Birmingham Ladywood is an area of Birmingham City Centre along with the areas of Aston, Ladywood, Nechells and Soho. The area is one of the most multicultural in Birmingham and the whole of the United Kingdom. In the recession of 2008–09, it was the first place in the UK where the claimant countrate of unemployment exceeded 10%, breaching that level in January 2009. In July 2008, Ladywood had the highest unemployment rate in the whole of the West Midlands at just over 18%, compared with neighbouring Birmingham seats Perry Barr, Sparkbrook and Small Heath, and Yardley. For the year ending September 2014, the unemployment rate was 12.4%, although the employment rate had increased only slightly, from 46.1% to 46.6%. The average house price in Ladywood is just under £155,000; making it much lower than the national average of just over £288,000.
Boundaries
2010–present: As 1997 but with redrawn boundaries. 1997–2010: The City of Birmingham wards of Aston, Ladywood, Nechells, and Soho. 1983–1997: The City of Birmingham wards of Ladywood, Sandwell, and Soho. 1974–1983: The County Borough of Birmingham wards of All Saints', Ladywood, Rotton Park, and Soho. 1955–1974: The County Borough of Birmingham wards of Duddeston, Ladywood, and St Paul's. 1950–1955: The County Borough of Birmingham wards of All Saints', Ladywood, and Rotton Park. 1918–1950: The County Borough of Birmingham wards of Ladywood and Rotton Park. The constituency includes the entirety of Birmingham City Centre, as well as Aston, Nechells and Soho which are the city wards of highest deprivation. Aston University is within the seat, as are Birmingham's two league football clubs, Aston Villa and Birmingham City.
History
;Summary of results The constituency has undergone several boundary changes since its creation in 1918 but has remained a safe Labour seat since the Second World War, with the exception of a by-election in 1969 when Wallace Lawler won the seat for the Liberal Party and the immediately surrounding period when its majority was marginal. The seat was regained for Labour by Doris Fisher at the 1970 general election. The 2015 general election result made the seat the sixth-safest of Labour's 232 seats by percentage of majority. ;Notable representatives The constituency's first MP was the future ConservativePrime Minister Neville Chamberlain, who transferred to the Edgbaston seat in 1929. The current MP is Shabana Mahmood, one of the UK's first three female Muslim MPs. The first campaign for this constituency in 1918 was notable because the Liberal Party candidate was Mrs Margery Corbett Ashby, one of only seventeen women candidates to contest a parliamentary election at the first opportunity. Chamberlain reacted to this intervention by being one of the few male candidates to specifically target women voters; deploying his wife, issuing a special leaflet headed "A word to the Ladies" and holding two meetings in the afternoon.
