Boost for Tories as Ben Houchen re-elected as Tees Valley mayor

Lord Houchen’s majority over Labour was much reduced, but he managed to secure re-election on a difficult night for his party.

Conservative Ben Houchen has been re-elected as Tees Valley Mayor. (Owen Humphreys/PA) (PA Wire)

Conservative Ben Houchen has been re-elected as mayor of the Tees Valley region, with a much reduced majority over Labour.

Lord Houchen secured almost 82,000 votes compared with the 63,000 votes received by Labour’s Chris McEwan, winning a third term as mayor.

In a victory speech on Friday, Lord Houchen said his re-election was “the greatest honour anyone could give me”.

Thanking both his supporters and his opponents, he said: “Let’s keep pushing for a better Teesside, Darlington and Hartlepool, let’s deliver more jobs, more investment.”

Labour had already conceded defeat, but said the party had secured a large enough swing to win every parliamentary seat in the region and claimed Lord Houchen had run his campaign as a “pseudo-independent”.

A Labour spokesman said: “If Rishi Sunak doesn’t take this result as a major wake-up call he is in denial.”

The mayor denied he had not been campaigning as a Conservative or mentioning Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in his campaign literature during the contest.

He told Sky News: “We absolutely don’t shy away from that at all, and Rishi’s been up during the campaign and we have always said Rishi’s been a great friend to the people of Teesside, Darlington and Hartlepool.”

He added that Mr Sunak had been “a huge champion for this area”.

But he added that he would work with anyone “to get what I need to get”, including Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer if he became prime minister.

Lord Houchen secured 81,930 votes, or 53.6% of the total, against 63,141 (41.3%) for Mr McEwan and 7,679 (5%) for Liberal Democrat Simon Thorley.

Although the mayor secured a comfortable majority of 12.3%, this is considerably lower than the 45.5% majority he won over Labour in 2021.

Other results from the Tees Valley region were less positive for the Conservatives, with the party losing six councillors in Hartlepool as Labour made seven gains and took control of the council.