County Surrey European Parliament constituency South East England Number of members 1 Created from Uxbridge | Electorate 71,211 (December 2010) Member of parliament Kwasi Kwarteng Replaced by Uxbridge | |
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Major settlements Sunbury-on-Thames, Staines, Ashford, Stanwell | ||
Spelthorne is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2010 by Kwasi Kwarteng, a Conservative.
Contents
Boundaries
1918-1945: The Urban Districts of Feltham, Hampton, Hampton Wick, Staines, Sunbury-on-Thames, and Teddington, and the Rural District of Staines.
1945-1950: The Urban Districts of Feltham, Staines, Sunbury-on-Thames, and Yiewsley and West Drayton.
1950-1955: The Urban Districts of Feltham, Staines, and Sunbury-on-Thames.
1955-1983: The Urban Districts of Staines and Sunbury-on-Thames.
1983-present: The Borough of Spelthorne.
History of boundaries
Spelthorne was one of the ancient hundreds of the historic county of Middlesex. The hundred, which covered the south west of the historic county, had an area larger than the modern borough. Greater London, formed in 1965, incorporated almost all of the historic county of Middlesex; however Potters Bar was placed in Hertfordshire and Spelthorne was placed in Surrey. Accordingly, Spelthorne became the most northern part of Surrey.
Before 1918 the area formed part of the Uxbridge constituency.
1918-1945
The constituency was created by the Representation of the People Act 1918 as a Middlesex county constituency, and occupied the south west of the county. The seat was larger than it is today and included the whole of the ancient hundred.
1945-1950
The constituency lost an eastern section: Hampton, Hampton Wick and Teddington to Twickenham constituency. However, the seat gained territory to the north from the Uxbridge constituency.
1950-1955
Yiewsley and West Drayton were returned to the Uxbridge seat.
1955 onwards
In the 1955 redistribution Feltham became the southwest of the new Feltham constituency. Since 1955 the constituency has comprised the former urban districts of Staines and Sunbury-on-Thames, added to Surrey in 1965, and merged in 1974 to form the Borough of Spelthorne.
The seat was categorised as a borough constituency of Surrey from the February 1974 general election. This was the result of the first redistribution after the formation of Greater London. In 1995 the small settlement of Poyle, transferred from Buckinghamshire to the area in 1974, was transferred to the Borough of Slough.
The Boundary Commission recommended no boundary changes to this constituency in their review for the 2010 election.
Constituency profile
The seat is south of Heathrow Airport bounded by a long meander of the Thames. It is a more built-up area with numerous but less expansive green spaces, fewer private roads and little woodland compared to further south in Surrey. Some 30% is embanked reservoir or flood plain protected in planning.
While relative to the county as a whole this borough is marginally less affluent, in national terms it is more affluent. Workless claimants (registered jobseekers) were in November 2012 significantly lower than the national average of 3.8%, at 2.0% of the population based on a statistical compilation by The Guardian. Most residents can afford to buy their own homes: social housing accounts for only 10% of the total, and the proportion of professionals and managerial workers is high. Stanwell comprises the only county council ward in Surrey held by a Labour councillor, and in common with Sunbury Common has significant social housing.
Commercially, the area is one of the most active in Surrey. About 20% of all commercial or industrial property in the County is located here, including the headquarters of many national and international companies, such as BP, Courage, the Ian Allen Group, McVitie's, Del Monte, Samsung Electronics and Shepperton Film Studios.
During the 2016 referendum on the UK's EU membership, the majority of voters in the area voted in favour of exiting the European Union. This was the preferred outcome of Spelthorne MP Kwasi Kwarteng.
History of results
The pre-1950 much larger predecessor state of the seat saw no marginal majorities and was a Conservative safe seat based on length of party tenure and size of majorities.
In the 1945 general election George Pargiter (Lab) was elected in the Attlee Ministry landslide while the boundaries of the seat saw a favorable form to the party during expansion of London when the area extended to areas to the north, including Feltham and Bedfont (removed in 1955 — see Feltham and Heston) and had cast off Hampton, Hampton Wick and Teddington, before 1945 part of the seat.
Since the 1955 boundary reduction and a local emphasis or demand upon private housing relative to social housing, the reduced area has eight Conservative candidate majorities of greater than 11% and three lower majorities: 1966, 1997 and 2001. The earliest of these produced the narrowest margin of victory, 5% of the vote. Based on length of party tenure and majorities the seat would be considered safe by most UK electoral analysts including of academic standing.
Members of Parliament
The constituency's first MP was Philip Pilditch, an architect who piloted the Ancient Monuments Act 1931 through Parliament: see Scheduled Monument. The MP for Spelthorne since 2010 is the author, columnist and historian Kwasi Kwarteng.
Elections
Note the standard two-party swing is only accurate when the same two parties, as in the previous election, share first and second place. Votes for other candidates are ignored in the calculation of 'Butler swing'. A positive swing is from Labour or SDP in 1987 towards the Conservative candidate and a negative swing is from Conservative towards a Labour or SDP in 1987 candidate.
Elections in the 1950s
Boundary changes