Wales Wales ( ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by the Irish Sea to the north and west, England to the England–Wales border, east, the Bristol Channel to the south, and the Celtic ...

is divided into thirty-two

constituencies of the Parliament of the United Kingdom The Parliament of the United Kingdom currently has 650 parliamentary constituencies across the constituent countries (England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland), each electing a single member of parliament (MP) to the House of Commons by ...

, which elect Members of Parliament to the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, 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 ...

. At the

2024 United Kingdom general election in Wales The 2024 general election was held on Thursday, 4 July 2024. Thirty-two seats were up for election in Wales as the general election occurred after the recently completed boundary review took effect. The Labour Party remained the largest party ...

, 27 Labour MPs, 4

Plaid Cymru Plaid Cymru ( ; , ; officially Plaid Cymru – the Party of Wales, and often referred to simply as Plaid) is a centre-left, Welsh nationalist list of political parties in Wales, political party in Wales, committed to Welsh independence from th ...

MPs and 1 Liberal Democrat MP were elected. The Conservative Party lost all of their 13 MPs in Wales. This is a decrease from forty constituencies, last used in the general election of December 2019 which had resulted in 22 of the Welsh constituencies being represented by Labour MPs, 14 by

Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy and ideology that seeks to promote and preserve traditional institutions, customs, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civiliza ...

MPs, and 4 by

MPs. The number of constituencies was reduced from 40 to 32, as part of the

2023 Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies The 2023 review of Westminster constituencies was the most recent cycle of the process to redraw the Constituencies of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, constituency map for the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. The new constituency b ...

, in which the

Boundary Commission for Wales In the United Kingdom, the boundary commissions are non-departmental public bodies responsible for determining the boundaries of parliamentary constituencies for elections to the House of Commons. There are four boundary commissions: one each f ...

set the boundaries of the new constituencies, following a process starting in 2021 and concluding on 28 June 2023 when the final recommendations were published by the commission. Until 2026, the devolved

Senedd The Senedd ( ; ), officially known as the Welsh Parliament in English and () in Welsh, is the devolved, unicameral legislature of Wales. A democratically elected body, Its role is to scrutinise the Welsh Government and legislate on devolve ...

will continue using 40 constituencies as in the previous UK Parliament, but would later replace them with 16 Senedd constituencies comprising pairings of the 32 UK Parliament constituencies.

Constituencies since 2024

Constituencies until 2024

2023 boundary changes

Failed sixth periodic review

Under the terms of the

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011 The Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011 (c. 1) is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that made provision for the holding of a referendum on whether to introduce the Alternative Vote system in all future general e ...

, the

Sixth Periodic Review of Westminster Constituencies Sixth is the ordinal form of the number six. * The Sixth Amendment, to the U.S. Constitution * A keg of beer, equal to 5 U.S. gallons or barrel * The fraction Music * Sixth interval (music)s: ** major sixth, a musical interval ** minor ...

(the 2018 review) was based on reducing the total number of MPs from 650 to 600 and a strict electoral parity requirement that the electorate of all constituencies should be within a range of 5% either side of the electoral quota. The Boundary Commission for Wales submitted their final proposals in respect of the Sixth Review in September 2018. Although the proposals were immediately laid before

Parliament In modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

they were not brought forward by the

Government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a State (polity), state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive (government), execu ...

for approval. Accordingly, they did not come into effect for the 2019 election which took place on 12 December 2019, and which was contested using the constituency boundaries in place since 2010. On 24 March 2020, the Minister of State for the

Cabinet Office The Cabinet Office is a Departments of the Government of the United Kingdom, ministerial department of the Government of the United Kingdom. It is responsible for supporting the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, prime minister and Cabinet ...

Chloe Smith Chloe Rebecca Smith (born 17 May 1982) is a British Conservative Party (UK), Conservative Party politician who served as the Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), Member of Parliament (MP) for Norwich North from 2009 to 2024. She previously se ...

, issued a written statement to Parliament setting out the Government's thinking with regard to parliamentary boundaries. Subsequently, the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 2020 was passed into law on 14 December 2020 which formally removed the duty to implement the 2018 review and set out the framework for future boundary reviews.

2023 periodic review

The

Parliamentary Constituencies Act 2020 The Parliamentary Constituencies Act 2020 (c. 25) is an Act of parliament, Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It amends the regulations underpinning the parliamentary boundary review process as set out under the Parliamentary Constitue ...

was passed in December 2020, and the publication of the most recent data of electorate sizes of constituencies on 5 January 2021, lead the

to begin its review of the parliamentary constituencies in Wales, with the commission required to publish its final recommendations for boundary changes by 1 July 2023. By December 2021, the commission published the responses collected during the consultation period, and then conducted a six-week 'secondary consultation. Unlike the previous periodic review, the total UK constituencies was kept at 650. When proportionally dividing the total 2021 electoral population of the United Kingdom using a statutory formula between the constituent countries of the UK, it results in England having 543 constituencies, Scotland having 57, Wales having 32 and Northern Ireland with the remaining 18. Each constituency recommended to have no more than 77,062 electors and no less than 69,724. The figure from Wales is calculated to be 8 seats lower from the total constituencies used for the 2019 UK general election when there were 40 constituencies, the largest decrease of any UK country or region. Wales has one 'protected constituency' not subject to UK electoral quotas, Ynys Môn on the

Isle of Anglesey Anglesey ( ; ) is an island off the north-west coast of Wales. It forms the bulk of the Principal areas of Wales, county known as the Isle of Anglesey, which also includes Holy Island, Anglesey, Holy Island () and some islets and Skerry, sker ...

, where boundary changes are not applied. The decrease in constituencies in Wales has been described by the commission to represent "the most significant change to Wales's constituencies in a century", and the commission has no control over the number of constituencies in Wales. The final proposal published by the commission no longer required parliamentary approval and the recommendations in the final report were implemented automatically, however the second consultation period allowed public hearing about the proposals. The commission stated that it tried wherever possible to use existing local government boundaries, such as those of existing constituencies and principal areas.

Final recommendations

The final recommendations on the new constituencies in Wales were published on 28 June 2023 by the

. This followed years of proposals and consultations since 2021, with initial proposals published in 2021 and revised in 2022. Categorisation of status is purely based on the names used by the constituencies, if a new constituency largely overlaps with a previous one but was renamed, it is considered a new constituency. New – Did not exist previously with either the name or boundaries.
Expanded – Keeps name but gains wards.
Redefined – Keeps name but with other altered boundaries.
Revived – Former constituency revived under the same name(s).

2024 results

The number of votes cast for each political party who fielded candidates in constituencies in Wales at the 2024 general election were as follows:

Results history

''Primary data source:'
House of Commons research briefing – General election results from 1918 to 2019
(2024 as above)

Percentage votes

''Key:'' * CON – Conservative Party, including National Liberal Party up to 1966 * LAB – Labour Party, including

Labour and Co-operative Party Labour and Co-operative Party (often abbreviated to Labour Co-op; ) is a description used by candidates in United Kingdom elections who stand on behalf of both the Labour Party and the Co-operative Party. Candidates contest elections under an el ...

* LIB –

Liberal Party The Liberal Party is any of many political parties around the world. The meaning of ''liberal'' varies around the world, ranging from liberal conservatism on the right to social liberalism on the left. For example, while the political systems ...

up to 1979; SDP-Liberal Alliance 1983 & 1987; Liberal Democrats from 1992 * PC –

* UKIP –

UK Independence Party 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 (both through defect ...

2010 to 2017 (included in Other up to 2005 and from 2019) * REF -

Reform UK Reform UK is a right-wing populist political party in the United Kingdom. Nigel Farage has been Leader of Reform UK and Richard Tice deputy leader since 2024. It has five members of Parliament (MPs) in the House of Commons and one membe ...

(2019 - Brexit Party) * GRN –

Green Party of England and Wales The Green Party of England and Wales (GPEW; ), often known simply as the Green Party or the Greens, is a Green politics, green, Left-wing politics, left-wing political party in England and Wales. Since October 2021, Carla Denyer and Adrian Ram ...

(included in Other up to 2005)

Seats

''Key:'' * CON – Conservative Party, including National Liberal Party up to 1966 * LAB – Labour Party, including

* LIB –

up to 1979; SDP-Liberal Alliance 1983 & 1987; Liberal Democrats from 1992 * PC –

* OTH – 1970 – Independent ( S. O. Davies); 2005 – Independent (

Peter Law Peter John Law (1 April 1948 – 25 April 2006) was a Welsh politician. For most of his career Law sat as a Labour councillor and subsequently Labour Co-operative Assembly member (AM) for Blaenau Gwent. Latterly he sat as an independent memb ...

)

Maps

File:WalesParliamentaryConstituency2010Results.svg, 2010 File:WalesParliamentaryConstituency2015Results.svg, 2015 File:Wales Parliamentary Constituency 2017 Results.svg, 2017 File:Wales Parliamentary Constituency 201911 with affilation changes.svg, 2019 by-elections File:Dec2019WalesConstituencies.png, December 2019 File:Jul2024WalesConstituencies.svg, 2024 These are maps of the results of the last four general elections in Wales and changes in 2019 following a by-election and a change of affiliation. *

Red Red is the color at the long wavelength end of the visible spectrum of light, next to orange and opposite violet. It has a dominant wavelength of approximately 625–750 nanometres. It is a primary color in the RGB color model and a seconda ...

represents the Labour Party's MPs. *

Blue Blue is one of the three primary colours in the RYB color model, RYB colour model (traditional colour theory), as well as in the RGB color model, RGB (additive) colour model. It lies between Violet (color), violet and cyan on the optical spe ...

represents the Conservative Party's MPs. *

Amber Amber is fossilized tree resin. Examples of it have been appreciated for its color and natural beauty since the Neolithic times, and worked as a gemstone since antiquity."Amber" (2004). In Maxine N. Lurie and Marc Mappen (eds.) ''Encyclopedia ...

represents the Liberal Democrats' MPs. *

Green Green is the color between cyan and yellow on the visible spectrum. It is evoked by light which has a dominant wavelength of roughly 495570 nm. In subtractive color systems, used in painting and color printing, it is created by a com ...

represents

's MPs. *

Grey Grey (more frequent in British English) or gray (more frequent in American English) is an intermediate color between black and white. It is a neutral or achromatic color, meaning that it has no chroma. It is the color of a cloud-covered s ...

represents

Independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in Pennsylvania, United States * Independentes (English: Independents), a Portuguese artist ...

MPs.

2019 by-elections

Two

by-election A by-election, also known as a special election in the United States and the Philippines, or a bypoll in India, is an election used to fill an office that has become vacant between general elections. A vacancy may arise as a result of an incumben ...

s were held in 2019: * 2019 Newport West by-election *

2019 Brecon and Radnorshire by-election A by-election was held in the UK Parliament constituency of Brecon and Radnorshire () on 1 August 2019 after Chris Davies, who had held the seat for the Conservatives since the 2015 general election, was unseated by a recall petition. The ...

References

{{Constituencies in Wales *

Parliamentary In modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...