BRIEFING PAPER Number CBP 8280, 25 March 2020

By-elections in the By Chris Watson

2017-19 Parliament

Contents: 1. West Tyrone – 3 May 2018 2. Lewisham East – 14 June 2018 3. Newport West – 4 April 2019 4. – 6 June 2019 5. Brecon and Radnorshire – 1 August 2019 6. Analysis of by-elections 2017- 19

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2 By-elections in the 2017-19 Parliament

Contents

Summary 3 Glossary 4 1. West Tyrone – 3 May 2018 5 2. Lewisham East – 14 June 2018 6 3. Newport West – 4 April 2019 7 4. Peterborough – 6 June 2019 8 5. Brecon and Radnorshire – 1 August 2019 9 6. Analysis of by-elections 2017-19 10

Cover page image attributed to: The Hermit: Pub and Polling Station by Tim Green. Licensed under CC BY 2.0 / image cropped.

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Summary

This research briefing sets out results of the by-elections held during the 2017-19 Parliament. Results for previous by-elections for parliaments since 1997 are available in the following briefings:  By-elections 2015-17  By-elections 2010-15  By-elections 2005-10  By-elections 2001-05  By-elections 1997-01 By-elections since 1945 are summarised in UK Election Statistics: 1918- 2018.

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Glossary

Chiltern Hundreds/Manor of Northstead Under a Resolution of the House of 2 March 1623, MPs cannot directly resign their seats. Deaths, disqualification, elevation to Peerage, dissolution or expulsion are the only causes by which a Member’s seat can be vacated. Therefore, a Member wishing to resign has to be appointed to a paid office of the Crown, which automatically disqualifies the Member from holding a seat in the House of Commons. There are currently two nominal offices of profit under the Crown:

 Crown Steward and Bailiff of the three Chiltern Hundreds of Stoke, Desborough and Burnham  Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead

This paper notes which, if any, Members have been appointed to which has led to each by-election.

Deposit Candidates in a UK Parliamentary Election must pay a deposit – currently £500. If they receive more than 5% of the valid votes cast, their deposit is returned.

Candidates who received 5% of the votes or less appear under “other candidates” in this paper.

Majority of Winning Candidate The majority of the winning candidate is calculated by working out the votes difference between the winning candidate and the candidate who got the second highest amount of votes.

Recall Petition Recall is used to describe a process where the electorate in a constituency can sign a petition to remove an MP before the end of their term. A recall procedure was introduced in the UK in 2015. It only applies to Members of Parliament and can only be triggered under certain circumstances. More information can be found in our briefing paper, Recall Elections.

Total Poll The total poll indicates the number of valid votes cast. This does not include invalid votes that were not counted.

Turnout The turnout is calculated by dividing the total poll (valid votes) by the electorate in the constituency.

Writ A writ of election is a legal document sent to returning officers declaring that an election must take place in the constituency, and that they must publish a notice of election.

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1. West Tyrone – 3 May 2018

6 By-elections in the 2017-19 Parliament

2. Lewisham East – 14 June 2018

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3. Newport West – 4 April 2019

8 By-elections in the 2017-19 Parliament

4. Peterborough – 6 June 2019

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5. Brecon and Radnorshire – 1 August 2019

10 By-elections in the 2017-19 Parliament

6. Analysis of by-elections 2017-19

The first by-election of the five that occurred during the Parliament was in West Tyrone following the resignation of Barry McElduff after criticism of a social media post. It was won by Órfhlaith Begley with 46.7% of the vote share (Sinn Féin hold).

The second by-election came after Heidi Alexander (Labour) resigned her seat to become London Deputy Mayor for Transport. Janet Daby was the successful candidate in Lewisham East, holding the seat with 50.2% of the vote share.

The third and fourth by-elections of the Parliament were also Labour holds. The Newport West by-election was won by Ruth Jones following the death of in February 2019.

The Peterborough by-election was historic in that it was the first time 1 the use of a recall petition had resulted in removal of the sitting MP. The recall petition was triggered following the conviction of for perverting the course of justice. Elected as a Labour MP in the 2017 General Election, Onasanya lost the Labour whip in December 2018 and subsequently sat as an Independent. She did not stand at the by-election in June 2019 where Labour candidate, Lisa Forbes won with 30.9% of the vote.

The fifth and final by-election of the Parliament was held in Brecon and Radnorshire in August 2019 following another successful recall petition. Chris Davies, who won the seat for the Conservatives at the 2017 General Election was charged (and plead guilty) with claiming false expenses. Chris Davies subsequently stood in the by-election but lost the seat by 1,425 votes to Jane Dodds (Liberal Democrat). Some other parties including , the Green Party and Change UK stood aside in favour of the Liberal Democrats instead of standing a candidate themselves. This was the only by-election in the Parliament where a different party won compared with the 2017 General Election.

There were two further resignations in the 2017-19 Parliament, John Mann (Labour, Bassetlaw) left the Commons in October 2019 to take up a position as the Government’s Independent Adviser on Antisemitism in the House of Lords. John Bercow (Buckingham) then left the Commons in November 2019 after resigning as Speaker. By-elections were not held in either of these vacant seats due to the proximity of the upcoming General Election.

Constituency Date Result Change in Party % compared to 2017 GE (% Pts) Turnout CON LAB LD PC SF Brexit Green West Tyrone 03-May-18 SF Hold … … … … -4.1% … … 54.6% Lewisham East 14-Jun-18 Lab Hold -8.6% -17.7% 20.2% … … … … 33.2% Newport West 04-Apr-19 Lab Hold -8.0% -12.7% 2.4% 2.6% … … 2.8% 37.0% Peterborough 06-Jun-19 Lab Hold -25.5% -17.2% 8.9% … … 28.9% 1.3% 48.3% Brecon and Radnorshire 01-Aug-19 LD Gain from Con -9.6% -12.5% 14.3% … … 10.5% … 59.6%

1 This was the second recall petition since its introduction but the first (Ian Paisley, North Antrim), had not reached the required threshold of 10% of constituent signatures to trigger a by-election.

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The average turnout in by-elections in the 2017-19 Parliament was 46.5%. This was the highest average turnout since the 1992-97 Parliament (52.0%). The lowest turnout since 2017 was in Lewisham East (33.2%) with the highest in Brecon and Radnorshire (59.6%).

This is the first time in history that all the by-elections in a Parliament (albeit a short one), were all won by women.

Comparison with the 2019 General Election Three out of the five constituencies that held by-elections during the 2017-19 Parliament saw the incumbent win at the 2019 General Election. Órfhlaith Begley and Ruth Jones both retained their seats at the 2019 General Election with a reduced majority (West Tyrone and Newport West retrospectively). Janet Daby retained the Lewisham East seat increasing her majority by over 11,000 votes compared with the by- election in June 2018.

The Conservatives won both the other seats that had held by-elections in the 2017-19 Parliament. Lisa Forbes (Labour), who had been first elected in June 2019 lost Peterborough to (Conservative) at the General Election by a majority of 2,500.

After losing the Brecon and Radnorshire seat at the by-election in August 2019, the Conservatives regained the seat at the General Election with Fay Jones winning with a majority of over 7,000 votes. This meant that Jane Dodds, the Liberal Democrat candidate had been a Member of Parliament for 97 days before the dissolution ahead of the General Election.

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