Makerfield 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 ...

represented 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 ...

since 2010 by

Yvonne Fovargue Yvonne Helen Fovargue (born 29 November 1956) is a British Labour Party politician serving as Member of Parliament (MP) for Makerfield since 2010. Early life and career Fovargue attended Sale Grammar School and obtained a Bachelor of Arts ...

of the Labour Party.

History

This seat was formed in 1983 mostly from the Ince and Wigan seats however with some of the Leigh seat.

Constituency profile

Makerfield is on some calculations, particularly a historical measure based on the period of time since a previous party served the area, the safest Labour seat in the country — with its predecessor constituencies, the area has been held by Labour since the

Parliamentary Labour Party In UK politics, the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) is the parliamentary group of the Labour Party in Parliament, i.e. Labour MPs as a collective body. Commentators on the British Constitution sometimes draw a distinction between the Labour ...

was formed in 1906. In 2010 the constituency, of the 650 nationally, polled the 105th highest share of the vote for the Labour Party. However, Labour's majority fell significantly in 2019 as with many " Red Wall" seats. There is no town called Makerfield itself; instead, the name refers to the suffix of 'in-Makerfield' of the towns Ashton-in-Makerfield and

Ince-in-Makerfield Ince-in-Makerfield or Ince is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan, in Greater Manchester, England. The population of the Ince ward at the 2011 census was 13,486, but a southern part of Ince was also listed under the Abram ward (north ...

, though since 2010 the latter is now part of the

Wigan Wigan ( ) is a large town in Greater Manchester, England, on the River Douglas. The town is midway between the two cities of Manchester, to the south-east, and Liverpool, to the south-west. Bolton lies to the north-east and Warrington ...

seat. The seat comprises mostly working-class residential suburbs south of Wigan and to the west of

Leigh Leigh may refer to: Places In England Pronounced : * Leigh, Greater Manchester, Borough of Wigan ** Leigh (UK Parliament constituency) * Leigh-on-Sea, Essex Pronounced : * Leigh, Dorset * Leigh, Gloucestershire * Leigh, Kent * Leigh, Staff ...

. Deprivation however is relatively lower than that of neighbouring towns and home-ownership is higher, with a mostly skilled working-class population and a lower than average proportion of ethnic minorities. There is some semi-rural land towards the west of the constituency where it borders St Helens and green buffers separating the constituent towns and villages. Formerly a coal-mining area, there is now a small amount of light industry remaining, though not as much as Wigan, and the area is mostly residential as the towns continue to grow. The area is also home to

Winstanley College Winstanley College is a sixth-form college in the Billinge Higher End area of the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan, Greater Manchester. Admissions In the academic year 2022-23 it had approx 2300 full-time students. The catchment area spreads across ...

, one of the highest performing sixth-form colleges in the country, enrolling around 1800 students.

Boundaries

1983–1997: The Metropolitan Borough of Wigan wards of Abram, Ashton-Golborne, Bryn, Lightshaw, Orrell, Winstanley, and Worsley Mesnes. 1997–2010: The Metropolitan Borough of Wigan wards of Abram, Ashton-Golborne, Bryn, Ince, Orrell, Winstanley, and Worsley Mesnes. 2010–present: The Metropolitan Borough of Wigan wards of Abram, Ashton, Bryn, Hindley, Hindley Green, Orrell, Winstanley, and Worsley Mesnes. Makerfield consists of the western and central section of the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan in

Greater Manchester Greater Manchester is a metropolitan county and combined authority area in North West England, with a population of 2.8 million; comprising ten metropolitan boroughs: Manchester, Salford, Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Stockport, Tam ...

. It comprises the wards to the south and to the west of

and to the west of

Members of Parliament

Elections

Elections in the 2010s

Elections in the 2000s

Elections in the 1990s

Elections in the 1980s

Notes

Manchester Evening News: "McCartney makes it a century"

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Makerfield (Uk Parliament Constituency) Parliamentary constituencies in Greater Manchester Constituencies of the Parliament of the United Kingdom established in 1983 Politics of the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan