Wentworth and Dearne (UK Parliament constituency)


Wentworth and Dearne is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since its 2010 creation by John Healey, a member of the Labour Party.

History

Parliament accepted the Boundary Commission's Fifth Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies recommending the creation of this constituency for the 2010 general election.
;Political history
Most forerunner parts of the seat of Wentworth matched its record of being a safe seat for Labour. However, since the 2019 general election the seat has become a marginal between Labour and Conservative Party. Labour's majority over the Conservatives currently stands at 2,165. Labour's vote share declined by 24.7% at the 2019 election, the second worst decline in vote share it suffered in any of the 630 constituencies that the party contested at that election.
;Prominent frontbencher
The present member, John Healey held a continuous period of frontbench positions, withstanding during this time various rotations of the Labour frontbench – the positions were:
In September 2015 he was appointed Shadow Minister for Housing

Boundaries

The seat comprises satellite settlements to two large Yorkshire towns, separated by green buffers, in a band north of Rotherham and southeast of Barnsley and as such has electoral wards:
Most of the constituency succeeds Wentworth however the large settlement of Dearne was instead the largest in Barnsley East and Mexborough. The name of the seat stems from the village that shares its name with the largest private house in the country and listed gardens in the seat, Wentworth Woodhouse, in a similar manner, with a widened use of an otherwise scarcely populated settlement, as Sefton.

Constituency profile

The South Yorkshire settlements grew in the seat into primarily large town size developments from the large presence of coal leading to extensive mining in this area, coupled with convenient proximity to Sheffield, the canals and rivers network, as well as to Doncaster, York, Wakefield and Leeds. As the mining industry has suffered a decline and agriculture employs few people, niche manufacturing, general processing as well as retail and distribution are critical sectors of the economy to local employment. Workless claimants who were registered jobseekers were in November 2012 higher than the national average of 3.8%, at 5.6% of the population, based on a statistical compilation by The Guardian.

Members of Parliament

Elections

Elections in the 2010s

This seat was fought for the first time at the 2010 general election.