Berwick upon Tweed Constituency

County of Northumberland

Berwick upon Tweed is the most northerly constituency in England and the most sparsely populated. An electorate of some 56,700 is spread over a rural expanse of a thousand square miles, from the River Tweed in the north to the Cheviot Hills in the west and the North Sea to the east.

Berwick and Alnwick are the main market towns, with other centres of population at Amble, Wooler, Belford, Seahouses and Rothbury, as well as what was the former coalfield area of the constituency, which stretches from Shilbottle to Lynemouth.

Berwick Constituency is shown in orange on the map.

Alan Beith has represented the Berwick-upon-Tweed Constituency in the House of Commons since 1973. During this time, the constituency's economic structure has undergone major changes. Berwick's traditional industries - mining, textiles and fisheries - went into sharp decline. Today, Berwick has some of the lowest average wages of any area in the country, and is still struggling to come to terms with disappearance of its traditional occupations.

As Alan Beith points out: "It's changed the character of many of the villages, which at one time would have been dominated by people who worked in the local major industry whether it was farming or fishing and related trades, to villages in which many of the people are retired; others work elsewhere in fields unconnected with the fact that they live in a rural village - wherever they can get to a job - and others are dependent on state benefits."

Alan Beith is working closely with local communities, councils and local businesses to secure investments in the region, improve living standards and guarantee access to quality local services. He chairs the Justice Committee which published a major report on devolution issues such as relative funding levels in England and Scotland in May 2009.

Election results.