| Slough | |
| Parliament: | uk |
| Year: | 1983 |
| Type: | Borough |
| Electorate: | 75,287 (2023)[1] |
| Region: | England |
| Elects Howmany: | One |
Slough is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament by Tan Dhesi, a member of the Labour Party, since the 2017 UK general election.
The seat is one of five Labour seats from a total of nine seats in Berkshire.
The seat currently covers the Borough of Slough, with the exception of the Colnbrook with Poyle ward, which is included in the Windsor constituency.
Workless claimants stood at 3.9% in November 2012, just 0.1% above the national average, and while lower than all of eastern Kent and the Isle of Wight, statistically significantly greater than the regional average of 2.5%.[2] The borough has one of the largest mixed commercial (company headquarters and manufacturing) estates in Europe and fast rail links to London on the Great Western Main Line, to be bolstered by direct city centre services with Crossrail. The area is also the part of the M4 corridor that is the closest to the capital and London Heathrow Airport.
The seat has a large Asian population with Hindu, Muslim and Sikh communities, and less than half of the seat's population is White. It has one of the highest proportions of Sikh residents of any seat outside of London and the metropolitan West Midlands at 10%,[3] with its current MP, Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi, becoming Britain's first turbaned Sikh MP in the 2017 general election.[4]
From 1945 to 1983 most of the area presently covered by this seat was in the Eton and Slough constituency, which was a marginal seat usually held by the Labour Party. The Labour MP from 1950 to 1964 was the veteran politician Fenner Brockway, a radical progressive social democrat, who led in writing on pacifism, prison reform, anti-colonialism and anti-discrimination, was editor of the Labour Leader, attended talks by the Fabian Society and had joined the fledgling Independent Labour Party in 1907. It was also held by Labour government minister Joan Lester from 1966 until its abolition in 1983.
The Slough constituency was created from the bulk of the Eton and Slough seat for the 1983 election, when it was won by the Conservatives. Fiona Mactaggart captured it for Labour at the landslide election of 1997 and have retained since then, with Tan Dhesi succeeding Mactaggart in 2017. It is now considered to be a safe Labour seat.
The Borough of Slough.[5]
Created from the bulk of the abolished constituency of Eton and Slough, which contributed 88.2% of the constituency. The remaining northern slice came from the safe Conservative constituency of Beaconsfield.
The Borough of Slough wards of Baylis, Britwell, Central, Chalvey, Cippenham, Farnham, Haymill, Kedermister, Langley St Mary's, Stoke, Upton, and Wexham Lea.[6]
The Foxborough ward was transferred to Windsor.
The Borough of Slough wards of Baylis and Stoke, Britwell, Central, Chalvey, Cippenham Green, Cippenham Meadows, Farnham, Foxborough, Haymill, Langley Kedermister, Langley St Mary's, Upton, and Wexham Lea.[7]
The Foxborough ward was transferred back in, but the Colnbrook with Poyle ward, which had been created in 1998 within the Borough of Slough as a result of minor boundary changes involving the counties of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Surrey, was retained in Windsor.
Under the 2023 Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies which came into effect for 2024 general election, the composition of the constituency was reduced to bring its electorate within the permitted range by transferring back the Foxborough ward to Windsor, along with the Langley Kedermister ward (as they existed at 1 December 2020).[8]
Following a local government boundary review which came into effect in May 2023,[9] [10] the constituency now comprises the following wards of the Borough of Slough from the 2024 general election:
Eton & Slough prior to 1983
| Election | Member | Party | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1983 | Conservative | |||
| 1997 | Labour | |||
| 2017 | Labour | |||
| 2019 notional result[12] | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Vote | % | |
| 26,790 | 58.8 | ||
| 13,443 | 29.5 | ||
| 3,099 | 6.8 | ||
| 1,280 | 2.8 | ||
| 948 | 2.1 | ||
| Turnout | 45,560 | 60.5 | |
| Electorate | 75,287 | ||