# Taunton Deane (UK Parliament constituency)

Taunton Deane was a constituency in Somerset 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. Subject to moderate boundary changes, it was reformed as Taunton and Wellington, which was first contested at the 2024 general election.

## History

Parliament accepted the Boundary Commission's Fifth Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies which created this constituency for the General Election 2010 as a reduced form of the Taunton seat. The western wards, transferred to the new seat of Bridgwater and West Somerset for 2010, were all close to or in Exmoor, which were five in number:
* Aville Vale, Brompton Ralph and Haddon, Dulverton and Brushford, Exmoor and, Qualme.

### Political history

The predecessor seat, while approximately 7% larger in electorate (and thus due to population and settlements' growth, oversized), had been held by a Liberal Democrat, Jeremy Browne, since 2005, who won Taunton Deane as its main successor with a relatively marginal majority. In the two previous elections, the seat had seen alternation between Conservative and a Liberal Democrat control. The Taunton Deane seat was won by the Conservatives in the 2015 general election with a large majority.
The last general election in which either party polled less than 38% of the vote, thus allowing a larger majority, was in 1987, taking into account only one of their notionally equivalent predecessors, the Social Democratic Party – their candidate participated in the SDP–Liberal Alliance.

### Prominent members

Between 2010 and 2015, the seat was represented by Jeremy Browne, who served in the Coalition government as a Minister of State in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Home Office.

## Boundaries

The seat has electoral wards:
* Bishop's Hull, Bishops Lydeard, Blackdown, Bradford on Tone, Comeytrowe, Milverton and North Deane, Monument, Neroche, North Curry, Norton Fitzwarren, Ruishton and Creech, Staplegrove, Stoke St Gregory, Taunton: Blackbrook and Holway, Eastgate, Fairwater, Halcon, Killams and Mountfield, Lyngford, Manor and Wilton, Pyrland and Rowbarton wards, Trull, Wellington: East, North, Rockwell Green and West wards, West Monkton, Wiveliscombe and West Deane forming the Borough of Taunton Deane
This constituency centred on the town of Taunton while extending to include Wellington within an approximate rhombus-shaped swathe of land forming the south-western portion of Somerset. The constituency covered a large part of the Devon—Somerset border.

## History

In the 2005 general election, the victorious Liberal Democrats' candidate in Taunton required the smallest percentage swing from the Conservative MP for them to take the seat. In the 2010 general election, the seat was identified as a target for the Conservative Party, ranking 29th on their target list. The incumbent, Jeremy Browne had a notional 3.3% lead from the 2005 election. Browne held the seat in 2010, increasing his majority to 6.9%, a 1.8% swing from the Conservatives to the Liberal Democrats.

## Constituency profile

The seat was a mixture of partially agricultural commuter villages and a spacious urban town, which has business parks in a similar way to Wells, connected by road and rail to the major conurbations, north and south, Bristol and Exeter. The majority of the eastern half of the ridge-like Blackdown Hills is in the Blackdown electoral ward. Workless claimants, registered jobseekers, were in November 2012 lower than the national average of 3.8%, at 2.6% of the population based on a statistical compilation by The Guardian.

## Members of Parliament
### 2010–2024

| Election | Election | Member | Party | Notes |
| | 2010 | Jeremy Browne | Liberal Democrats | Previously MP for Taunton from 2005. Stood down in 2015. |
| | 2015 | Rebecca Pow | Conservative | Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Arts, Heritage and Tourism (2019) Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Nature Recovery and the Domestic Environment (2019–2022) |
| 2024 | 2024 | constituency abolished: see Taunton and Wellington and Tiverton and Minehead | constituency abolished: see Taunton and Wellington and Tiverton and Minehead | constituency abolished: see Taunton and Wellington and Tiverton and Minehead | constituency abolished: see Taunton and Wellington and Tiverton and Minehead |

## Elections
### Elections in the 2010s

General election 2019: Taunton Deane :
| Party | Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% |
| | Conservative | Rebecca Pow | 34,164 | 53.6 | +0.7 |
| | Liberal Democrats | Gideon Amos | 22,464 | 35.2 | +7.5 |
| | Labour | Liam Canham | 4,715 | 7.4 | −8.0 |
| | Independent | John Hunt | 2,390 | 3.8 | New |
| Majority | Majority | Majority | 11,700 | 18.4 | −6.8 |
| Turnout | Turnout | Turnout | 63,733 | 71.9 | −1.9 |
| | Conservative hold | Conservative hold | Swing | -3.5 | |
General election 2017: Taunton Deane :
| Party | Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% |
| | Conservative | Rebecca Pow | 33,334 | 52.9 | +4.8 |
| | Liberal Democrats | Gideon Amos | 17,446 | 27.7 | +6.4 |
| | Labour | Martin Jevon | 9,689 | 15.4 | +6.2 |
| | UKIP | Alan Dimmick | 1,434 | 2.3 | −9.7 |
| | Green | Clive Martin | 1,151 | 1.8 | −2.7 |
| Majority | Majority | Majority | 15,887 | 25.2 | −1.6 |
| Turnout | Turnout | Turnout | 63,053 | 73.8 | +3.1 |
| | Conservative hold | Conservative hold | Swing | -0.7 | |
General election 2015: Taunton Deane :
| Party | Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% |
| | Conservative | Rebecca Pow | 27,849 | 48.1 | +5.9 |
| | Liberal Democrats | Rachel Gilmour | 12,358 | 21.3 | −27.8 |
| | UKIP | Laura Bailhache | 6,921 | 12.0 | +8.4 |
| | Labour | Neil Guild | 5,347 | 9.2 | +4.1 |
| | Green | Clive Martin | 2,630 | 4.5 | New |
| | Independent | Mike Rigby | 2,568 | 4.4 | New |
| | TUSC | Stephen German | 118 | 0.2 | New |
| | Independent | Bruce Gauld | 96 | 0.2 | New |
| Majority | Majority | Majority | 15,491 | 26.8 | NA |
| Turnout | Turnout | Turnout | 57,887 | 70.7 | +0.2 |
| | Conservative gain from Liberal Democrats | Conservative gain from Liberal Democrats | Swing | +16.8 | |
General election 2010: Taunton Deane :
| Party | Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% |
| | Liberal Democrats | Jeremy Browne | 28,531 | 49.1 | +4.7 |
| | Conservative | Mark Formosa | 24,538 | 42.2 | +0.8 |
| | Labour | Martin Jevon | 2,967 | 5.1 | −6.8 |
| | UKIP | Tony McIntyre | 2,114 | 3.6 | +1.2 |
| Majority | Majority | Majority | 3,993 | 6.9 | +3.9 |
| Turnout | Turnout | Turnout | 58,150 | 70.5 | +1.2 |
| | Liberal Democrats hold | Liberal Democrats hold | Swing | +1.8 | |