Hyndburn (UK Parliament constituency)

Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox UK constituency main

Hyndburn is a constituency Template:Refn in Lancashire represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2024 by Sarah Smith of the Labour Party.Template:Refn

History and profile

A mostly Labour inclined seatTemplate:Refn, based around the East Lancashire town of Accrington, it also includes Clayton-le-Moors, Great Harwood, Oswaldtwistle, and Rishton in Hyndburn, as well as Haslingden in Rossendale.

The seat was created in 1983, from parts of the former seats of Accrington and Clitheroe. In its ambit is much terraced (freehold) owner occupied housing^[1] and surrounding villages, that may have helped to win the constituency for a Conservative in 1983, by 21 votes. The Conservative majority in 1983 was the second smallest achieved by any party in a seat in the United Kingdom at that election, only being beaten by the Conservatives 7 vote majority in Leicester South^[2] In 1987, against the national trend, the Conservative vote share increased by 2.1% while Labour's vote share fell by 2.4%. Consequently, the Conservatives increased their majority to 2,220 votes, a higher majority than it achieved in 31 other seats.^[3]

Labour won it in 1992, and chose a new candidate for 2010, Graham Jones, who was elected.^[4] Part of Labour's Red Wall, the seat was won by the Conservatives in 2019, with the twenty-four year old Tory candidate Sara Britcliffe ousting Jones with a swing of 9.9%.^[5] This was reversed in 2024, when Sarah Smith won it back for Labour.

In January 1996, Hyndburn Conservatives deselected Hugh Neil, after a six-week investigation into alleged bogus claims that he made about his background. Neil claimed to have a doctorate from Manchester Business School and Harvard Business School, to have been an adviser to Keith Joseph, and to be a member of the Institute of Directors. He would have been the party's first black MP.^[6]

Boundaries

Template:Maplink 1983–1997: The Borough of Hyndburn.

1997–2024: The Borough of Hyndburn, and the Borough of Rossendale wards of Greenfield and Worsley.

Following its review of parliamentary representation in Lancashire in the 2000s, the Boundary Commission made minor alterations to the existing Hyndburn constituency. Two Haslingden wards from Rossendale district had been added to the constituency in 1997. The Commission rejected a proposal to rename the constituency "Hyndburn and Haslingden", following the Assistant Commissioner's view that:

It is obviously right that constituency names should as far as possible reflect the geography and character of the constituency but equally they should be as succinct as reasonably possible^[7]

2024–present: The 2023 periodic review of Westminster constituencies, which was based on the ward structure in place on 1 December 2020, left the boundaries unchanged.^[8] However, following a local government boundary review in Rossendale which came into effect in May 2024,^[9] the constituency now comprises the following from the 2024 general election:

The Borough of Hyndburn.
The Borough of Rossendale wards or part wards of: Greenfield & Eden (part); Haslingden; Helmshore (small part).^[10]

Members of Parliament

Election		Member^[11]	Party
style="color:inherit;background-color: Template:Party color" \|	1983	Ken Hargreaves	Conservative
style="color:inherit;background-color: Template:Party color" \|	1992	Greg Pope	Labour
style="color:inherit;background-color: Template:Party color" \|	2010	Graham Jones	Labour
style="color:inherit;background-color: Template:Party color" \|	2019	Sara Britcliffe	Conservative
style="color:inherit;background-color: Template:Party color" \|	2024	Sarah Smith	Labour