On its creation, Nick Hawkins was elected to parliament as Surrey Heath's MP, after the North West Surrey MP, Michael Grylls, who had in 1992 achieved a majority of 28,392, retired.[2] One of Hawkins' opponents for selection was future SpeakerJohn Bercow, selected for Buckingham the same day.[3]
In 1999 then-party chairmanMichael Ancram intervened to prevent a move to deselect Hawkins following local party disquiet about him leaving his wife of 20 years for a local councillor.[4][5] In 2004, the Conservative constituency association, then the richest in the country, deselected Hawkins for the next election, following accusations of racism, in the hope of obtaining an MP of cabinet calibre.[6][7]
Until the 2019 general election, the constituency was generally considered to be one of the Conservative Party's safest seats. But the 2019 election saw an unexpected 11.1% swing to the Liberal Democrats' candidate Al Pinkerton, who secured the second-highest second place since the constituency's creation, with Labour recording their lowest share of the vote since the seat's creation.
After the 2024 general election was called, Gove announced he would not stand for re-election.[8] The seat consequently fell to Al Pinkerton, standing again for the Liberal Democrats, on a further swing of 20.9%; it was one of six (out of the twelve) Surrey seats to switch from the Conservatives to the Lib Dems in that election
Boundaries
Map of 1997–2024 boundaries
1997–2024
Surrey Heath occupies much of the northwest corner of the county. From its inception in 1997 until 2024, it covered the Borough of Surrey Heath and the Guildford wards knows as 'The Ashes':[9]
Guildford Borough – Normandy and Pirbright.[10] (The two wards were amalgamated into one two-member ward after the review began, so figure individually in the review and Statutory Instrument.)
The electorate was reduced to bring it within the permitted range by transferring the three substantial Guildford Borough wards which constitute Ash to a new seat, Godalming and Ash. To partly compensate, the two villages (and one-member Guildford Council wards) of Normandy and Pirbright were transferred into the Surrey Heath seat from the Woking constituency.
Constituency profile
70% of homes were detached or semi-detached at the 2011 census. The detached percentage (45.2%) was at that time the second highest in the South East, behind the New Forest.[11] The area is well connected to London Heathrow Airport, IT, telecommunications and logistics centres of the M3 and M4 corridors, and to the military towns of Aldershot and Sandhurst. Farnborough, with its civil, private aviation base with certain military uses, is also nearby, as is Blackbushe Airport.
Workless claimants, registered jobseekers, were in November 2012 significantly lower than the national average of 3.8%, at 1.7% of the population based on a statistical compilation by The Guardian.[12]
YouGov polling by Focaldata suggested that support for Remain rose from its 48% level in the 2016 Referendum to 50.2% in August 2018 (during the Brexit ‘impasse’ in Parliament).[14]
Prior to the 2024 General Election, Surrey Heath was numerically the Liberal Democrats' 58th target seat (before boundary changes),[15] and in the 2023 local elections the Lib Dems had ended 49 years of continuous Conservative administration by taking overall control of Surrey Heath Council[16] and had also helped push the Conservatives to two consecutive poor results on Guildford Borough Council in the local election years of 2019 and 2023.[17]
