THE Chief Secretary to the Treasury has vowed to battle for residents in Westminster and "repay their faith" in him after increasing his majority in one of England's largest constituencies.

Conservative Rishi Sunak has been re-elected as MP for Richmond after securing 36,693 votes, a slight increase on the 36,458 votes he received two years ago.

Labour candidate Thomas Kirkwood was his closest rival with 9,483 votes, and Liberal Democrat Philip Knowles received 6,989 votes.

Independent candidate Nicholas Jardine received 961 votes, Green Party candidate John Yorke had 2,500 votes and Yorkshire Party candidate Laurence Waterhouse received 1,077 votes.

After the result was announced Mr Sunak appeared delighted and thanked his rivals for the seat saying they had run "respectful and constructive" campaigns.

He added: "It is the greatest privilege of my life to have this job. The opportunity to represent all of you down in Westminster, fighting for the things that we all care about, whether it's the Friarage or better broadband for our rural area. Those are the things that I absolutely love doing.

"To have the opportunity to serve you again, for hopefully now four or five years before we are here again is an enormous privilege and one that I am very grateful for and I will continue to do my absolute utmost to make sure I can repay the faith that you have all put in me."

The constituency has been a Conservative seat since Old Etonian William George Algar Orde-Powlett, 5th Baron Bolton was elected for the party in 1910.

It had been clear early on at the count that there would be no major surprise over the seat which at the 2010 general election, produced the largest numerical and percentage majority for a Conservative at that election, with William Hague securing 62.8 per cent of the vote.

The turnout for the seat was 70.13 per cent, slightly lower than the figure for the election two years ago.

Tory-run North Yorkshire County Council leader Councillor Carl Les said: “It’s one of the safest Conservative seats, made safe by a succession of excellent Conservative MPs.

“As a leader of local government, we have been waiting for that throughout the last parliament where we want to talk to the government about issues such as care for the elderly.”