In the second of our series looking at the constituencies of MPs involved in international trade, the Daily Update takes a look at the seats of former trade ministers, including the first ever Secretary of State for International Trade.
Dr Liam Fox – North Somerset
Fox has held his seat since 1992, managing to survive the 1997 landslide to make a pair of leadership bids and serve as the first international trade secretary at cabinet under prime minister Theresa May in 2016.
He held the position until Boris Johnson replaced him with Liz Truss in 2019. He was later nominated by the UK to be director general of the WTO, although did not make the final round of voting.
His seat of North Somerset – previously Woodspring until 2010 – isn’t one that Labour needs to win in order to secure an overall majority, but is seen as vulnerable. Since 2010, he has won with around half of the total vote.
The last time the seat returned a non-Conservative was in 1910, when Liberal Joseph King won the seat, before defecting to Labour.
Liz Truss - South West Norfolk
The second international trade secretary, who was also briefly prime minister in 2023, Truss is expected to hold her safe seat in South West Norfolk, even as much of Conservative East Anglia is at risk of falling.
With nearby MPs like Duncan Baker, James Wild and Richard Bacon expected to face tougher contests, the former PM has the benefit of sitting in a very Conservative seat, with a 26,195 majority.
Having entered parliament in 2010 as part of David Cameron’s ‘A-List’ candidates and served in all manner of cabinet roles, she is predicted to be one of the survivors of what is shaping up to be a difficult night for the Conservatives.
Up until the 1960’s South West Norfolk was very marginal, with five out of six elections between 1945 and 1959 being won by less than a thousand votes. Labour MP Sydney Dye won by 53, 260 and 193 votes across three elections, losing on one occasion by 442.
In the by-election held in 1958 after his death, Labour held out with 1,354 votes so maybe he was the problem the whole time.
Anne-Marie Trevelyan - North Northumberland
The last of our former international trade secretaries on today’s list, Trevelyan was appointed to the top job under Johnson after Liz Truss was promoted to foreign secretary. She then moved briefly to transport under Truss, later shuffling to minister for the Indo-Pacific under Sunak.
Her seat, previously Berwick-upon-Tweed, has had the town of Morpeth added to it and is now called North Northumberland.
Trevelyan took the seat from the Lib Dems in 2015 and sits on an apparently healthy majority of 14,835. Despite this, an insurgent Labour party is expected to battle hard for the border seat, which includes the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed.
North Northumberland was previously a seat in the 1800’s and was held by two MPs simultaneously, being last contested in 1886 by Earl Percy and Matthew White Ridley (they beat Liberal candidate John Clay).
Nusrat Ghani - Sussex Weald
A former minister at DBT, responsible for the critical mineral strategy, Ghani has since moved to the foreign office as Europe minister.
A winner of the Conservative Party’s “open primary” system, where anyone on the electoral register could vote, Ghani’s old seat of Wealden is being replaced by the new Sussex Weald.
Having previously sat in a very safe seat (she won over 60% in 2019), she is now predicted to face a much tougher race, as much of the South East ebbs away to the Lib Dems or Labour.
James Duddridge - Rochford and Southend East
We’re saying goodbye to Duddridge, who announced he was standing down after a 19-year political career, having served in junior ministerial roles since 2019.
In that time, the native Bristolian has been a minister for Brexit, Africa and international trade, with additional stints in the treasury and as a private secretary to PM Johnson.
During his time, the Essex-based seat has always been a relatively safe seat for the Tories, with most elections resulting in a 10-15% majority. However, Labour is looking to re-establish itself in an area that had previously been seen as out of bounds for the party.
Southend, which officially became a city in 2022, is home to the world's longest pleasure pier which is now a Grade II listed building, despite the numerous fires that have broken out on the structure.
Nigel Huddleston - Droitwich and Evesham
Huddleston served as a junior trade minister before getting moved to the Treasury.
Formerly Mid Worcestershire, Droitwich and Evesham is another safe seat that the former international trade minister is expected to keep, as he sits on 37,426 majority.
The rural Worchester seat has remained in Conservative hands since it was created in 1983, only really coming under threat in 1997.
Droitwich takes its name from the salt-works that used to exist there in Anglo Saxon times.
Ranil Jayawardena - North East Hampshire
Another member for the 2015 intake, former banker Jayawardena has the benefit of occupying a fairly safe seat in true blue Hampshire.
Jayawardena was undersecretary for international trade under Truss before briefly moving to take over the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
He was named as one of the House Magazine’s rising stars in 2023, and chaired the Conservative Growth Group, a political faction within the Conservative Party that supports lower taxation and is still close to former PM Truss.
In 2015, North East Hampshire was the safest Conservative seat in the country with a majority of 29,916 votes, or 55.4%.
One of Jayawardena’s challengers in the seat is the perennial candidate Howling Laud Hope, of the Official Monster Raving Loony Party, who has stood in 34 elections since 1983, including three by-elections last year.
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