Surrey Heath (UK Parliament constituency)
| Surrey Heath | |
|---|---|
| County constituency for the House of Commons | |
 Boundary of Surrey Heath in Surrey | |
 Location of Surrey within England | |
| County | Surrey |
| Electorate | 78,453 (December 2010) |
| Major settlements | Camberley, Lightwater and Ash |
| Current constituency | |
| Created | 1997 |
| Member of Parliament | Michael Gove (Conservative) |
| Created from | North West Surrey, Guildford and Woking |
Surrey Heath is a constituency[n 1] represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2005 by Michael Gove, a Conservative who was the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities until July 2022, and returned to the office on October 25th 2022.[n 2] The Home counties suburban constituency is in the London commuter belt, on the outskirts of Greater London. Surrey Heath is in the north west of Surrey and borders the counties of Berkshire and Hampshire.
History
The seat was created in 1997 from the most part of North West Surrey, a seat that was abolished, and smaller parts of Woking and Guildford, seats that remain.
On its creation, Nick Hawkins was elected to parliament as Surrey Heath's MP, after Michael Grylls, who had in 1992 achieved a majority of 28,392, retired.[1] One of Hawkins' opponents for selection was future Speaker John Bercow, selected for Buckingham the same day.[2]
In 1999 then-party chairman Michael Ancram was intervened to prevent a move to deselect Hawkins following local party disquiet about him leaving his wife of 20 years for a local councillor.[3][4] In 2004, the Conservative constituency association, then the richest in the country, deselected Hawkins for the next election, following accusations of racism, in the hope of obtaining an MP of cabinet calibre.[5][6]
The MP since 2005, Michael Gove, served in three Conservative governments across multiple departments between 2010 and 2022, lasting 4 years as Secretary of State for Education until 2014, and most recently holding office as the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities from 2021 until 2022.
Boundaries
Surrey Heath occupies the northwest corner of the county. It has electoral wards:
- Bagshot, Bisley, Chobham, Frimley, Frimley Green, Heatherside, Lightwater, Mytchett and Deepcut, Old Dean, Parkside, St Michaels, St Pauls, Town, Watchett, West End, and Windlesham in the Surrey Heath District
- Ash South and Tongham, Ash Vale, and Ash Wharf in the Borough of Guildford.
The largest town[n 3] is Camberley. The Boundary Commission made no boundary changes for Surrey Heath in the Fifth Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies before the 2010 general election.
The large village of Ash with Ash Vale and smaller one of Tongham are contiguous, similar to Frimley and Frimley Green.
Constituency profile
70% of homes were detached or semi-detached at the 2011 census. The detached percentage (45.2%) was at that time the second highest in the South East, behind the New Forest.[7] The area is well connected to London Heathrow Airport, IT, telecommunications and logistics centres of the M3 and M4 corridors, and to the military towns of Aldershot and Sandhurst. Farnborough, with its civil, private aviation base with certain military uses, is also nearby, as is Blackbushe Airport.
Workless claimants, registered jobseekers, were in November 2012 significantly lower than the national average of 3.8%, at 1.7% of the population based on a statistical compilation by The Guardian.[8]
According to the British Election Study, it was the most right-wing seat in the UK as of 2014.[9]
Constituents on balance voted to leave the European Union in 2016 but an analysis of YouGov polling by Focaldata suggested support for remain rose from 48% then to 50.2% in August 2018.[10]
Until the 2019 general election, the constituency was seen as one of the Conservative Party's safest seats. This election saw an unexpected 16% swing to the Liberal Democrats' candidate Alasdair Pinkerton, polling the highest second place since the constituency's creation, with Labour recording the lowest share of the vote since the seat's creation.
Surrey Heath is seen as the Liberal Democrats' 58th target seat,[11] having taken the Conservatives from a majority of 35 on the local council to a majority of one at the 2019 election[12] and pushed the Conservatives to the lowest number of councillors on Guildford Borough Council since its creation in 1973.[13]
Members of Parliament
| Election | Member[14] | Party | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1997 | Nick Hawkins | Conservative | |
| 2005 | Michael Gove | Conservative | |
Elections
Elections in the 2010s
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Conservative | Michael Gove | 34,358 | 58.6 | –5.6 | |
| Liberal Democrats | Alasdair Pinkerton | 16,009 | 27.3 | +16.5 | |
| Labour | Brahma Mohanty | 5,407 | 9.2 | –11.9 | |
| Green | Sharon Galliford | 2,252 | 3.8 | –0.1 | |
| UKIP | David Roe | 628 | 1.1 | New | |
| Majority | 18,349 | 31.3 | –11.8 | ||
| Turnout | 58,654 | 72.1 | +0.5 | ||
| Conservative hold | Swing | –11.0 | |||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Conservative | Michael Gove | 37,118 | 64.2 | +4.3 | |
| Labour | Laween Atroshi | 12,175 | 21.1 | +9.9 | |
| Liberal Democrats | Ann-Marie Barker | 6,271 | 10.8 | +1.7 | |
| Green | Sharon Galliford | 2,258 | 3.9 | –0.5 | |
| Majority | 24,943 | 43.1 | –2.5 | ||
| Turnout | 57,822 | 71.6 | +3.1 | ||
| Conservative hold | Swing | –2.8 | |||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Conservative | Michael Gove | 32,582 | 59.9 | +2.3 | |
| UKIP | Paul Chapman[18] | 7,778 | 14.3 | +8.0 | |
| Labour | Laween Atroshi | 6,100 | 11.2 | +1.0 | |
| Liberal Democrats | Ann-Marie Barker | 4,937 | 9.1 | –16.8 | |
| Green | Kimberley Lawson[19] | 2,400 | 4.4 | New | |
| Christian | Juliana Brimicombe | 361 | 0.7 | New | |
| Independent | Bob and Roberta Smith[20] | 273 | 0.5 | New | |
| Majority | 24,804 | 45.6 | +13.8 | ||
| Turnout | 54,431 | 68.5 | –1.5 | ||
| Conservative hold | Swing | ||||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Conservative | Michael Gove | 31,326 | 57.6 | +6.1 | |
| Liberal Democrats | Alan Hilliar | 14,037 | 25.8 | –3.0 | |
| Labour | Matt Willey | 5,552 | 10.2 | –6.5 | |
| UKIP | Mark Stroud | 3,432 | 6.3 | +3.3 | |
| Majority | 17,289 | 31.8 | +9.1 | ||
| Turnout | 54,347 | 70.0 | +7.1 | ||
| Conservative hold | Swing | +4.5 | |||
Elections in the 2000s
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Conservative | Michael Gove | 24,642 | 51.5 | +1.8 | |
| Liberal Democrats | Rosalyn Harper | 13,797 | 28.8 | +3.1 | |
| Labour | Chris Lowe | 7,989 | 16.7 | –4.7 | |
| UKIP | Steve Smith | 1,430 | 3.0 | –0.3 | |
| Majority | 10,845 | 22.7 | –1.3 | ||
| Turnout | 47,858 | 62.9 | +3.4 | ||
| Conservative hold | Swing | –0.7 | |||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Conservative | Nick Hawkins | 22,401 | 49.7 | –1.9 | |
| Liberal Democrats | Mark Lelliott | 11,582 | 25.7 | +3.9 | |
| Labour | James Norman | 9,640 | 21.4 | +0.4 | |
| UKIP | Nigel Hunt | 1,479 | 3.3 | +2.1 | |
| Majority | 10,819 | 24.0 | –5.8 | ||
| Turnout | 45,102 | 59.5 | –14.6 | ||
| Conservative hold | Swing | ||||
Elections in the 1990s
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Conservative | Nick Hawkins | 28,231 | 51.6 | ||
| Liberal Democrats | David Newman | 11,944 | 21.8 | ||
| Labour | Susan Jones | 11,511 | 21.0 | ||
| Referendum | John Gale | 2,385 | 4.4 | ||
| UKIP | Richard Squire | 653 | 1.2 | ||
| Majority | 16,287 | 29.8 | |||
| Turnout | 54,724 | 74.1 | |||
| Conservative win (new seat) | |||||
See also
Notes
- ^ A county constituency (for the purposes of election expenses and type of returning officer)
- ^ As with all constituencies, the constituency elects one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post system of election at least every five years.
- ^ occupying the seven wards without individual settlement articles
References
- ^ "General Election Results, 9 April 1992" (PDF). House of Commons Library. Archived (PDF) from the original on 13 October 2010. Retrieved 17 September 2010.
- ^ "BBC NEWS - UK - UK Politics - The John Bercow story". news.bbc.co.uk. 24 June 2009. Archived from the original on 29 August 2017. Retrieved 24 June 2009.
- ^ "Tory MP deselected for 'neglect of voters'". The Independent. 9 April 2004. Archived from the original on 15 February 2022. Retrieved 12 June 2020.
- ^ Kite, Melissa (3 April 2004). "A Surrey saga of intrigue as Tories in one of Britain's safest seats attempt to deselect their MP". The Daily Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Archived from the original on 1 March 2016. Retrieved 12 June 2020.
- ^ Melissa Kite (27 June 2004). "Surrey Heath members believe that their money ought to be able to buy a future prime minister". Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 11 November 2012. Retrieved 13 August 2012.
- ^ "Senior Tory kicked out by party". 8 April 2004. Archived from the original on 29 October 2020. Retrieved 12 June 2020.
- ^ "2011 census interactive maps". Archived from the original on 29 January 2016.
- ^ Unemployment claimants by constituency Archived 2 August 2017 at the Wayback Machine The Guardian
- ^ Wheeler, Brian (1 December 2014). "The strange truth about how and why we vote". BBC News. Archived from the original on 7 December 2017. Retrieved 21 June 2018.
- ^ Savage, Michael (11 August 2018). "More than 100 seats that backed Brexit now want to remain in EU". The Observer. Archived from the original on 18 August 2018. Retrieved 24 June 2019.
- ^ "Liberal Democrat Targets Seats 2024 - Election Polling". www.electionpolling.co.uk. Archived from the original on 20 July 2020. Retrieved 12 June 2020.
- ^ Boyd, Alex (20 January 2020). "Council leader and deputy leader resign with no explanation". getsurrey. Archived from the original on 28 April 2020. Retrieved 12 June 2020.
- ^ McKeon, Christopher (5 May 2019). "How Guildford's Tories collapsed under Brexit and Local Plan". getsurrey. Archived from the original on 8 August 2020. Retrieved 12 June 2020.
- ^ Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "S" (part 6)
- ^ "STATEMENT OF PERSONS NOMINATED, NOTICE OF POLL AND SITUATION OF POLLING STATIONS" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 14 May 2021. Retrieved 14 November 2019.
- ^ "Loony Party Candidates". Archived from the original on 18 January 2018. Retrieved 7 May 2017.
- ^ "Election Data 2015". Electoral Calculus. Archived from the original on 17 October 2015. Retrieved 17 October 2015.
- ^ webteam, Surrey Heath UKIP. "Leave the EU - Surrey Heath Constituency UKIP branch. News, articles, videos, policies, join, in.camberley, frimley, bagshot, chobham, bisley, mytchett". surreyheathukip.org.uk. Archived from the original on 18 May 2015. Retrieved 9 May 2015.
- ^ "Kimberley Lawson PPC page". Green Party of England and Wales. Archived from the original on 20 September 2015. Retrieved 1 March 2015.
- ^ Clark, Nick (3 December 2014). "Bob and Roberta Smith will run against Michael Gove at the election on culture platform". Independent. Archived from the original on 2 April 2015. Retrieved 1 March 2015.
- ^ "Election Data 2010". Electoral Calculus. Archived from the original on 26 July 2013. Retrieved 17 October 2015.
- ^ "Election Data 2005". Electoral Calculus. Archived from the original on 15 October 2011. Retrieved 18 October 2015.
- ^ "Election Data 2001". Electoral Calculus. Archived from the original on 15 October 2011. Retrieved 18 October 2015.
- ^ "Election Data 1997". Electoral Calculus. Archived from the original on 15 October 2011. Retrieved 18 October 2015.
Sources
- Election result, 2010 (BBC)
- Election result, 2005 (BBC)
- Election results, 1997 - 2001 (BBC)
- Election results, 1997 - 2001 (Election Demon)
- Election results, 1997 - 2010 (Guardian)
