Halifax is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2024 by Kate Dearden of the Labour Party.

Constituency profile The Halifax constituency is located in the borough of Calderdale in West Yorkshire on the edge of the Pennines. It contains the large town of Halifax, the connected town of Sowerby Bridge and the nearby villages of Northowram, Southowram and Shelf. Halifax was traditionally an industrial mill town, primarily involved in the wool trade. The town's Dean Clough mill complex was once the largest carpet factory in the world. The town is highly deprived, with most of it falling within the top 10% most-deprived areas in England. Sowerby Bridge is a small market town and has average levels of wealth. The average house price in the constituency is low compared to the rest of Yorkshire and less than half the national average.

In general, residents of the constituency have low levels of education, income and professional employment. White people made up 78% of the population at the 2021 census with Asians, predominantly Pakistanis, forming the largest ethnic minority group at 18%. At the local borough council, most of the constituency is represented by the Labour Party, with some Liberal Democrats elected in the western suburbs and Greens in Northowram and Shelf. An estimated 60% of voters in the constituency supported leaving the European Union in the 2016 referendum, higher than the nationwide figure of 52%.

Boundaries

1918–1983: The County Borough of Halifax.

1983–2010: The Metropolitan Borough of Calderdale wards of Illingworth, Mixenden, Northowram and Shelf, Ovenden, St John's, Skircoat, Sowerby Bridge, Town, and Warley.

2010–2024: The Metropolitan Borough of Calderdale wards of Illingworth and Mixenden, Northowram and Shelf, Ovenden, Park, Skircoat, Sowerby Bridge, Town, and Warley.

2024–present: Same as above apart from the addition of part of the Ryburn ward (polling districts MB, MC and MD) from Calder Valley as part of the 2023 Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies, thus bringing the whole of Sowerby Bridge within the constituency.

This constituency covers the large town of Halifax in West Yorkshire and includes the smaller town of Sowerby Bridge which adjoins Halifax but until 1974 was a separate Urban District and was part of the Sowerby constituency until 1983.

History

To 1918 The parliamentary borough was granted in the Great Reform Act 1832 and returned from that year until 1918 two members. A county borough recognized the density of the developed area in 1888 which provided most functions for inhabitants, retaining the West Yorkshire ceremonial county. The municipal or county borough was under a mayor, five aldermen and 45 councillors and had an area of .

At the time of the Norman Conquest, Halifax formed part of the extensive manor of Wakefield, which belonged to the king, but in the 13th century was in the hands of John Earl de Warrenne aka. Earl of Surrey (1231–1304). The prosperity of the town began with the first woollen products workshop established here in 1414, when there are said to have been only thirteen houses, which before the end of the 16th century had increased to 520. Camden, about the end of the 17th century, wrote that "the people are very industrious, so that though the soil about it be barren and improfitable, not fit to live on, they have so flourished ... by the clothing trade that they are very rich and have gained a reputation for it above their neighbours." The manufacturing standards and trade were improved by the arrival of certain merchants and clothworkers driven from the Spanish Netherlands by the persecution by the Duke of Alva.

Halifax was a borough by prescription rather than a medieval parliamentary borough, its privileges growing up with the increased prosperity brought by the cloth trade, but it was not incorporated until 1848. From 1832 until 1918 the town's property-qualifying residents paying scot and lot returned two members to parliament.

Recent political history Apart from the four years following the 1983 general election, when it was held by a Conservative MP, the seat has been held by an MP representing the Labour Party since 1964.

Prior to the 2017 general election, the Conservative Party launched its election manifesto at Dean Clough Mill in Halifax, and targeted the seat fairly heavily, for two years earlier the Labour majority in the constituency had fallen to just 428 votes, or 1% of the total vote. However, Holly Lynch increased her majority by almost 5,000 votes, giving Labour its biggest majority in Halifax since 2001.

Lynch retained the seat in 2019 and, after she stood down for the 2024 election, it was won by fellow Labour Party member Kate Dearden.

Members of Parliament

MPs 1832–1918

Election1st Member1st Party2nd Member2nd Party 1832 Rawdon Briggs Whig Sir Charles Wood Whig 1835 James Stuart-Wortley Conservative 1837 Edward Davis Protheroe Radical 1847 Henry Edwards Conservative 1852 Sir Francis Crossley Radical 1859 Sir James Stansfeld LiberalLiberal 1865 Edward Akroyd 1874 John Crossley 1877 by-election John Dyson Hutchinson 1882 by-election Thomas Shaw 1893 by-election William Rawson Shaw 1895 Alfred Arnold Conservative 1897 by-election Alfred Billson 1900 Sir Savile Crossley Liberal Unionist John Henry Whitley 1906 James Parker Labour

MPs since 1918 Representation reduced to one member, 1918 ElectionMemberParty1918John Henry Whitley Liberal1921Speaker1928 by-election Arthur Longbottom Labour1931 Gilbert Gledhill Conservative1945 Dryden Brook Labour1955 Maurice Macmillan Conservative1964 Shirley Summerskill Labour1983 Roy Galley Conservative1987 Alice Mahon Labour2005 Linda Riordan 2015 Holly Lynch 2024 Kate Dearden

Elections

Elections in the 2020s

Elections in the 2010s 2019 notional result Party Vote % Labour 21,819 45.6 Conservative 19,917 41.7 Brexit Party 2,813 5.9 Liberal Democrats 2,302 4.8 Green 946 2.0Turnout47,79764.1Electorate74,563

Elections in the 2000s

Elections in the 1990s

Elections in the 1980s

Elections in the 1970s

Elections in the 1960s

Elections in the 1950s

Blackburn was a vice-president of the Bradford Conservative Association. He was nominated after the Conservative and Liberal associations in the division had failed to reach agreement on the proposal for a joint anti-Labour candidate.The Times House of Commons, 1950

Elections in the 1940s

Elections in the 1930s

Elections in the 1920s

Elections in the 1910s

Elections in the 1900s

Elections in the 1890s

Caused by Shaw's resignation.

Caused by Shaw's death

Elections in the 1880s

Caused by Stansfeld's appointment as President of the Local Government Board.

Caused by Hutchinson's resignation.

Elections in the 1870s

Caused by Crossley's resignation.

Caused by Crossley's appointment as President of the Poor Law Board.

Elections in the 1860s

Caused by Stansfeld's appointment as a Lord Commissioner of the Treasury.

Caused by Stansfeld's appointment as Civil Lord of the Admiralty.

Elections in the 1850s

Caused by Wood's appointment as Secretary of State for India.

Caused by Wood's appointment as First Lord of the Admiralty

Caused by Wood's appointment as President of the Board of Control.

Elections in the 1840s

Caused by Wood's appointment as Chancellor of the Exchequer

Elections in the 1830s

See also List of parliamentary constituencies in West Yorkshire List of parliamentary constituencies in the Yorkshire and the Humber (region)

Notes

References

Sources Victoria County History, Yorkshire T. Wright, The Antiquities of the Town of Halifax (Leeds, 1738) John Watson, The History and Antiquities of the Parish of Halifax (London, 1775) John Crabtree, A Concise History of the Parish and Vicarage of Halifax (Halifax and London, 1836).

External links Halifax UK Parliament constituency (boundaries April 1997 – April 2010) at MapIt UK Halifax UK Parliament constituency (boundaries April 2010 – May 2024) at MapIt UK Halifax UK Parliament constituency (boundaries from June 2024) at MapIt UK