Halifax is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2024 by Kate Dearden of the Labour Party.
The Halifax constituency is located in the borough of Calderdale in West Yorkshire on the edge of the Pennines. It contains the large town of Halifax, the connected town of Sowerby Bridge and the nearby villages of Northowram, Southowram and Shelf. Halifax was traditionally an industrial mill town, primarily involved in the wool trade. The town's Dean Clough mill complex was once the largest carpet factory in the world. The town is highly deprived, with most of it falling within the top 10% most-deprived areas in England. Sowerby Bridge is a small market town and has average levels of wealth. The average house price in the constituency is low compared to the rest of Yorkshire and less than half the national average.
In general, residents of the constituency have low levels of education, income and professional employment. White people made up 78% of the population at the 2021 census with Asians, predominantly Pakistanis, forming the largest ethnic minority group at 18%. At the local borough council, most of the constituency is represented by the Labour Party, with some Liberal Democrats elected in the western suburbs and Greens in Northowram and Shelf. An estimated 60% of voters in the constituency supported leaving the European Union in the 2016 referendum, higher than the nationwide figure of 52%.
1918âÂÂ1983: The County Borough of Halifax.
1983âÂÂ2010: The Metropolitan Borough of Calderdale wards of Illingworth, Mixenden, Northowram and Shelf, Ovenden, St John's, Skircoat, Sowerby Bridge, Town, and Warley.
2010âÂÂ2024: The Metropolitan Borough of Calderdale wards of Illingworth and Mixenden, Northowram and Shelf, Ovenden, Park, Skircoat, Sowerby Bridge, Town, and Warley.
2024âÂÂpresent: Same as above apart from the addition of part of the Ryburn ward (polling districts MB, MC and MD) from Calder Valley as part of the 2023 Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies, thus bringing the whole of Sowerby Bridge within the constituency.
This constituency covers the large town of Halifax in West Yorkshire and includes the smaller town of Sowerby Bridge which adjoins Halifax but until 1974 was a separate Urban District and was part of the Sowerby constituency until 1983.
The parliamentary borough was granted in the Great Reform Act 1832 and returned from that year until 1918 two members. A county borough recognized the density of the developed area in 1888 which provided most functions for inhabitants, retaining the West Yorkshire ceremonial county. The municipal or county borough was under a mayor, five aldermen and 45 councillors and had an area of .
At the time of the Norman Conquest, Halifax formed part of the extensive manor of Wakefield, which belonged to the king, but in the 13th century was in the hands of John Earl de Warrenne aka. Earl of Surrey (1231âÂÂ1304). The prosperity of the town began with the first woollen products workshop established here in 1414, when there are said to have been only thirteen houses, which before the end of the 16th century had increased to 520. Camden, about the end of the 17th century, wrote that "the people are very industrious, so that though the soil about it be barren and improfitable, not fit to live on, they have so flourished ... by the clothing trade that they are very rich and have gained a reputation for it above their neighbours." The manufacturing standards and trade were improved by the arrival of certain merchants and clothworkers driven from the Spanish Netherlands by the persecution by the Duke of Alva.
Halifax was a borough by prescription rather than a medieval parliamentary borough, its privileges growing up with the increased prosperity brought by the cloth trade, but it was not incorporated until 1848. From 1832 until 1918 the town's property-qualifying residents paying scot and lot returned two members to parliament.
Apart from the four years following the 1983 general election, when it was held by a Conservative MP, the seat has been held by an MP representing the Labour Party since 1964.
Prior to the 2017 general election, the Conservative Party launched its election manifesto at Dean Clough Mill in Halifax, and targeted the seat fairly heavily, for two years earlier the Labour majority in the constituency had fallen to just 428 votes, or 1% of the total vote. However, Holly Lynch increased her majority by almost 5,000 votes, giving Labour its biggest majority in Halifax since 2001.
Lynch retained the seat in 2019 and, after she stood down for the 2024 election, it was won by fellow Labour Party member Kate Dearden.
Representation reduced to one member, 1918