Taunton and Wellington | |
---|---|
County constituency for the House of Commons | |
County | Somerset |
Electorate | 76,049 (2023) [1] |
Major settlements | Norton Fitzwarren, Taunton, Wellington, Wiveliscombe |
Current constituency | |
Created | 2024 |
Member of Parliament | Gideon Amos (Liberal Democrat) |
Seats | One |
Created from | Taunton Deane |
Taunton and Wellington is a constituency of the House of Commons in the UK Parliament. [2] Further to the completion of the 2023 Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies, it was first contested at the 2024 general election, [3] with Gideon Amos of the Liberal Democrats taking the seat with a majority of 11,939. The predecessor seat, Taunton Deane, had been held by Rebecca Pow of the Conservative Party since 2015.
Under the 2023 Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies, the constituency was defined as being composed of the following as they existed on 1 December 2020:
With effect from 1 April 2023, the District of Somerset West and Taunton was abolished and absorbed into the new unitary authority of Somerset. [5] Consequently, the constituency now comprises the following electoral divisions of Somerset from the 2024 general election:
The seat comprises the majority of the former Taunton Deane constituency, with Wiveliscombe and surrounding rural areas being included in the newly created constituency of Tiverton and Minehead.
Electoral Calculus characterises this area as "Centrist", where voters have moderate/centrist views on economic and social issues and thus could support any of the three main English parties. [6]
Election | Member | Party | |
---|---|---|---|
2024 | Gideon Amos | Liberal Democrats |
Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Liberal Democrats | Gideon Amos [8] | 24,331 | 48.4 | +12.1 | |
Conservative | Rebecca Pow [9] | 12,392 | 24.6 | −27.4 | |
Reform UK | Charles Hansard [10] | 8,053 | 16.0 | N/A | |
Labour | Brenda Weston [11] | 3,552 | 7.1 | −0.8 | |
Green | Ryan Trower [12] | 1,832 | 3.6 | N/A | |
Communist | Rochelle Russell [13] | 134 | 0.3 | N/A | |
Majority | 11,939 | 23.8 | N/A | ||
Turnout | 50,294 | 64.4 | −7.2 | ||
Registered electors | 78,116 | ||||
Liberal Democrats gain from Conservative | Swing | 19.8 |
2019 notional result [14] | |||
---|---|---|---|
Party | Vote | % | |
Conservative | 28,298 | 52.0 | |
Liberal Democrats | 19,762 | 36.3 | |
Labour | 4,299 | 7.9 | |
Independent | 2,081 | 3.8 | |
Turnout | 54,440 | 71.6 | |
Electorate | 76,049 |
Taunton is the county town of Somerset, England. It is a market town and has a minster church. Its population in 2011 was 64,621. Its thousand-year history includes a 10th-century monastic foundation, owned by the Bishops of Winchester, which was rebuilt as Taunton Castle by the Normans in the 12th century. Parts of the inner ward house were turned into the Museum of Somerset and Somerset Military Museum. For the Second Cornish uprising of 1497, Perkin Warbeck brought an army of 6,000; most surrendered to Henry VII on 4 October 1497. On 20 June 1685 in Taunton the Duke of Monmouth crowned himself King of England in a rebellion, defeated at the Battle of Sedgemoor. Judge Jeffreys led the Bloody Assizes in the Castle's Great Hall.
Taunton Deane was a local government district with borough status in Somerset, England. Its council was based in Taunton.
Bridgwater is a parliamentary constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom since 2024 by Ashley Fox of the Conservative Party. It elects one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post system of election.
Weston-super-Mare is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament by Dan Aldridge from the Labour Party since 2024. Before then it was held since 2005 by John Penrose, a Conservative.
Taunton was a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom and its predecessors from 1295 to 2010, taking its name from the town of Taunton in Somerset. Until 1918, it was a parliamentary borough, electing two Member of Parliaments (MPs) between 1295 and 1885 and one from 1885 to 1918; the name was then transferred to a county constituency, electing one MP.
Yeovil is a constituency in Somerset created in 1918 and represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Since the 2024 General Election, the constituency has been represented by Liberal Democrat MP Adam Dance.
Bridgwater and West Somerset was a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2010 by Ian Liddell-Grainger, a Conservative.
North Somerset is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2024 by Sadik Al-Hassan of the Labour Party.
Taunton Deane was a constituency in Somerset represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament.
Taunton Deane Borough Council in Somerset, England was elected every four years. The first elections to the council were held in 1973, ahead of it coming into being in 1974. The last election was held in 2015. The council was abolished in 2019 when the district merged with neighbouring West Somerset district to become Somerset West and Taunton.
The region of South West England is divided into 58 parliamentary constituencies, which are made up of 16 borough constituencies and 42 county constituencies. Since the general election of July 2024, 24 are represented by Labour MPs, 22 by Liberal Democrat MPs, 11 by Conservative MPs, and 1 by a Green MP.
Taunton was a rural district in Somerset, England, from 1894 to 1974.
Rebecca Pow, is a British Conservative politician who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Taunton Deane from 2015 to 2024. She also served as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Nature from November 2023 to 4 July 2024. Pow lost her bid to be elected as the Member of Parliament (MP) for the revised Taunton and Wellington seat to Gideon Amos of the Liberal Democrats in the 2024 United Kingdom General Election. Pow previously served as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs from 2019 to 2022.
The 2017 Somerset County Council election took place on 4 May 2017 as part of the 2017 local elections in the United Kingdom. All 55 councilors were elected from 54 electoral divisions, which each returned either one or two county councilors by first-past-the-post voting for a four-year term of office.
The 2023 periodic review of Westminster constituencies was the most recent cycle of the process to redraw the constituency map for the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. The new constituency boundaries were approved by the Privy Council on 15 November 2023 and came into law on 29 November.
The 2022 Somerset Council election took place on 5 May 2022 to elect members of Somerset County Council. The number of councillors was doubled from 55 to 110 at this election, in preparation for the county council becoming a unitary authority on 1 April 2023, when it was renamed Somerset Council.
Tiverton and Minehead is a constituency of the House of Commons in the UK Parliament. Further to the completion of the 2023 Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies, it was first contested at the 2024 general election. Its first MP is Liberal Democrat Rachel Gilmour, who defeated Ian Liddell-Grainger, the Conservative MP for Bridgwater then Bridgwater and West Somerset from 2001 to 2024.