Welwyn Hatfield (UK Parliament constituency)

Welwyn Hatfield
County constituency for the House of Commons
Boundary of Welwyn Hatfield in Hertfordshire.
Location of Hertfordshire within England.
County	Hertfordshire
Electorate	71,766 (December 2010)
Current constituency
Created	1974 (1974)
Member of parliament	Grant Shapps (Conservative)
Number of members	One
Created from	Hertford and St Albans
Overlaps
European Parliament constituency	East of England

Welwyn Hatfield is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2005 by Grant Shapps, a Conservative.

The seat was called for by the second periodic review of Westminster seats (the first periodic review led by the Boundary Commission was in 1945 and followed that of the Representation of the People Act 1918). Its changes were made in time for the first 1974 general election which resulted in a temporary minority administration on a hung parliament.

Despite its short history, the seat has seen two parties serve it, with two Labour periods of representation, during the longer part of the Labour Government 1974-1979 and during the first two terms of the Blair ministry. Other than this the seat has elected a Conservative as its MP.

The present majority more than tripled on the second election of Grant Shapps, in 2010, from a historically breakable (in the constituency) majority of 5,946 votes to the 26th largest Conservative share of the vote, which on standard uniform swing seen in elections since 1931 represents a safe seat.

The first MP ended his term in the Commons as the member for Welwyn Hatfield before which he was Defence Minister from 1970 to 1972 then a Foreign Office Minister until February 1974 - later that year Lord Balniel was awarded a life peerage, accelerating and safeguarding his right to sit in the Lords. The second MP later became the politically neutral Lord Speaker, Baroness Hayman.