Labour has officially triggered the by-election to replace Mike Amesbury following his resignation after he received a suspended prison sentence for punching a constituent.
Business in the House of Commons on Tuesday started with Government chief whip Sir Alan Campbell asking for the writ for the vacant Runcorn and Helsby seat to be issued on March 26.
The by-election has to take place between 21 and 27 working days from the issuing of the writ, suggesting it will be scheduled for May 1.
It will represent the first by-election test for Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party.
Mr Amesbury won the seat last year with a majority of 14,696 over Reform UK.
Sir Alan told the Commons: “I beg to move that on 26th day of March 2025, Mr Speaker do issue his warrant to the clerk of the crown to make out a new writ for the electing of a member to serve this present Parliament in the county constituency of Runcorn and Helsby in the room of Michael Lee Amesbury, who since his election for the said county constituency has been appointed to the Office of Steward and Bailiff of His Majesty’s Three Chiltern Hundreds of Stoke, Desborough and Burnham in the county of Buckinghamshire.”
Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle repeated the text of the motion, with MPs agreeing to it.
An MP cannot simply resign from the Commons but instead they are disqualified as a result of being nominally appointed as either the Steward and Bailiff of the Chiltern Hundreds or the Manor of Northstead.
Former Labour MP Mr Amesbury was given a 10-week prison term after punching a constituent, which was reduced to a suspended sentence after an appeal, leaving him at risk of being ousted from Parliament through the recall process.
Mr Amesbury pleaded guilty in January to assaulting constituent Paul Fellows, 45, after a row in the street in Frodsham, Cheshire, in the early hours of October 26.
