Solihull (UK Parliament constituency)

Solihull
Former borough constituency for the House of Commons
2010–2024 boundary of Solihull in West Midlands
Location of West Midlands within England
County	West Midlands
Electorate	77,354 (December 2010)[1]
Major settlements	Solihull
1945–2024
Seats	One
Created from	Tamworth
Replaced by	Solihull West and Shirley

Solihull was a constituency in West Midlands represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament.

Further to the completion of the 2023 Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies, the seat was abolished and its area was split three ways. The bulk of the constituency was reformed as Solihull West and Shirley, first contested at the 2024 general election.^[2] Other parts of the constituency moved into the new seats of Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North and Meriden and Solihull East.^[3]

The Solihull area is home to some of the West Midlands's more affluent residents and includes a high proportion of Birmingham workers and the managerial classes in manufacturing, retail, industry and the public sector. There are smaller villages and undeveloped green belt areas in its peripheral countryside, though the seat was primarily suburban and middle-class, with low levels of deprivation throughout. Workless claimants stood at only 2% of the population in November 2012, below every regional average in the UK. In the study of that date, only three of the 59 West Midlands seats had a lower proportion of registered jobseekers.^[4]

Following boundary changes, the northernmost tip of the seat contained the point in England furthest from the coast in any direction.^{[citation needed]}

The constituency was one of two covering the Metropolitan Borough of Solihull. It covered the town of Solihull itself, as well as Shirley and Olton. It is a largely well-off, residential area, in the south-east of the West Midlands conurbation.

1945–1950: The part of the County Borough of Birmingham in the present Tamworth constituency, and the urban district of Solihull.^[5]

1950–1974: The Urban District of Solihull.^[6]

1974–1983: The County Borough of Solihull.

1983–2024: The Metropolitan Borough of Solihull wards of Elmdon, Lyndon, Olton, St Alphege, Shirley East, Shirley South, Shirley West, and Silhill.

Conservative candidates won the seat from its outset in 1945 until a loss in 2005, the seat meanwhile seeing boundary changes covered above. In the 2005 general election Solihull was won by the Liberal Democrats, with Lorely Burt beating the incumbent John Taylor by a majority of 279 votes. Burt won the seat again at the 2010 general election, this time by just 175 votes following two recounts.

The seat was represented by Julian Knight since 2015, who won the seat from Burt with a majority of 12,902. At the 2017 election, Knight increased his majority to just over 20,000, with a similar result in 2019, making Solihull a safe Conservative seat.

However, following allegations of serious sexual assault made to the Metropolitan Police against Knight in December 2022, Knight sat as an independent MP, having had the Conservative whip suspended.^[7]

Tamworth prior to 1945

Although its predecessor seat was won by the Liberal Democrats in 2005, intervening boundary changes made the constituency notionally Conservative prior to the 2010 general election, and it is therefore listed as a gain rather than a hold. ^[17][18]

• List of parliamentary constituencies in the West Midlands (county)

• Solihull UK Parliament constituency (boundaries April 1997 – April 2010) at MapIt UK
• Solihull UK Parliament constituency (boundaries April 2010 – May 2024) at MapIt UK