Spelthorne (UK Parliament constituency)

Spelthorne
Borough constituency
for the House of Commons
Outline map
Boundary of Spelthorne in Surrey
Outline map
Location of Surrey within England
CountySurrey
Electorate71,211 (December 2010)
Major settlementsSunbury-on-Thames, Staines-upon-Thames, Ashford, Stanwell
Current constituency
Created1918
Member of ParliamentKwasi Kwarteng (Conservative Party (UK))
SeatsOne
Created fromUxbridge
During its existence contributed to new seat(s) of:Feltham (all)
Southall (small part)

Spelthorne is a constituency in Surrey represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2010 by Kwasi Kwarteng, a Conservative, who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer for 38 days in September and October 2022.

Boundaries

Map
Map of current 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 (same content as above)

History of boundaries

Spelthorne in Middlesex 1918-45
Spelthorne in Middlesex 1945-50
Map that gives each named seat and any constant electoral success for national (Westminster) elections for Middlesex, 1955 to 1974.
Spelthorne 1955-date (shown within its county since 1965, Surrey)

Spelthorne was one of six hundreds of the historic county of Middlesex which covered its south west. It had thirteen historic parishes whereas the modern borough and seat has seven. The London Government Act 1963 placed the historic county in London except for two areas, one being the seven south-westernmost parishes of Spelthorne and Middlesex, placed since the commencement of the Act in April 1965 in Surrey.

From 1885 to 1918 it was in the inceptive Uxbridge seat, before which its electorate contributed to the two-seat Middlesex constituency since the 13th century creation of the House of Commons of England.

1918-1945

The seat was created by the Representation of the People Act 1918 and amounted to the larger, slightly less built-up part of the increasingly outer metropolitan Uxbridge seat which was split, in 1918, in two. It was given county seat status for unimportant logistical purposes. It amounted to the obsolete hundred plus the small west-to-east parishes in the north of Harmondsworth, Harlington and Cranford as the seat took in seven late 19th century-formed areas of local government, including the Staines Rural District. Due to the incursion into Elthorne Hundred the seat could have more accurately been named South West Middlesex.

1945-1950

For the post-war 1945 election the seat lost an eastern section: three of the historic parishes namely Hampton, Hampton Wick and Teddington to the Twickenham seat (which shifted substantially south, shedding Labour-leaning Hounslow). The seat saw a northern exchange. It gained two small parishes (one of which, Yiewsley was of modern creation) to the NNW from its parent seat. It lost the similarly small Cranford and Harlington parishes to form, with parts of the parent seat, the new seat of Southall, which the incumbent for Spelthorne went on to represent in 1950.

1950-1955

In 1950 the seat was defined by the 1948 Act as the urban districts of Feltham, Staines and Sunbury on Thames; Yiewsley and West Drayton were returned to the Uxbridge seat.

1955 onwards

In the 1955 redistribution Feltham became the southwest of the new Feltham seat. Since 1955 the seat has comprised the former urban districts of Staines and Sunbury-on-Thames, added in local government to Surrey in 1965, and merged in 1974 to form in local government the Borough of Spelthorne.

The seat was categorised as a borough constituency from the February 1974 general election and for that election unaffected in the periodic redistribution. In 1995 the small settlement of Poyle, transferred from Buckinghamshire to the area in 1974 and long part of the possessions of Stanwell in Middlesex, was transferred to the Borough of Slough.

The Boundary Commission recommended no changes to this seat in their fully implemented Fifth Review for the 2010 election, nor in the draft 2018 Sixth Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies.

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 low-lying flood plain therefore immune against building. Contrasting with these large areas of fresh water, Surrey County Council have built a waste incinerator in Charlton in the seat and the 1970s saw the construction of the M3 and M25 motorways through the seat, the latter along its western border.

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, only 0.3% higher than the affluent neighbouring constituency of Twickenham in London. 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. Spelthorne has Labour's highest vote share of the eleven seats (30.5%) in the modern reduced definition of Surrey, where Stanwell is as at 2023 the only County Council division (seat) held by a Labour councillor. Stanwell in common with Sunbury Common has significant social housing.

Spelthorne exceeds the average quota of commercial property of Surrey's seats — it contains about 20% of the county's commercial/industrial property, including large plants or wholesale units of Complete Cover Group, Kingston Technology, Edmundson Electrical, Esso Petroleum, Johnson & Johnson Vision Products, Thames Water, Shepperton Film Studios, wholesalers and storage companies. Major offices/creative facilities of BP (its global HQ), Del Monte, NatWest, Samsung, Richmond Film Services and film/television ancillary businesses are in the constituency.

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 1918 to 1945 broadest, initial version of the parliamentary division saw no marginal majorities and can be squarely analysed as 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 favourable 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 former Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng.

Election Member Party
1918 Sir Philip Pilditch Coalition Conservative
1922 Conservative
1931 Reginald Blaker Conservative
1945 Major loss of territory to east
1945 George Pargiter Labour
1950 Minor loss of territory in north-west
1950 Beresford Craddock Conservative
1970 Humphrey Atkins Conservative
1987 David Wilshire Conservative
2010 Kwasi Kwarteng Conservative

Elections

Elections in the 2010s

General election 2019: Spelthorne
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative Kwasi Kwarteng 29,141 58.9 +1.6
Labour Pavitar Mann 10,748 21.7 -8.8
Liberal Democrats David Campanale 7,499 15.1 +9.6
Green Paul Jacobs 2,122 4.3 +2.1
Majority 18,393 37.2 +10.4
Turnout 49,510 69.8 +0.8
Conservative hold Swing +5.2
General election 2017: Spelthorne
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative Kwasi Kwarteng 28,692 57.3 +7.6
Labour Rebecca Geach 15,267 30.5 +11.9
Liberal Democrats Rosie Shimell 2,755 5.5 -0.9
UKIP Redvers Cunningham 2,296 4.6 -16.3
Green Paul Jacobs 1,105 2.2 -1.3
Majority 13,425 26.8 -2.0
Turnout 50,115 69.0 +0.1
Conservative hold Swing -2.1
General election 2015: Spelthorne
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative Kwasi Kwarteng 24,386 49.7 +2.6
UKIP Redvers Cunningham 10,234 20.9 +12.4
Labour Rebecca Geach 9,114 18.6 +2.1
Liberal Democrats Rosie Shimell 3,163 6.4 -19.5
Green Paul Jacobs 1,724 3.5 New
Independent Juliet Griffith 230 0.5 New
TUSC Paul Couchman 228 0.5 +0.1
Majority 14,152 28.8 +7.6
Turnout 49,079 68.9 +1.8
Conservative hold Swing N/A
General election 2010: Spelthorne
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative Kwasi Kwarteng 22,261 47.1 -3.4
Liberal Democrats Mark Chapman 12,242 25.9 +8.8
Labour Adam Tyler-Moore 7,789 16.5 -10.8
UKIP Christopher Browne 4,009 8.5 +3.9
Independent Ian Swinglehurst 314 0.7 New
Best of a Bad Bunch Rod Littlewood 244 0.5 New
TUSC Paul Couchman 176 0.4 New
Campaign for Independent Politicians John Gore 167 0.4 New
Independents Federation UK - Honesty, Integrity, Democracy Grahame Leon-Smith 102 0.2 New
Majority 10,019 21.2 -2.0
Turnout 47,304 67.1 +4.4
Conservative hold Swing N/A
  1. ^ a b Two-party swing by custom is not calculated where the two poll-leading parties change

Elections in the 2000s

General election 2005: Spelthorne
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative David Wilshire 21,620 50.5 +5.4
Labour Keith Dibble 11,684 27.3 −10.0
Liberal Democrats Simon James 7,318 17.1 +2.4
UKIP Christopher Browne 1,968 4.6 +1.7
UK Community Issues Party Caroline Schwark 239 0.6 New
Majority 9,936 23.2 +15.4
Turnout 42,829 62.8 +2.0
Conservative hold Swing +7.7
General election 2001: Spelthorne
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative David Wilshire 18,851 45.1 +0.2
Labour Andrew Shaw 15,589 37.3 −0.9
Liberal Democrats Martin Rimmer 6,156 14.7 +1.6
UKIP Richard Squire 1,198 2.9 +2.0
Majority 3,262 7.8 +1.1
Turnout 41,794 60.8 −12.8
Conservative hold Swing +0.6

Elections in the 1990s

General election 1997: Spelthorne
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative David Wilshire 23,306 44.9 −13.7
Labour Keith Dibble 19,833 38.2 +15.3
Liberal Democrats Edward Glynn 6,821 13.1 −3.4
Referendum Barney Coleman 1,495 2.9 New
UKIP John Fowler 462 0.9 New
Majority 3,473 6.7 −28.9
Turnout 51,917 73.6 −6.8
Conservative hold Swing −14.5
General election 1992: Spelthorne
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative David Wilshire 32,627 58.6 −1.4
Labour Ann Leedham 12,784 22.9 +5.8
Liberal Democrats Roger Roberts 9,702 16.5 −6.4
Green J Wassell 580 1.0 New
Monster Raving Loony D Rea 338 0.6 New
Natural Law D Ellis 195 0.4 New
Majority 19,843 35.6 −1.5
Turnout 55,726 80.4 +6.3
Conservative hold Swing

Elections in the 1980s

General election 1987: Spelthorne
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative David Wilshire 32,440 60.0 +7.6
SDP Mavis Cunningham 12,390 22.9 −3.1
Labour Damian Welfare 9,227 17.1 +1.6
Majority 20,050 37.1 +10.7
Turnout 54,057 74.1 +3.1
Conservative hold Swing +5.3
General election 1983: Spelthorne
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative Humphrey Atkins 26,863 52.4 −5.0
SDP A.W. Layton 13,357 26.0 +12.1
Labour M.C. Rowlands 7,926 15.5 −12.3
Ind. Conservative Richard Adams 2,816 5.5 New
FTACMP E.J. Butterfield 325 0.6 New
Majority 13,506 26.4 −3.2
Turnout 51,287 71.0 -5.9
Conservative hold Swing N/A

Elections in the 1970s

General election 1979: Spelthorne
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative Humphrey Atkins 31,290 57.40 +12.67
Labour C.H. Dodwell 15,137 27.77 -5.46
Liberal Paul Winner 7,565 13.88 -5.87
National Front J. Sawyer 518 0.95 -1.25
Majority 16,153 29.63 +18.12
Turnout 54,510 76.89 +2.40
Conservative hold Swing +10.02
General election October 1974: Spelthorne
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative Humphrey Atkins 23,125 44.73 +0.90
Labour C.H. Dodwell 17,177 33.23 +3.66
Liberal Paul Winner 10,212 19.75 -4.37
National Front J.M. Clifton 1,180 2.28 -0.20
Majority 5,948 11.50 -2.74
Turnout 51,694 74.49 -7.64
Conservative hold Swing -2.33
General election February 1974: Spelthorne
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative Humphrey Atkins 24,772 43.83 -10.38
Labour J.H.W. Grant 16,713 29.57 -6.69
Liberal Paul Winner 13,632 24.12 +14.59
National Front E.J. Butterfield 1,399 2.48 New
Majority 8,059 14.26 -3.69
Turnout 56,516 82.13 +8.79
Conservative hold Swing -0.21
General election 1970: Spelthorne
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative Humphrey Atkins 27,266 54.21 +8.42
Labour Patrick L. Cheney 18,239 36.26 -4.46
Liberal Ronald Henry Longland 4,792 9.53 -3.97
Majority 9,027 17.95 +12.88
Turnout 50,297 73.34 -7.55
Conservative hold Swing +6.99

Elections in the 1960s

General election 1966:Spelthorne
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative Beresford Craddock 22,473 45.79 -1.23
Labour Ronald G Wallace 19,986 40.72 +5.19
Liberal Nesta Wyn Ellis 6,624 13.50 -3.95
Majority 2,487 5.07 -6.42
Turnout 49,083 80.89 +0.76
Conservative hold Swing -4.03
General election 1964: Spelthorne
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative Beresford Craddock 22,230 47.02 -12.54
Labour Richard S Stokes 16,797 35.53 -4.91
Liberal Maurice J Hayes 8,252 17.45 New
Majority 5,433 11.49 -7.62
Turnout 47,279 80.13 -1.13
Conservative hold Swing -2.60

Elections in the 1950s

General election 1959: Spelthorne
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative Beresford Craddock 25,221 59.56 +1.20
Labour James Pirrie Carruthers 17,128 40.44 -1.20
Majority 8,093 19.12 +2.40
Turnout 42,349 81.26 +3.53
Conservative hold Swing +1.20
General election 1955: Spelthorne
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative Beresford Craddock 20,888 58.36 +7.44
Labour James Pirrie Carruthers 14,906 41.64 -7.44
Majority 5,982 16.72 +15.88
Turnout 35,794 77.73 -6.21
Conservative hold Swing +7.44
General election 1951: Spelthorne
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative Beresford Craddock 31,031 50.92 +5.29
Labour Albert Hunter 29,908 49.08 +3.51
Majority 1,123 1.84 +1.79
Turnout 60,939 83.94 +2.17
Conservative hold Swing +0.89

Boundary changes

General election 1950: Spelthorne
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative Beresford Craddock 26,177 45.63 +9.11
Labour Frederick Wilson Temple 26,146 45.57 -6.39
Liberal Francis Joseph Halpin 5,048 8.80 -2.72
Majority 31 0.06 N/A
Turnout 57,371 81.77 +11.48
Conservative gain from Labour Swing +8.75

Elections in the 1940s

General election 1945: Spelthorne
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Labour George Pargiter 28,064 51.96 +20.32
Conservative Ian Harvey 19,725 36.52 -31.84
Liberal Henry Kerby 6,222 11.52 New
Majority 8,339 15.44 N/A
Turnout 54,011 70.29 +12.33
Labour gain from Conservative Swing -27.08

Elections in the 1930s

General election 1935: Spelthorne
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative Reginald Blaker 30,153 68.36 -10.37
Labour Bernard Lytton-Bernard 13,957 31.64 +10.37
Majority 16,196 36.72 -20.75
Turnout 44,110 57.96 -10.38
Conservative hold Swing -10.38
General election 1931: Spelthorne
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative Reginald Blaker 34,115 78.73 +29.37
Labour Frederick Wilson Temple 9,214 21.27 -9.48
Majority 24,901 57.46 +38.85
Turnout 43,329 68.34 -0.68
Conservative hold Swing +17.12

Elections in the 1920s

General election 1929: Spelthorne
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Unionist Philip Pilditch 19,177 49.36 -20.01
Labour Frederick Wilson Temple 11,946 30.75 +0.12
Liberal William A.J. Hillier 7,727 19.89 New
Majority 7,231 18.61 -20.14
Turnout 38,850 69.02 +4.45
Unionist hold Swing -7.76
General election 1924: Spelthorne
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Unionist Philip Pilditch 17,650 69.37 +2.96
Labour Frederick Wilson Temple 7,792 30.63 -2.96
Majority 9,858 38.74 +5.91
Turnout 25,442 64.57 +18.62
Conservative hold Swing +2.96
General election 1923: Spelthorne
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Unionist Philip Pilditch 11,604 66.41 +1.73
Labour G.S. Cockrill 5,868 33.59 -1.73
Majority 5,736 32.82 +3.45
Turnout 17,472 45.95 -7.95
Unionist hold Swing +1.73
General election 1922: Spelthorne
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Unionist Philip Pilditch 12,849 64.68 -13.04
Labour Archibald Church 7,015 35.32 +20.19
Majority 5,834 29.36 -33.21
Turnout 19,864 53.90 +8.25
Unionist hold Swing -19.02

Elections in the 1910s

General election 1918: Spelthorne
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
C Unionist Philip Pilditch 12,423 77.72
Labour Frank Ernest Horton 2,418 15.13
NFDDSS Alexander William Leonard 1,143 7.15
Majority 10,005 62.59
Turnout 15,984 45.65
Unionist win (new seat)
C indicates candidate endorsed by the coalition government.

See also

51°25′N 0°28′W / 51.42°N 0.46°W / 51.42; -0.46


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