Prior to
1950, most of Welwyn Hatfield was in the
St Albans constituency, though the town of
Welwyn was in the
Hitchin constituency. For the five years between 1950 and 1955, Welwyn Garden City remained in the St Albans constituency, whilst Hatfield was placed in the now abolished
Barnet constituency. Then in 1955, Both Welwyn Garden City and Hatfield were moved to the also now abolished
Hertford constituency. The Welwyn Hatfield seat was created for the
February 1974 United Kingdom general election following the
second periodic review of Westminster constituencies, as
Welwyn and Hatfield. For the 1983 general election, the constituency was renamed in line with the recently created
District of Welwyn Hatfield.
Political history Despite its short history, the seat has seen two parties serve it, with three
Labour periods of representation, during the longer part of the
Labour government of 1974 to 1979, the first two terms of the
Blair ministry and the first
Starmer ministry. Other than this the seat has elected a
Conservative as its MP. The 2005 majority more than tripled on the second election of
Grant Shapps, in 2010, from a historically breakable (in the constituency) majority of 5,946 votes to the 26th largest
Conservative share of the vote, which on standard uniform
swing seen in elections since 1931 represented a
safe seat, but a 5% swing to Labour in 2017 meant that the seat was somewhat marginal again, needing a 7.1% swing to become Labour. In the
2024 election, a swing of 14.3% led to the election of Labour's
Andrew Lewin with a majority of 3,799.
Prominent frontbenchers The first MP ended his term in the Commons as the member for Welwyn Hatfield before which he was Defence Minister from 1970 to 1972 then a Foreign Office Minister until February 1974 - later that year
Lord Balniel was awarded a
life peerage, accelerating and safeguarding his right to sit in the
Lords. The second MP later became the politically neutral
Lord Speaker,
Baroness Hayman. During five years of the
Blair ministry, the constituency's MP
Melanie Johnson was a frontbench minister, serving as
Economic Secretary to the Treasury, Minister for Competition and Consumers and the
Minister for Public Health.
Grant Shapps, her successor, was appointed the
Minister of State for Housing and Local Government for the first two years of the
UK coalition government 2010 before being appointed to chair his party. Following the Conservative victory in 2015, he was appointed Minister of State at the
Department for International Development before resigning in November 2015. Shapps was briefly Home Secretary for six days from 19 October 2022 covering the period between the resignation and reinstatement of
Suella Braverman. Since then, he has served as
Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy followed by
Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero. ==Boundaries and boundary changes==