be subject to significant change, with the addition of the two Knowsley Borough wards from the constituency of Knowsley and the Liverpool City ward of Old Swan from Liverpool Wavertree. These will be partly offset by the transfer of the Croxteth and Norris Green wards to Liverpool Walton.
Liverpool was subject to a comprehensive local government boundary review which came into effect in May 2023.[4] [5] Accordingly, the proposed boundaries no longer coincide with ward boundaries and the constituency will now comprise the following from the 2024 general election:
The seat was created in the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885 and can be considered a safe seat from 1964 to the present day for the Labour Party, having retained the seat at every general election since then. However, in the early-1980s, it was briefly held by the SDP as a result of sitting Labour MP Eric Ogden being among many defectors. Labour regained the seat at the 1983 general election, where Bob Wareing won the seat back for Labour.
Before 1964, it was held by the Conservative Party, although their share of the vote has declined considerably; so much so that at four recent general elections, they have finished in fourth place; however they managed to place in third at the 2015 general election and second place in 2017 and 2019.
At the general elections of 1997 and 2001, the Liverpool West Derby seat was the only constituency in England in which a minor party finished in second place, the Liberal Party who had all three local councillors for one electoral ward in the area.[7] At the 2005 general election, however, the Liberals were pushed into third place by the Liberal Democrats and fell to fourth place in 2015, with UKIP finishing in second place.
| Election | Member | Party | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1885 | Lord Claud Hamilton | Conservative | |
| 1888 by-election | Hon. William Cross | Conservative | |
| 1893 by-election | Walter Long | Conservative | |
| 1900 | Samuel Higginbottom | Conservative | |
| 1903 by-election | William Rutherford | Conservative | |
| 1918 | Sir F. E. Smith, Bt | Conservative | |
| 1919 by-election | Sir Reginald Hall | Conservative | |
| 1923 | Sydney Jones | Liberal | |
| 1924 | Sir John Sandeman Allen | Conservative | |
| 1935 by-election | David Maxwell Fyfe | Conservative | |
| 1954 by-election | John Woollam | Conservative | |
| 1964 | Eric Ogden | Labour | |
| 1981 | SDP | ||
| 1983 | Bob Wareing | Labour | |
| 2007 | Independent | ||
| 2010 | Stephen Twigg | Labour Co-operative | |
| 2019 | Ian Byrne | Labour | |
| 2024 | Independent | ||
Paul Parr was also the Liberal Democrat candidate at both the 2010 and 2015 general elections, when he was known as Paul Twigger. Graham Hughes ran on an anti-Brexit platform as an independent in 2017, and subsequently joined the Liberal Democrats.[11]