County Merseyside Created 2010 Member of parliament George Howarth | Electorate 79,334 (December 2010) European Parliament constituency North West England Number of members 1 | |
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Created from Knowsley South,
Knowsley North and Sefton East Replaced by Knowsley South, Knowsley North and Sefton East | ||
Knowsley is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since its 2010 creation by George Howarth of the Labour Party.
Contents
History
Created for the 2010 general election (during the Boundary Commission for England's Fifth Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies), the area returned the second highest share of the vote seen by a candidate for the Labour Party, of 70.9%, behind the 72.0% achieved in Liverpool Walton.
Boundaries
The new constituency covers a large part of the metropolitan borough, main settlements being Huyton and Kirkby. It replaced most of the previous Knowsley South constituency, as well as the parts of Knowsley North and Sefton East in the Knowsley borough. Distant parts from the centre of the metropolitan borough are covered by the new St Helens South and Whiston and Garston and Halewood constituencies.
The seat has electoral wards:
Constituency profile
Before its first election in 2010 it was believed to present the safest seat in the country, with an estimated Labour majority of 24,333. In 2015 it became the safest seat in the country, beating East Ham by 403 votes.
The constituency mainly consists of low-income social housing and ex-social housing built to decant the residents displaced by post-war slum clearance in Liverpool. It includes Huyton to the south (once represented by Harold Wilson) and Kirkby to the north. Between them is the green space of Knowsley Hall and Park, the ancestral home of the Earls of Derby and the site of Knowsley Safari Park. In 2010, The Guardian summarised the area as "One of the most deprived areas in the country. The new parliamentary constituency folds in Knowsley North and Knowsley South."