Paul Farrelly



Christopher Paul Farrelly (born 2 March 1962) has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Newcastle-under-Lyme since 2001.

Parliamentary career
Farrelly unsuccessfully contested Chesham and Amersham at the 1997 General Election finishing in third place some 16,058 votes behind the sitting Conservative MP, Cheryl Gillan.

He was selected to contest his hometown seat of Newcastle-under-Lyme following the retirement of the Labour MP Llin Golding at the 2001 General Election, and he held the seat comfortably with a majority of 9,986 and remains the MP there. In the House of Commons Farrelly has served on several select committees including the Science and Technology Committee, he has been a member of the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee since the 2005 General Election.

Before his election he had held elected office within the Hornsey and Wood Green Constituency Labour Party as well as in Newcastle-under-Lyme.

At the 2010 General Election, Farrelly was returned to parliament with a majority of 1,552. His majority was reduced to 650 in 2015 and 30 in 2017.

In the 2017 general election, Farrelly retained his seat by just 30 votes, despite confusion in his constituency on polling day, where thousands of students were initially rejected due to errors with the electoral register. Farrelly's seat was one of the most marginal in the country, and his re-election bid was initially thrown into doubt by the lack of a UK Independence Party candidate, UKIP having polled 17% of the vote in 2015.