Penistone and Stocksbridge is a
constituency
An electoral district, also known as an election district, legislative district, voting district, constituency, riding, ward, division, or (election) precinct is a subdivision of a larger state (a country, administrative region, or other poli ...
in the
House of Commons
The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...
of the
UK Parliament
The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative suprem ...
represented since 2019 by
Miriam Cates, a Conservative. As with all constituencies, adults qualifying to vote in the seat (its electorate) elect one
Member of Parliament
A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members o ...
(MP) by the
first past the post
In a first-past-the-post electoral system (FPTP or FPP), formally called single-member plurality voting (SMP) when used in single-member districts or informally choose-one voting in contrast to ranked voting, or score voting, voters cast thei ...
system of election at least every five years.
Boundaries
The
Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley
The Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley is a metropolitan borough in South Yorkshire, England; the main settlement is Barnsley and other notable towns include Penistone, Wombwell and Hoyland.
The borough is bisected by the M1 motorway; it is ru ...
wards of
Dodworth
Dodworth is a village in the metropolitan borough of Barnsley in South Yorkshire, England. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, it has a population of 5,742, increasing to 5,900 at the 2011 Census (9,777 for Dodworth Ward).
Histo ...
, Penistone East, and Penistone West, and the
Sheffield
Sheffield is a city in South Yorkshire, England, whose name derives from the River Sheaf which runs through it. The city serves as the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire ...
wards of
Stocksbridge and Upper Don
Stocksbridge and Upper Don ward is one of the 28 electoral wards of the borough of Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. The population of this ward was 18,541 at the 2011 Census.
The main population centres in the ward are Stocksbridge and Ou ...
,
East Ecclesfield and
West Ecclesfield.
History
The seat largely resembles the
old Penistone Constituency, which, following the election of a
Conservative
Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...
in
the Conservative landslide in 1931, returned MPs representing the
Labour Party through to its abolition in 1983.
In 1983, two new constituencies were formed,
Sheffield Hillsborough and
Barnsley West and Penistone, both of which returned Labour MPs at every election they were fought.
The 2010 result was that of a
marginal
Marginal may refer to:
* ''Marginal'' (album), the third album of the Belgian rock band Dead Man Ray, released in 2001
* ''Marginal'' (manga)
* '' El Marginal'', Argentine TV series
* Marginal seat or marginal constituency or marginal, in polit ...
Labour majority. In 2015, the Labour majority increased, partly due to a split right-wing vote between the Conservatives and
UKIP
The UK Independence Party (UKIP; ) is a Eurosceptic, right-wing populist political party in the United Kingdom. The party reached its greatest level of success in the mid-2010s, when it gained two members of Parliament and was the largest p ...
, while the
Liberal Democrats' vote decline largely benefited Labour in the seat.
When the UKIP vote declined in 2017, with a large amount of those voters going to the Conservatives causing a swing of almost 6% against Labour, the seat became extremely marginal.
Elected as a member of the Labour Party, MP
Angela Smith quit the party in February 2019 and joined
Change UK. She left this party in June 2019 and joined
The Independents. She departed the parliamentary group in September 2019 and joined the Liberal Democrats. Smith chose not to defend her seat at the 2019 election; she instead contested
Altrincham and Sale West for the Liberal Democrats, failing to gain the seat. In this election, the Conservatives gained Penistone and Stocksbridge to gain one of three seats in South Yorkshire, their first since before the 1997 general election.
Constituency profile
The seat is most heavily populated on its eastern fringe, with communities built largely on the coal and steel industries, such as the ex-mining village of Dodworth and the steelworking town of
Stocksbridge
Stocksbridge is a town and civil parish, in the City of Sheffield, in South Yorkshire, England. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, it lies just to the east of the Peak District. The town is located in the steep-sided valley of ...
.
Penistone too has a history of steelworking at the David Brown and high-tech foundries although many local people are or have been employed at the Hepworth pipeworks (formerly Hepworth Iron Co./Hepworth Building Products) which specialises in the manufacture of pipes, mains and domestic and whose fortunes vary with demand in construction. To the south lies the densely populated, northern Sheffield suburbs of
Chapeltown with its rich industrial history,
Ecclesfield,
Grenoside and
High Green. Between these urban areas are rural villages including
Oxspring,
Wortley,
Green Moor and
Thurgoland
Thurgoland (, ) is a village and civil parish in the Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley in South Yorkshire, England, on the A629 road. According to the 2001 census the parish had a population of 1,801, increasing to 1,969 at the 2011 Census.
B ...
occupied mostly by commuters to Sheffield (as well as those for Leeds and Manchester). The western area of the constituency is in the
Peak District National Park.
The seat contains three significant stately homes:
Cannon Hall (home of the
Spencer-Stanhope family of Pre-Raphaelites) is open to the public as the
13th/18th Royal Hussars Museum, while
Wortley Hall
Wortley Hall is a stately home in the small South Yorkshire village of Wortley, located south of Barnsley, England. For more than six decades the hall has been chiefly associated with the British Labour movement. It is currently used by several t ...
(ancestral home of the Wortley-Montagu family) is largely used by
trade union
A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ...
s and their families; the third is
Wentworth Castle
Wentworth Castle is a grade-I listed country house, the former seat of the Earls of Strafford, at Stainborough, near Barnsley in South Yorkshire, England. It is now home to the Northern College for Residential and Community Education.
An ...
, where an adult educational establishment,
Northern College, is based.
Members of Parliament
Elections
Elections in the 2010s
}
:
* ''Served as an MP in the 2005–2010 Parliament''
See also
*
List of parliamentary constituencies in South Yorkshire
Notes
References
Sources
Sheffield Recommendationsof the Boundary Commission for England.
*Summary of th
Sheffield Parliamentary Boundary Review
{{DEFAULTSORT:Penistone And Stocksbridge (Uk Parliament Constituency)
Politics of Penistone
Stocksbridge
Parliamentary constituencies in Yorkshire and the Humber
Constituencies of the Parliament of the United Kingdom established in 2010
Politics of Barnsley