North Ayrshire and Arran (UK Parliament constituency)

Coordinates: 55°38′13″N 4°54′54″W / 55.637°N 4.915°W

North Ayrshire and Arran
county constituency for the House of Commons
North Ayrshire and Arran shown within Scotland.
Subdivisions of Scotland	North Ayrshire
Population	135,000 (2008, approx.)
Electorate	74,985 (approx.)
Current constituency
Created	2005
Member of parliament	Patricia Gibson (SNP)
Created from	Cunninghame North
1868–1918
Replaced by	Bute and Northern Ayrshire
Created from	Constituency established
Overlaps
European Parliament constituency	Scotland

North Ayrshire and Arran is a constituency of the British House of Commons, located in the south-west of Scotland within the North Ayrshire council area. It elects one Member of Parliament (MP) at least once every five years using the first-past-the-post voting system of voting.

Once a longtime Conservative seat, the area had been represented by Labour MPs since 1987. The current MP is Patricia Gibson, who has held the seat as an SNP member since 2015.

A diverse seat, it contains the affluent towns of Largs, Fairlie and West Kilbride to the north, as well as the more working class towns of Ardrossan, Kilbirnie, the Garnock Valley, Kilwinning, Saltcoats and Stevenston to the south. The Isle of Arran and Great Cumbrae are also within the constituency.

Boundaries

The constituency is entirely within the North Ayrshire council area. Part of the same council area is covered by the Central Ayrshire constituency.

The boundaries of North Ayrshire and Arran extend to, and include, Skelmorlie in the north of the council area, Stevenston in the south, Beith in the east, and the islands of Arran and Cumbrae in the west.

Constituency profile

A view of Ardrossan

The towns of Skelmorlie, Largs, Fairlie and West Kilbride in the north are affluent commuter towns, while Ardrossan, Saltcoats, and Stevenston in the south are rather more industrial, However, regeneration is taking place at Ardrossan Harbour and there has been a rapid increase in new build housing in recent years. Inland, the seat takes in the Garnock valley towns of Dalry, Beith and Kilbirnie, once a centre of steel and textile production long since gone. Tourism is the main industry on Arran and Cumbrae, however the number of holiday homes on the latter has begun to squeeze locals out of the housing market. The seat has two nuclear power stations, Hunterston A nuclear power station (currently being decommissioned) and Hunterston B nuclear power station, as well as a windfarm at Ardrossan.

History

The constituency of North Ayrshire was created in 1868 and was much larger than the present constituency, as it also included the towns of Irvine and Kilmarnock. It returned various Liberal, Liberal Unionist and Conservative MP's, the most well known of whom being Sir Aylmer Hunter-Weston, a general in the First World War who served as MP from 1916-1935 first for North Ayrshire and then for Bute and Northern Ayrshire which was created in 1918. Another well-known MP was Sir Fitzroy Maclean, a major-general in the Second World War who was rumoured to be one of Ian Fleming's inspirations for James Bond. In 1983, the Cunninghame North constituency was created. From 1911 to 1987, the constituencies containing North Ayrshire returned either Conservative Party or Unionist Party MP's until the 1987 General Election when the constituency was lost to the Labour Party. In 2015, the seat was won by the SNP.

Members of Parliament

Election		Member[1]	Party
	2005	Katy Clark	Labour
	2015	Patricia Gibson	SNP

Election results

Elections in the 2010s

General Election 2015: North Ayrshire and Arran^[2][3][4]

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±
	SNP	Patricia Gibson	28,641	53.2	+27.2
	Labour	Katy Clark	15,068	28.0	-19.4
	Conservative	Jamie Greene	7,968	14.8	-0.8
	UKIP	Sharon McGonigal[5]	1,296	2.4	n/a
	Liberal Democrat	Ruby Kirkwood	896	1.7	-8.4
Majority			13,573	25.2
Turnout			53,869	71.1	+9.6
	SNP gain from Labour		Swing	+23.3

General Election 2010: North Ayrshire and Arran^[6]

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±
	Labour	Katy Clark	21,860	47.4	+3.5
	SNP	Patricia Gibson	11,965	25.9	+8.0
	Conservative	Philip Lardner	7,212	15.6	-2.7
	Liberal Democrat	Gillian Cole-Hamilton	4,630	10.0	-6.4
	Socialist Labour	Louise McDaid	449	1.0	+0.3
Majority			9,895	21.5
Turnout			46,116	61.5	+1.0
	Labour hold		Swing

2010 General Election Campaign

The Conservative Party candidate Philip Lardner was dropped as their official candidate and suspended from his job (but later reinstated) as a Primary School teacher following comments he had made, in which (as a Christian) he described homosexuality as "not normal behaviour". As nominations for candidates had closed, however, the Conservatives were unable to replace him. In 2008 he had previously been suspended as a candidate for the same seat by the Conservatives over claims he made racist remarks, but was later reinstated as the candidate for this seat and exonerated by the Party. Lardner is recorded by the BBC as an "Independent", due to him being "disowned" by the Conservative Party prior to polling day, however, on the actual ballot paper he was still described as a "Scottish Conservatives & Unionist".^[7]

The Labour Party chose Katy Clark, the incumbent MP and former trade union official to re-contest the seat. Clark is considered to be quite a left-wing Labour MP as she voted against replacing Trident and is a member of the Scottish Campaign for Socialism.

The Scottish National Party narrowly won the seat of Cunninghame North during the 2007 Scottish parliamentary election and wished to capitalise on this success during the general election. They chose 41-year-old retired English teacher Cllr Patricia Gibson to contest the seat.

The Liberal Democrats chose primary teacher Gillian Cole-Hamilton and Louise McDaid of the Socialist Labour Party also contested the seat as she has done for several elections.

Percentage vote change and percentage swing for the 2005 results are based on notional results on how this constituency would have performed in the 2001 UK General Election.

2005

General Election 2005: North Ayrshire and Arran^[8]

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±
	Labour	Katy Clark	19,417	43.9	-4.5
	Conservative	Stewart Connell	8,121	18.4	+0.9
	SNP	Tony Gurney	7,938	18.0	-3.0
	Liberal Democrat	George White	7,264	16.4	+7.6
	Scottish Socialist	Colin Turbett	780	1.8	-1.4
	UKIP	John Pursley	382	0.9	+0.9
	Socialist Labour	Louise McDaid	303	0.7	-0.5
Majority			11,296	25.6	-1.9
Turnout			44,205	59.9	-0.8
	Labour hold		Swing	-2.7

References

1. Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "A" (part 3)
2. "Election Data 2015". Electoral Calculus. Archived from the original on 17 October 2015. Retrieved 17 October 2015.
3. http://www.north-ayrshire.gov.uk/news/UKParliamentaryElectionsNorthAyrshireandArran.aspx 18Aug15
5. <http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/2015guide/ayrshirenorthandarran/
6. "Election Data 2010". Electoral Calculus. Archived from the original on 17 October 2015. Retrieved 17 October 2015.
7. "General Election Results 2010". North Ayrshire Council. 7 May 2010. Retrieved 16 May 2010.
8. "Election Data 2005". Electoral Calculus. Archived from the original on 15 October 2011. Retrieved 18 October 2015.