General election 2024: What you need to know in the Tyne Tees region

As a general election is called for 4 July - ITV News Tyne Tees Political Correspondent Tom Sheldrick gives his analysis on what it means for the North East

The North East was a central part of the so-called 'Red Wall' of traditional Labour seats that swung to the Conservatives in 2019.

The government has given the region a fair amount of attention - with their pledges to 'level up' the country seeing a Teesside freeport, more government jobs in Darlington and a number of town centres spruced up - but deep regional inequalities remain.

If Sir Keir Starmer is to get into Downing Street now, Labour will surely need to gain a lot of their old ground back, albeit with the election fought on reshaped constituencies.

Rishi Sunak will be confident of holding onto his own (renamed) North Yorkshire seat, though Labour winning the York & North Yorkshire mayoral election recently suggested the Tories are safe just about nowhere.

There have been no Liberal Democrat MPs in our region in recent years, but they have high hopes in Harrogate & Knaresborough.

Reform UK could also play a significant role, likely taking a significant number of votes off the Conservatives, and making Mr Sunak's task of holding onto power tougher still.

What happened in the North East at the last election?

The last general election was held on 12 December 2019.

The North East elected 19 Labour MPs and 10 Conservatives - a gain of seven seats for the Conservatives.

North Yorkshire and York elected one Labour MP and seven Conservatives - with no seats there changing hands.

Since 2019, the Conservatives gained Hartlepool in the May 2021 by-election while Labour gained Selby & Ainsty in the July 2023 by-election.

Former Labour MP Nick Brown has been sitting as independent MP, having been suspended by the party. He is standing down at the election.

Newcastle Central was the first result declared in the country in 2019, at 11.27pm, beating Sunderland.

Rishi Sunak as Prime Minister

Rishi Sunak has been Prime Minister since 25 October 2022.

He has been the MP for Richmond in North Yorkshire since 2015.

Mr Sunak was more than 27,000 votes ahead of his nearest rival in the constituency in 2019, giving him the biggest majority in the region.

His constituency is being renamed Richmond & Northallerton as part of a boundary review, but its boundaries are not changing significantly.

In an interview with ITV's Loose Women on 16 May, Mr Sunak insisted he would not stand down as an MP in North Yorkshire if the Conservatives lose the general election.

Rishi Sunak insisted on Loose Women that he will not stand down as an MP if the Conservatives lose the general election

Boundary review

An independent ‘boundary review’ has taken place to make constituencies around the country more equal in terms of population size.

Despite the review, 650 MPs will still be elected across the UK and the upcoming general election will be fought on those new constituencies.

The North East will have 27 constituencies - down from 29.

The North West Durham seat is being split up while there will be three constituencies in the North Tyneside - South East Northumberland area, rather than four.

North Yorkshire and York will go from eight to around 8.5 seats – with a new seat of Wetherby & Easingwold crossing between North and West Yorkshire.

Have you heard our new podcast Talking Politics? Every week Tom, Robert and Anushka dig into the biggest issues dominating the political agenda…