Slough is a
constituency
An electoral district, also known as an election district, legislative district, voting district, constituency, riding, ward, division, or (election) precinct is a subdivision of a larger state (a country, administrative region, or other poli ...
represented in the
House of Commons
The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...
of the
UK Parliament
The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative suprem ...
by
Tan Dhesi, a member of the
Labour Party, since the
2017 UK general election
The 2017 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 8 June 2017, two years after the previous general election in 2015; it was the first since 1992 to be held on a day that did not coincide with any local elections. The governing C ...
.
Slough had previously been represented since 1997 by
Fiona Mactaggart
Fiona Margaret Mactaggart (born 12 September 1953) is a British politician and former primary school teacher who has been chair of the Fawcett Society since 2018. A member of the Labour Party, she was Member of Parliament (MP) for Slough from 1 ...
, also of the Labour Party, until she stepped down from politics.
Constituency profile
The Conservatives gained the new Slough seat in
1983
The year 1983 saw both the official beginning of the Internet and the first mobile cellular telephone call.
Events January
* January 1 – The migration of the ARPANET to TCP/IP is officially completed (this is considered to be the beginning ...
, and held it until
1997
File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; '' Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of ...
, when Labour gained the 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%. 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
The Great Western Main Line (GWML) is a main line railway in England that runs westwards from London Paddington to . It connects to other main lines such as those from Reading to Penzance and Swindon to Swansea. Opened in 1841, it was the o ...
, to be bolstered by direct city centre services with
Crossrail
Crossrail is a railway construction project mainly in central London. Its aim is to provide a high-frequency hybrid commuter rail and rapid transit system crossing the capital from suburbs on the west to east, by connecting two major railway l ...
. The area is also the part of the
M4 corridor
The M4 corridor is an area in the United Kingdom adjacent to the M4 motorway, which runs from London to South Wales. It is a major high-technology hub. Important cities and towns linked by the M4 include (from east to west) London, Slough, Brackne ...
that is the closest to the capital and London
Heathrow Airport
Heathrow Airport (), called ''London Airport'' until 1966 and now known as London Heathrow , is a major international airport in London, England. It is the largest of the six international airports in the London airport system (the others be ...
. The seat has a large Asian population with
Hindu
Hindus (; ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism. Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pages 35–37 Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for ...
,
Muslim
Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...
and
Sikh
Sikhs ( or ; pa, ਸਿੱਖ, ' ) are people who adhere to Sikhism, Sikhism (Sikhi), a Monotheism, monotheistic religion that originated in the late 15th century in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent, based on the revelation of Gu ...
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%, with its newly elected member,
Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi
Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Punjabi: ਤਨਮਨਜੀਤ ਸਿੰਘ ਧੇਸੀ, born 17 August 1978) is a British Labour Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Slough since 2017. He was appointed Shadow Minister for ...
, becoming Britain's first
turban
A turban (from Persian دولبند, ''dulband''; via Middle French ''turbant'') is a type of headwear based on cloth winding. Featuring many variations, it is worn as customary headwear by people of various cultures. Communities with promin ...
ed
Sikh
Sikhs ( or ; pa, ਸਿੱਖ, ' ) are people who adhere to Sikhism, Sikhism (Sikhi), a Monotheism, monotheistic religion that originated in the late 15th century in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent, based on the revelation of Gu ...
MP in the
2017 general election.
History
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
Prison reform is the attempt to improve conditions inside prisons, improve the effectiveness of a penal system, or implement alternatives to incarceration. It also focuses on ensuring the reinstatement of those whose lives are impacted by crimes ...
, anti-colonialism and anti-discrimination, was editor of the ''Labour Leader'', attended talks by the
Fabian Society
The Fabian Society is a British socialist organisation whose purpose is to advance the principles of social democracy and democratic socialism via gradualist and reformist effort in democracies, rather than by revolutionary overthrow. T ...
and had joined the fledgling
Independent Labour Party
The Independent Labour Party (ILP) was a British political party of the left, established in 1893 at a conference in Bradford, after local and national dissatisfaction with the Liberals' apparent reluctance to endorse working-class candidates ...
in 1907.
The Slough constituency was created for the 1983 general election from the bulk of the abolished Borough Constituency of Eton and Slough, which contributed 88.2% of the constituency. The remaining northern slice came from the safe Conservative constituency of
Beaconsfield
Beaconsfield ( ) is a market town and civil parish within the unitary authority of Buckinghamshire, England, west-northwest of central London and south-southeast of Aylesbury. Three other towns are within : Gerrards Cross, Amersham and High W ...
.
It currently covers the Borough of Slough, with the exception of the Colnbrook with Poyle ward, which was added to the
Windsor
Windsor may refer to:
Places Australia
* Windsor, New South Wales
** Municipality of Windsor, a former local government area
* Windsor, Queensland, a suburb of Brisbane, Queensland
**Shire of Windsor, a former local government authority around Wi ...
constituency after it was created within the Borough of Slough as a result of minor boundary changes involving the counties of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Surrey in 1998.
As of the 2017 general election, the seat is one of two Labour seats from a total of eight
seats in Berkshire.
Boundaries and boundary changes
1983–1997: The Borough of Slough.
1997–2010: The Borough of Slough wards of Baylis, Britwell, Central, Chalvey, Cippenham, Farnham, Haymill, Kederminster, Langley St Mary's, Stoke, Upton, and Wexham Lea.
2010–present: The Borough of Slough wards of Baylis and Stoke, Britwell, Central, Chalvey, Cippenham Green, Cippenham Meadows, Farnham, Foxborough, Haymill, Kedermister, Langley St Mary's, Upton, and Wexham Lea.
The Foxborough ward was transferred to
Windsor
Windsor may refer to:
Places Australia
* Windsor, New South Wales
** Municipality of Windsor, a former local government area
* Windsor, Queensland, a suburb of Brisbane, Queensland
**Shire of Windsor, a former local government authority around Wi ...
for the
1997 general election, but returned in 2010.
Members of Parliament
Elections
Elections in the 2010s
Elections in the 2000s
Elections in the 1990s
Elections in the 1980s
See also
*
List of parliamentary constituencies in Berkshire
*
Slough Borough Council
Slough Borough Council is the local authority for the Borough of Slough, in Berkshire, England. Slough is a unitary authority, having the powers of a county and district council combined. Berkshire is purely a ceremonial county, with no administ ...
''includes historical information about wards and local elections''
Notes
References
Sources
* ''British Parliamentary Constituencies, A Statistical Compendium'', by Ivor Crewe and Anthony Fox (Faber and Faber 1984).
Official list of candidates nominated 2010''Slough Borough Council website accessed 21 April 2010''
External links
''The Boundary Committee for England page about Slough Unitary Authority, with links to pre and post 2004 ward maps''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Slough (Uk Parliament Constituency)
Parliamentary constituencies in Berkshire
Government and politics of Slough
Constituencies of the Parliament of the United Kingdom established in 1983