List of Parliamentary constituencies in Berkshire

The ceremonial county of Berkshire, (which is entirely made up of unitary authoritiesBracknell Forest, Reading, Slough, West Berkshire, Windsor and Maidenhead and Wokingham) is divided into eight Parliamentary constituencies: two Borough constituencies and six County constituencies.

The county of Berkshire in relation to England.

Constituencies

  Conservative   Labour   Liberal Democrat ¤

Name[nb 1] Electorate[1] Majority[2][nb 2] Member of Parliament[2] Nearest opposition[2] Map
Bracknell CC 78,978 19,829   James Sunderland   Paul Bidwell ‡
Maidenhead CC 76,668 18,846 Theresa May   Joshua Reynolds ¤
Newbury CC 83,414 16,047 Laura Farris Lee Dillon ¤
Reading East BC 77,152 5,924   Matt Rodda Craig Morley †
Reading West CC 74,137 4,117 Alok Sharma Rachel Eden ‡
Slough BC 86,818 13,640 Tan Dhesi Kanwal Toor Gill †
Windsor CC 75,038 20,079 Adam Afriyie   Julian Tisi ¤
Wokingham CC 83,953 7,383 John Redwood   Dr Phillip Lee ¤

2010 Boundary Review

The Fifth Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies resulted in modest changes, including the transfer of Bray from Windsor to Maidenhead, Binfield from Bracknell to Windsor and the return of Foxborough ward from Windsor to Slough. Further marginal changes due to revision of local authority wards.

Constituency Pre-2010 boundaries Post-2010 boundaries
1. Bracknell CC
2. Maidenhead CC
3. Newbury CC
4. Reading East BC
5. Reading West CC
6. Slough BC
7. Windsor CC
8. Wokingham CC

Proposed boundary changes

The Boundary Commission for England submitted their final proposals in respect of the Sixth Periodic Review of Westminster Constituencies (the 2018 review) in September 2018. Although the proposals were immediately laid before Parliament they were not brought forward by the Government 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.

Under the terms of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011, the Sixth 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.

On 24 March 2020, the Minister of State for the Cabinet Office, Chloe Smith, issued a written statement to Parliament setting out the Government's thinking with regard to parliamentary boundaries.[3] Subsequently, the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 2020[4] was passed into law on 14 December 2020. This formally removed the duty to implement the 2018 review and set out the framework for future boundary reviews. The Act provided that the number of constituencies should remain at the current level of 650, rather than being reduced to 600, while retaining the requirement that the electorate should be no more than +/- 5% from the electoral quota.

The Act specified that the next review should be completed no later than 1 July 2023 and the Boundary Commission formally launched the 2023 Review on 5 January 2021.[5] See 2023 Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies for further details.

Results history

Primary data source: House of Commons research briefing - General election results from 1918 to 2019[6]

2019

The number of votes cast for each political party who fielded candidates in constituencies comprising Berkshire in the 2019 general election were as follows:

Party Votes % Change from 2017 Seats Change from 2017
Conservative 222,532 50.1% 3.8% 6 0
Labour 115,747 26.1% 6.7% 2 0
Liberal Democrats 87,532 19.7% 9.4% 0 0
Greens 13,796 3.1% 1.5% 0 0
Brexit 2,284 0.5% new 0 0
Others 2,044 0.5% 0.9% 0 0
Total 443,935 100.0 8

Percentage votes

Note that before 1983 Berkshire additionally covered the southern part of what is now Oxfordshire, and the Eton and Slough areas which now form part of Berkshire were part of Buckinghamshire.

Election year 1922 1923 1924 1929 1945 1950 1951 1955 1959 1964 1966 1970 1974 (F) 1974 (O) 1979 1983 1987 1992 1997 2001 2005 2010 2015 2017 2019
Conservative 54.2 48.2 60.4 48.6 47.0 50.0 56.2 58.5 59.7 47.7 46.5 53.6 44.4 44.2 54.3 54.7 57.2 55.3 42.2 40.2 43.5 50.6 54.3 53.9 50.1
Labour 13.8 16.2 22.9 22.4 37.9 38.1 42.3 39.4 37.1 33.5 39.1 33.3 26.0 28.3 23.5 16.0 16.5 19.8 28.5 30.7 24.0 18.0 21.9 32.8 26.1
Liberal Democrat1 32.1 35.6 16.7 28.9 13.8 11.7 1.4 2.1 3.3 18.5 14.4 12.8 29.2 27.3 21.2 28.1 25.2 23.5 24.6 26.0 27.4 25.2 8.9 10.3 19.7
Green Party - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - * * * * * 1.3 3.9 1.6 3.1
UKIP - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - * * * 3.0 10.6 0.8 *
Brexit Party - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 0.5
Other - - - - 1.3 0.2 - - - 0.2 - 0.3 0.3 0.2 1.0 1.2 1.1 1.4 4.7 3.1 5.0 2.0 0.4 0.6 0.5

1pre-1979: Liberal Party; 1983 & 1987 - SDP-Liberal Alliance

* Included in Other

Accurate vote percentages for the 1918, 1931 and 1935 elections are unavailable because some candidates were elected unopposed.

Seats

Election year 1983 1987 1992 1997 2001 2005 2010 2015 2017 2019
Conservative 7 7 7 4 4 6 7 7 6 6
Labour 0 0 0 3 3 2 1 1 2 2
Liberal Democrat1 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0
Total 7 7 7 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

11983 & 1987 - SDP-Liberal Alliance

Maps

Historical representation by party

1885 to 1950

  Conservative   Labour   Liberal

Constituency 1885 1886 90 1892 1895 98 1900 01 04 1906 Jan 1910 Dec 1910 13 16 1918 21 22 1922 1923 1924 1929 1931 1935 42 1945
Abingdon Wroughton A. K. Loyd Strauss Henderson A. K. Loyd Wigan A. T. Loyd Lessing Glyn
Newbury W. G. Mount W. A. Mount Mackarness W. A. Mount Brown Stranger Brown Hurd
Reading Murdoch Palmer Murdoch Palmer Isaacs Wilson Cadogan Hastings Williams Hastings Howitt Mikardo
Windsor Richardson-Gardner Barry Mason Gardner Somerville Mott-Radclyffe
Wokingham Russell Young Gardner

1950 to 1983

  Conservative   Labour

Constituency 1950 1951 53 1955 1959 1964 1966 1970 Feb 74 Oct 74 1979
Abingdon Glyn Neave T. Benyon
Newbury Hurd Astor McNair-Wilson
Reading North K. Mackay Bennett Durant
Reading South (1950–55, 74-83) / Reading (1955–74) Mikardo Emery Lee Vaughan
Windsor / Windsor and Maidenhead (1974) Mott-Radclyffe Glyn
Wokingham Remnant van Straubenzee

1983 to present

  Conservative   Labour   Liberal Democrats

Constituency 1983 1987 1992 93 1997 2001 2005 2010 2015 2017 19 2019
Newbury McNair-Wilson Chaplin Rendel R. Benyon Farris
Reading West Durant Salter Sharma
Reading East Vaughan Griffiths Wilson Rodda
Windsor and Maidenhead / Windsor (1997) Glyn Trend Afriyie
Wokingham van Straubenzee Redwood
Slough Watts Mactaggart Dhesi
East Berkshire / Bracknell (1997) A. MacKay Lee Sunderland
Maidenhead May

See also

Notes

  1. BC denotes borough constituency, CC denotes county constituency.
  2. The majority is the number of votes the winning candidate receives more than their nearest rival.

References

General
  • "Boundary Commission for England: Fifth Periodical Report" (PDF). Boundary Commission for England. Crown Copyright. Archived from the original (PDF) on 26 July 2011. Retrieved 6 November 2009.
  • Craig, Frederick Walter Scott (1972). Boundaries of Parliamentary Constituencies 1885–1972. Chichester, Sussex: Political Reference Publications. ISBN 0-900178-13-2.
Specific
  1. Baker, Carl; Uberoi, Elise; Cracknell, Richard (28 January 2020). "General Election 2019: full results and analysis". Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  2. "Constituencies A-Z - Election 2019". BBC News. Retrieved 24 April 2020.
  3. "Update: Strengthening Democracy:Written statement - HCWS183". UK Parliament. Retrieved 20 April 2020.
  4. "Parliamentary Constituencies Act 2020".
  5. "2023 Review launched | Boundary Commission for England". Retrieved 8 January 2021.
  6. Watson, Christopher; Uberoi, Elise; Loft, Philip (17 April 2020). "General election results from 1918 to 2019". Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
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