WARRINGTON South MP Helen Southworth has spelled out her reasons for deciding to stand down at the next General Election.WARRINGTON South MP Helen Southworth has spelled out her reasons for deciding to stand down at the next General Election.
She says she wants to be able to spend more time with her family and also to devote more time to working with children’s charities and working to help children at risk.
Mrs Southworth said: “It has not been an easy decision but I am sure that it is the right one. It is a personal decision because being a Member of Parliament does make tremendous demands on family life, and I want to be able to spend more time with my family than I have been able to over the last 12 years.
“I have increasingly been very active in changing legislation to protect vulnerable children and in working with Children’s charities. In future I also want to be able to give more time to organisations working to help children who are at risk.”
She said she would continue to work “resolutely” to help constituents and make representations on their behalf right up to the General Election
Helen Southworth became MP for Warrington South in 1997, when she took over from former leader of Warrington Borough Council Mike Hall when he moved to the neighbouring Weaver Vale constituency.
Her majority then was 10,807, but since then she has seen it shrink to 7,387 in 2001 and 3,515 in 2005 when it had been widely predicted she would lose.
But she managed to fight off the challenge of local Tory councillor Fiona Bruce, keeping a 40.5 per cent share of the poll.
The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have both had Prospective Parliamentary Candidates in Warrington South for some time, David Mowat for the Conservatives and Coun Jo Crotty for the Lib Dems
The recent European Election results, when the Conservatives came top of the poll for the first time in Warrington in a Euro election, seem to suggest they can re-take the seat they have always felt is rightfully theirs.
Although the Tories polled 10,978 votes, compared to Labour’s 8,956, it is understood that 70 per cent of the Labour votes came from Warrington North.
