About Paisley North

Paisley North constituency

The constituency consists of Paisley North, Linwood and Renfrew.

Paisley is situated on the south side of the Clyde between the parliamentary seats of West Renfrewshire and the Glasgow seats of Govan and Pollock. It is currently Scotland’s fifth largest town and in the 19th Century had the third largest population in Scotland, ahead of Aberdeen and Dundee. Paisley North includes parts of Paisley, along with Renfrew, Linwood and Hillington.

Paisley has a proud tradition but in recent years has seen hard times. Linwood car plant was opened to great fanfare in 1963 by the Rootes Group to build the Hillman Imp and kept open with Labour Government support when it was threatened with closure in 1975. It was finally shut in 1981. While new jobs are being created in electronics, communications and the service sector, other jobs are being lost and in 2001 Rolls Royce announced they would make 400 job cuts at their Hillington factory. Glasgow Airport is located within the constituency and has dramatically expanded in recent years. The airport. like Edinburgh’s, has been restricted by the lack of a city centre-airport rail connection and the Scottish Executive has agreed to give support and funding to such a link.

Paisley North does not have many areas of affluence, and some of its poorer areas are amongst the most disadvantaged in Scotland. Ferguslie Park became a by-word in the 1980’s for a failing estate.

In 1983, Paisley was split into two seats – North and South – with North taking a slightly smaller part of the old Paisley seat. Paisley politics were then thrown into shock by the deaths within a month of both of the town’s MP’s, Allen Adams and Norman Buchan. The subsequent by-elections held on 29 November 1990 were marked by the resignation of Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister seven days before polling and the election of John Major. Both by-elections returned Labour MP’s with sharply reduced majorities; Irene Adams, widow of Allen, being returned in North with a majority of 3,770 over the SNP.

The 1999 Scottish Parliament elections saw Wendy Alexander, sister of Douglas Alexander MP for South, returned with a majority of 4,616. In the second Scottish Parliament contest in 2003, Alexander was returned with a majority of 4,310 over the Nationalists. In the regional vote, Labour won 37.3 per cent to the SNP’s 26.1 per cent, while the Scottish Socialists won 8.2 per cent and Greens 4.6 per cent.

Boundary changes for Westminster see the number of seats covering Paisley and Renfrewshire fall from three to two.