Witney (UK Parliament constituency)

Witney
County constituency
for the House of Commons
Boundary of Witney in Oxfordshire.
Location of Oxfordshire within England.
County	Oxfordshire
Electorate	78,220 (December 2010)
Major settlements	Witney, Carterton, Charlbury
Current constituency
Created	1983 (1983)
Member of Parliament	David Cameron (Conservative)
Number of members	One
Created from	Oxfordshire Mid
Overlaps
European Parliament constituency	South East England

Witney is a county constituency in Oxfordshire represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post system of election, and was created for the 1983 general election.

The constituency is currently represented by the Prime Minister, David Cameron.

History

Chart of Witney election results since 1983.

The constituency is a safe seat for the Conservative Party. Its first MP was Douglas Hurd, who served as a cabinet minister under both Margaret Thatcher and John Major, and stood down in 1997.

Hurd was succeeded by Shaun Woodward at the 1997 general election. However, Woodward defected to the Labour Party in 1999, and Witney unexpectedly had a Labour MP. Woodward chose not to stand in Witney as a Labour candidate and moved to the Labour safe seat of St Helens South instead, following the practice of Alan Howarth in 1997.

At the 2001 general election, David Cameron was elected as MP for Witney and has held the seat since then. He has been the leader of the Conservative Party since December 2005, and Prime Minister since May 2010.

Boundaries

Until 1974, much of the seat now known as Witney was classed as part of the Banbury Constituency which also included Banbury, Chipping Norton and Woodstock. From 1974 to 1983, the area was included in the Mid Oxfordshire seat along with parts of Bullingdon and Ploughley. Since 1983, Witney has been a full parliamentary seat in its own right and comprises the whole of the District of West Oxfordshire plus two villages close to Oxford which are in the Cherwell District Council Area.

It is typically made up of market towns of which Witney is the largest with a population of 23,000 and others include Chipping Norton with 6,000 and Woodstock with 4,000. Carterton is the second largest populated town with 14,000 and is situated alongside RAF Brize Norton which is vital to the local economy being one of the largest and busiest RAF bases in the country. The balance is very rural and is the largest area in all of the Districts in the County of Oxfordshire. The industrial profile has changed radically over the past few decades from predominantly agricultural and blanket based to the present day with many smaller hi-tech businesses such as those involved in high performance Formula 1 racing cars, computer technology and associated services. At the same time there has been a rapid expansion in the entire tourism industry in this area, with visitors coming from all over the world.

For the 2010 general election, the Witney Parliamentary Constituency boundaries changed and it become co-terminous with the boundaries of West Oxfordshire District Council. Begbroke and Yarnton, part of Cherwell District Council transferred to the Oxford West and Abingdon constituency following a Boundary Commission review.

Members of Parliament

Election		Member	Party	Notes
	1983	Douglas Hurd	Conservative	Later Baron Hurd of Westwell; Cabinet minister 1984-95
	1997	Shaun Woodward	Conservative	MP for St Helens South from 2001; later Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
	1999		Labour
	2001	David Cameron	Conservative	Leader of the Conservative Party 2005–present; Prime Minister 2010–present

Elections

Election	Political result		Candidate		Party	Votes	%	±%
General election, May 2010  Turnout: 57,769 (73.8%) +4.3		Conservative hold Majority: 22,740 (39.4%) +12.5 Swing: 6.3% from Lib Dem to Con		David Cameron	Conservative	33,973	58.8	+9.4
				Dawn Barnes	Liberal Democrat	11,233	19.4	−3.1
				Joe Goldberg	Labour	7,511	13.0	−9.4
				Stuart Macdonald	Green	2,385	4.1	+1.0
				Count Nikolai Tolstoy	UKIP	2,001	3.5	+0.9
				Howling Laud Hope	Monster Raving Loony	234	0.3	N/A
				Paul Wesson	Independent	166	0.3	N/A
				Johnnie Cook	Independent	151	0.3	N/A
				Colin Bex	Wessex Regionalist	62	0.1	N/A
				Aaron Barschak	Independent	53	0.1	N/A
General Election, May 2005 Turnout: 53,869 (69.0%) +3.1		Conservative hold Majority: 14,156 (26.3%) +10.1 Swing: 0.8% from Lib Dem to Con		David Cameron	Conservative	26,571	49.3	+4.3
				Liz Leffman	Liberal Democrat	12,415	23.0	+2.7
				Tony Gray	Labour	11,845	22.0	−6.8
				Richard Dossett-Davies	Green	1,682	3.2	+0.9
				Paul Wesson	UKIP	1,356	2.5	+0.9
General election, June 2001 Turnout: 49,203 (65.9%) −10.8		Conservative hold Majority: 7,973 (16.2%) +3.8 Swing: 1.9% from Lab to Con		David Cameron	Conservative	22,153	45.0	+2.0
				Michael Bartlet	Labour	14,180	28.8	−1.8
				Gareth Epps	Liberal Democrat	10,000	20.3	+0.5
				Mark Stevenson	Green	1,100	2.2	+1.1
				Barry Beadle	Independent	1,003	2.0	N/A
				Kenneth Dukes	UKIP	767	1.6	+0.2
General election, May 1997  Turnout: 56,401 (76.7%)		Conservative hold Majority: 7,028 (12.4%) −27.3 Swing: 13.7% from Con to Lab		Shaun Woodward	Conservative	24,282	43.0	−14.8
				A J Hollingsworth	Labour	17,254	30.6	+12.5
				A Lawrence	Liberal Democrat	11,202	19.9	−2.7
				G M Brown	Referendum Party	2,262	4.0	+4.0
				M. Montgomery	UKIP	765	1.4	+1.4
				S N Chapple-Perrie	Green	636	1.1	+1.1
General election, April 1992  Turnout: 64,306 (81.9%) +4.7		Conservative hold Majority: 22,568 (35.1%) +3.4 Swing: 2.8% from Con to Lab		Douglas Hurd	Conservative	36,256	56.4	−1.1
				James Plaskitt	Labour	13,688	21.3	+4.6
				IM Blair	Liberal Democrat	13,393	20.8	−4.9
				Ms. C Beckford	Green	716	1.1	+1.1
				Ms. SB Catling	Natural Law	134	0.2	+0.2
				Mrs MCC Brown	Independent Conservative	119	0.2	+0.2
General election, June 1987  Electorate: 75,284 Turnout: 58,185 (77.3%) +2.6		Conservative hold Majority: 18,464 (31.7%) +7.2 Swing: 3.6% from Lib to Con		Douglas Hurd	Conservative	33,458	57.5	+2.1
				M. E. Burton	Liberal	14,994	25.8	−5.1
				C. Collette	Labour	9,733	16.7	+2.9
General election, June 1983  New constituency Electorate: 69,362 Turnout: 51,823 (74.7%)		Conservative win Majority: 12,712 (24.5%)		Douglas Hurd	Conservative	28,695	55.4
				J Baston	Liberal	15,983	30.8
				Carole B. Douse	Labour	7,145	13.8

See also

• List of Parliamentary constituencies in Oxfordshire

Notes and references

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Folkestone and Hythe	Constituency represented by the Leader of the Opposition 2005–2010	Succeeded by Camberwell and Peckham
Preceded by Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath	Constituency represented by the Prime Minister 2010 – present	Succeeded by incumbent