Wirral West.
Labour Party MP Matthew Patrick holds the seat on 46.4% of the vote.
7 Jun 2026
Wirral peninsula towns, Labour-held, locally two-party
Wirral West occupies the north-western corner of the Wirral peninsula, an older and comfortably-off slice of Merseyside with a median age of 50 and more than two-fifths of residents degree-educated. It is a network of small and middling towns rather than a single dominant centre: Heswall is the largest at roughly 29,000 people, ahead of West Kirby, Bebington and Greasby, with the coastal settlements of Hoylake and Meols and a thin rural fringe completing the picture. The seat is almost entirely White on the Census measure and threads along the Dee estuary shoreline. All local services fall to a single body, Wirral Council, a metropolitan borough authority, which administers the seven wards lying within the constituency.
That single-council footing makes the local picture relatively legible, though the most recent ward contests now date to May 2023. Across the 21 most-recent ward results, the Conservatives held a narrow edge over Labour, taking twelve to Labour's nine, with the party split running broadly along the familiar lines -- the western coastal and Heswall wards leaning Conservative, the Upton, Pensby and Greasby wards leaning Labour. The parliamentary picture points the other way. Labour won the seat in 2024 on 46.4 per cent, some twenty points clear of the Conservatives on 26.3, having taken it more narrowly in 2019. The sitting member, Matthew Patrick, has held it for Labour since that contest.
On the figures available the seat looks comfortably Labour at Westminster while remaining genuinely two-party at ward level, a tension that leaves its direction-of-travel less settled than the general-election margin alone suggests. Recent local coverage has carried a largely administrative tenor, dominated by the council's strained finances and the mechanics of a boundary review reshaping its wards, with little in the way of a national profile. With ward control unsettled, finances tight and a wider council reorganisation under way, Wirral West reads as a Labour-held seat that is contested rather than safe at the local tier.
Ward-level direction-of-travel: who controls what, who flipped recently, who holds the line.
| Ward | Latest winner | Votes | Council | Last cycle |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clatterbridge(3 seats) | Povall · Cameron · Jordan | 6,036 | Wirral Lab | May 2023 |
| Greasby, Frankby and Irby(3 seats) | Jenkinson · McManus · Skillicorn | 7,458 | Wirral Lab | May 2023 |
| Heswall(3 seats) | Hodson · Davies · Hodson | 6,735 | Wirral Lab | May 2023 |
| Hoylake and Meols(3 seats) | Gardner · Booth · Cox | 6,523 | Wirral Lab | May 2023 |
| Pensby and Thingwall(3 seats) | Ainsworth · Sullivan · Pitt | 6,051 | Wirral Lab | May 2023 |
| Upton(3 seats) | Robinson · Williams · Bennett | 6,296 | Wirral Lab | May 2023 |
| West Kirby and Thurstaston(3 seats) | Green · Johnson · Mountney | 5,563 | Wirral Lab | May 2023 |
Source · Democracy Club · DCLEAPIL v1.0 (CC BY-SA 4.0)
The seat’s population is concentrated in Heswall (29,050), with West Kirby (13,378) as the second pole. Total population across named built-up areas: 88,367.
Source · ONS Built-Up Areas · Census 2021
| Settlement | Pop. | Class |
|---|---|---|
| Heswall | 29,050 | large town |
| West Kirby | 13,378 | town |
| Bebington | 11,404 | large town |
| Greasby | 9,422 | town |
| Birkenhead | 8,992 | city |
| Hoylake | 5,966 | town |
Headline indicators.
| Indicator | Local | National | Δ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Employment rate | 51.5% | 57.1% | -10% |
| Owner-occupied | 80.4% | 63.1% | +27% |
| Private rented | 11.8% | 20.0% | -41% |
| Social rented | 7.8% | 16.8% | -54% |
Ethnicity.
Source · Census 2021
Population by age & sexCensus 2021 · 18 bands · click to expand
Source · Census 2021 (ONS) · % of usual residents; tick marks the median seat per band
Income tax contribution.
| Total income tax | £358m |
| Taxpayers | 52,000 |
| Median per taxpayer | £3,110 |
| Mean per taxpayer | £6,940 |
Source · HMRC SPI · ±8% confidence
Where the money flows back in.
This constituency is served by Wirral. Each council’s service spend, peer rank and supplier list lives on its own page — open from the meta block above or the compass strip below.
Move the income slider on My place to see income tax, NI, VAT and council tax against your earnings — the household lens.
Headline rate.
By category.
Source · data.police.uk · 3-month rate per 1,000 pop
2024 — full result.
| Candidate | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Matthew PatrickWON | Lab | 23,156 | 46.4 |
| Jenny Johnson | Con | 13,158 | 26.3 |
| Ken Ferguson | Ref | 6,422 | 12.9 |
| Gail Jenkinson | Grn | 4,160 | 8.3 |
| Peter Reisdorf | LD | 3,055 | 6.1 |
Turnout 49,951
Prior contests.
| Year | Winner | % | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | Margaret Greenwood | Lab | 48.2 |
| 2017 | Margaret Greenwood | Lab | 54.3 |
| 2015 | Margaret Greenwood | Lab | 45.1 |
| 2010 | McVey, Esther | Con | 42.5 |
Sources, methods & last update
2023 boundary review
DCLEAPIL v1.0 (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Census 2021
National avg over 575 seats
±8% confidence
LSOA-aggregated · rolling 12mo