Skinner, who held the seat from 1970 until 2019, was between 2017 and 2019 the second longest serving MP in the Commons after Kenneth Clarke. In the 2010 general election, Skinner received exactly 50% of the vote - 21,994 of the 43,988 votes cast. At the 2017 general election, Skinner's majority was cut to little more than 5,000, the first time the Labour majority in the seat had ever been lower than 10,000. He lost his bid to be re-elected in 2019 losing to Conservative candidate Mark Fletcher.