East Worthing and Shoreham 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 (polity), state (a country, administrative region, ...

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. ...

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 supremac ...

since 1997 by

Tim Loughton Timothy Paul Loughton, (born 30 May 1962) is a British politician and former banker who has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for East Worthing and Shoreham since the 1997 general election. A member of the Conservative Party, he was Parl ...

of the

Conservative Party The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right. Political parties called The Conservative P ...

Boundaries

The District of Adur, and the Borough of Worthing wards of Broadwater, Gaisford, Offington, and Selden. The constituency covers an eastern portion of

Worthing Worthing () is a seaside town in West Sussex, England, at the foot of the South Downs, west of Brighton, and east of Chichester. With a population of 111,400 and an area of , the borough is the second largest component of the Brighton and Ho ...

, the town of

Shoreham-by-Sea Shoreham-by-Sea (often shortened to Shoreham) is a coastal town and port in West Sussex, England. The town is bordered to its north by the South Downs, to its west by the Adur Valley and to its south by the River Adur and Shoreham Beach on th ...

, Lancing and three nearby inland villages in the Adur valley, all communities within the county of

West Sussex West Sussex is a county in South East England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the shire districts of Adur, Arun, Chichester, Horsham, and Mid Sussex, and the boroughs of Crawley and Worthing. Covering an ...

History

Under the Boundary Commission's fourth review, enacted in time for the 1997 election, the larger Shoreham portion of this constituency was taken from the disbanded Shoreham seat and the minor East Worthing portion had been in the disbanded

seat. Before 1974, the Shoreham seat had been a part of the

Arundel and Shoreham Arundel and Shoreham was a borough constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the ...

seat. Between 1945 and 1950, the whole area was in the

seat and between 1918 and 1945 (on which the Boundary Commission was formed and carried out its first periodic review), in the Horsham and Worthing seat. ;Political history Although from 2001 to 2015 this was an unquestionably safe seat for the Conservative Party, its safety has significantly declined since then, especially in 2017 when Labour reduced the Conservative percentage majority to single figures. It has now succeeded Crawley as Labour's principal target seat in the county of West Sussex, though still requiring a substantial swing. ;Notable candidates The competitive hustings in September 2007 of the local Labour Party selected

Emily Benn Emily Sophia Wedgwood Benn (born 4 October 1989) is an English politician. She was an unsuccessful Parliamentary candidate in both the 2010 and 2015 UK general elections. At the 2014 local elections, Benn was elected to the West Thornton ward o ...

, granddaughter of

Tony Benn Anthony Neil Wedgwood Benn (3 April 1925 – 14 March 2014), known between 1960 and 1963 as Viscount Stansgate, was a British politician, writer and diarist who served as a Cabinet minister in the 1960s and 1970s. A member of the Labour Party, ...

and niece of

Hilary Benn Hilary James Wedgwood Benn (born 26 November 1953) is a British Labour Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Leeds Central since a by-election in 1999. He served in the Cabinet from 2003 to 2010, under both Tony Bl ...

, former Secretaries of State, then aged 17, to contest the 2010 general election, making her the youngest ever Labour parliamentary candidate: had she been elected, she would have been the youngest MP since the Reform Act 1832. Her father Stephen Benn is Viscount Stansgate, succeeding his father. Labour selected Latest TV newsreader Sophie Cook to be their candidate in the 2017 general election. Had she been elected, she would have been the United Kingdom's first

transgender A transgender (often abbreviated as trans) person is someone whose gender identity or gender expression does not correspond with their sex assigned at birth. Many transgender people experience dysphoria, which they seek to alleviate through tr ...

MP. Although she failed to win the seat, she achieved the best ever result of any non-Conservative Party candidate in any Worthing-based constituency, receiving 20,882 votes to the Conservatives' 25,988.

Constituency profile

Shoreham can be viewed with Worthing as less of an economic force than the neighbouring local government district, the

City of Brighton and Hove Brighton and Hove () is a city and unitary authority in East Sussex, England. It consists primarily of the settlements of Brighton and Hove, alongside neighbouring villages. Often referred to synonymously as Brighton, the City of Brighton and ...

, with a majority of houses with larger gardens, fewer

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

s but Shoreham's large boat harbour facility an amenity for visitors, residents, - mooring and maintenance for people living close enough to the county, rival harbours being as far away as

Chichester Chichester () is a cathedral city and civil parish in West Sussex, England.OS Explorer map 120: Chichester, South Harting and Selsey Scale: 1:25 000. Publisher:Ordnance Survey – Southampton B2 edition. Publishing Date:2009. It is the only ci ...

and Newhaven. Much work is in the service sector, including a major presence of sharedealing and banking service and processing facilities in the borough (see

Lancing, West Sussex Lancing is a large coastal village and civil parish in the Adur district of West Sussex, England, on the western edge of the Adur Valley. It occupies part of the narrow central section of the Sussex coastal plain between smaller Sompting to the ...

) and a slightly greater proportion of people are retired compared to the national average (2.11% of the population greater, at 15.8%). Workless claimants who were registered jobseekers were in November 2012 lower than the national average of 3.8%, at 2.6% of the population based on a statistical compilation by ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

''.

Members of Parliament

Elections

Elections in the 2010s

Sophie Cook withdrew from the 2019 election, but she remained on the ballot paper as this decision was made after the statement of persons nominated was released.

Elections in the 2000s

Elections in the 1990s

Notes

References

Sources

Election result, 2005
(BBC)
Election results, 1997 - 2001
(BBC)

(Election Demon)

(Guardian) {{DEFAULTSORT:Worthing East And Shoreham Parliamentary constituencies in South East England Constituencies of the Parliament of the United Kingdom established in 1997 Politics of West Sussex Adur District Politics of Worthing