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Boston and Skegness
County constituency for the House of Commons
Boundary of Boston and Skegness in Lincolnshire for the 2010 general election.
Location of Lincolnshire within England.
County	Lincolnshire
Population	101,684 (2011 census)[1]
Electorate	70,620 (December 2010)[2]
Current constituency
Created	1997
Member of parliament	Matt Warman (Conservative)
Number of members	One
Created from	Holland with Boston and East Lindsey
Overlaps
European Parliament constituency	East Midlands

Boston and Skegness is a constituency^{[n 1]} represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since May 2015 by Matt Warman of the Conservative Party.^{[n 2]}

Boundaries

1997–2010: The Borough of Boston, and the District of East Lindsey wards of Burgh le Marsh, Friskney, Frithville, Ingoldmells, St Clement's, Scarbrough, Seacroft, Sibsey, Wainfleet, and Winthorpe.

2010–present: The Borough of Boston, and the District of East Lindsey wards of Burgh le Marsh, Croft, Frithville, Ingoldmells, St Clement's, Scarbrough, Seacroft, Sibsey, Stickney, Wainfleet and Friskney, and Winthorpe.

Boston and Skegness is bordered by the constituencies of Louth and Horncastle to the north, Sleaford and North Hykeham to the west, and South Holland and The Deepings to the south.

The constituency boundaries changed at the 2010 general election, bringing in the two rural wards of Stickney and Croft from Louth and Horncastle.

Constituency profile

Boston, Lincolnshire, is a historically important town with a traditional town square with frequent markets and an iconic church spire. Skegness is the hub town of coastal villages including holiday villages. The resort has many amusements, long beaches, mini-golf courses and other holiday activities, especially during the summer.

Apart from tourism, much of the working population is employed in agriculture, with a particular emphasis on arable farming and flowers. Manufacturing, food processing, retail and defence are also important to the local economy.^[3]

According to the 2011 UK Census Boston is now "home to a higher proportion of Eastern European immigrants than anywhere else in England and Wales ... 10.6% of the town's 64,600-strong population comes from one of the "new" EU countries such as Poland, Lithuania, Latvia or Romania".^[4]

History

The constituency was created in 1997 from parts of the former constituencies of Holland with Boston and East Lindsey. Parts of the more rural south were separated from Holland with Boston to create South Holland and The Deepings. The in part predecessor area's veteran MP Richard Body^{[n 3]} held the seat at the 1997 general election with a 1.4% majority. Since 2005, having returned majorities of more than 10%; it has arguably been a safe seat for the Conservative Party.

After retiring from Parliament, Body left the Conservatives and joined the UK Independence Party (UKIP). His membership later lapsed and he defected to the English Democrats.^[5] UKIP finished in third place at the 2005 general election with 9.6% compared with a national average of 2.2%.

Mark Simmonds had a 1.3% majority over Labour in the 2001 general election, and this increased in 2005 to 14.1%. After his re-election, Simmonds was appointed Shadow Minister for International Development, before being promoted to be a Shadow Health Minister in July 2007. Following the 2010 general election, he became Parliamentary Private Secretary to Caroline Spelman, Secretary of State for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs.^[6] Following the 2012 reshuffle, he was appointed a junior Foreign Office Minister under William Hague, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs.^[7]

On 11 August 2014, Simmonds resigned as Africa Minister at the Foreign Office. He stood down as the Member of Parliament for Boston and Skegness at the 2015 general election, citing the "intolerable" pressure on his family life as the reason for his resignation.^[8]

After Simmonds announced that he would not stand at the 2015 general election, the local Conservatives decided to select their candidate using the open primary system.

Four candidates were selected from over fifty applications, and members of the public who were entitled to vote in the constituency were encouraged to attend. In a very close result, Matt Warman of the Conservative Party won.^[9]
About 80 members of the public turned up to the open primary, receiving well over one hundred registrations to attend.

On 8 May 2015, Warman was duly elected as the Member of Parliament. The Conservative majority shrunk to 10% with UKIP second. Warman's first speech as MP focused on the fact that Boston and Skegness voters were not single-issue voters.

On 29 April 2017, Paul Nuttall, leader of the UK Independence Party, announced that he was standing in Boston and Skegness, noting that the constituency had the highest Leave vote in the country in the 2016 EU referendum, with 75.6% of votes cast for Leave.^[10] Liberal Democrats and Labour also planned to contest the seat, with Greens intending to if they could find the funds for a deposit.^[11]

Nuttall came third, with less than 8% of the vote – a sharp decline on 2015's result, as well as giving UKIP its worst result in the constituency since the 2001 general election. The result saw the Conservative majority increase to an all time high in the constituency, while Labour had their best result since 2005, achieving 25% of the votes cast. The Green Party and Liberal Democrats lost their deposits, mirroring the 2015 election results for both parties.

Members of Parliament

Holland with Boston and East Lindsey prior to 1997

Elections

Elections in the 2010s

Elections in the 2000s

Elections in the 1990s

See also

• List of Parliamentary constituencies in Lincolnshire

Notes and references

Notes

References

External links

• 
  nomis Constituency Profile for Boston and Skegness — presenting data from the ONS annual population survey and other official statistics.

Coordinates: 53°00′N 0°01′E / 53.00°N 0.02°E / 53.00; 0.02