North West Norfolk
| North West Norfolk | |
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County constituency for the House of Commons |
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Boundary of North West Norfolk in Norfolk.
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Location of Norfolk within England.
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| County | Norfolk |
| Electorate | 73,269 (December 2010) |
| Major settlements | Kings Lynn and Hunstanton |
| Current constituency | |
| Created | 1974 |
| Member of parliament | Sir Henry Bellingham (Conservative) |
| Number of members | One |
| Created from | King's Lynn |
| 1885–1918 | |
| Number of members | One |
| Replaced by | King's Lynn |
| Overlaps | |
| European Parliament constituency | East of England |
North West Norfolk is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2001 by Sir Henry Bellingham, a Conservative.
The constituency was created under the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885 for the 1885 general election, and abolished for the 1918 general election. It was re-established for the February 1974 general election, replacing the former King's Lynn constituency.
The first MP had gained almost exactly the same wards (in the old seat) in 1970, before which Lynn was held by one of Harold Wilson's government colleagues in the Labour Party, largely as a bellwether. Christopher Brocklebank-Fowler therefore effectively held the seat in the two 1974 elections and in 1979 however by March 1981 he became distanced from the Conservatives and defected to the newly formed Social Democratic Party shortly before the 1983 Conservative Landslide where Brocklebank-Fowler lost his seat to the replacement Conservative candidate Henry Bellingham.
Bellingham increased his precarious lead over Brocklebank-Fowler at the 1987 general election who therefore in the following election chose to contest another area and at which Labour's candidate regained second place, almost doubling their share of the vote. Labour gained the seat at the 1997 general election but Bellingham regained the seat at the 2001 general election and increased his majority subsequently in both 2005 and 2010 but fell slightly in 2015. He retained the seat in the 2017 general election with 60% of the vote, having been knighted in the new years honours list 2016.
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