Stevenage is a county constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom

Parliament of the United Kingdom

The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas territories, located in London...

. It elects one Member of Parliament

Member of Parliament

A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 (MP) by the first past the post system of election.

Boundaries

The constituency covers the Borough of Stevenage, as well as the villages of Codicote

Codicote

Codicote is a large village, and civil parish about seven miles south of Hitchin in Hertfordshire, England. It has timber-framed and chequered brick houses, of special interest being the 18th-century Pond House and the half-timbered "As You Like It" Peking restaurant . Codicote Lodge is 18th...

 and Knebworth

Knebworth

Knebworth is a village and civil parish in the north of Hertfordshire, England immediately south of Stevenage. The civil parish covers an area between the villages of Datchworth, Woolmer Green, Codicote, Kimpton, Whitwell, St Paul's Walden and Langley, and encompasses the village of Knebworth, the...

 to the south and Aston

Aston, Hertfordshire

Aston is a village and civil parish in the East Hertfordshire district of Hertfordshire, England. According to the 2001 census it had a population of 844....

 and Datchworth

Datchworth

Datchworth is a village and civil parish between the towns of Hertford, Stevenage and Welwyn Garden City in the county of Hertfordshire, England. Sited on the Roman road from St Albans to Puckeridge, the village has examples of Saxon clearings in several locations...

 to the east.

Before the 2010 election, the constituency included Benington

Benington, Hertfordshire

Benington is a village and civil parish in the East Hertfordshire district of Hertfordshire, England, about four miles east of Stevenage and 35 miles north of London...

 and Walkern

Walkern

Walkern is a village and civil parish in East Hertfordshire. It is located on the River Beane about two miles from Stevenage, and is noted as the home of Jane Wenham, who was in 1712 the last woman in England to be convicted of witchcraft...

. These villages are now in North East Hertfordshire.

History

The constituency was created in 1983 from parts of the seats of Hertford and Stevenage

Hertford and Stevenage (UK Parliament constituency)

Hertford and Stevenage was a parliamentary constituency in Hertfordshire, which returned one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from February 1974 until it was abolished for the 1983 general election....

, Hitchin

Hitchin (UK Parliament constituency)

Hitchin was a parliamentary constituency in Hertfordshire which returned one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1885 until it was abolished for the 1983 general election....

, and East Hertfordshire

East Hertfordshire (UK Parliament constituency)

East Hertfordshire was a parliamentary constituency in the county of Hertfordshire. It returned one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.-History:...

. A Southern England new town

New town

A new town is a specific type of a planned community, or planned city, that was carefully planned from its inception and is typically constructed in a previously undeveloped area. This contrasts with settlements that evolve in a more ad hoc fashion. Land use conflicts are uncommon in new...

 seat with volatile voting patterns, it was Conservative held between 1983 and 1997 until Labour easily gained it, but their winning margin in 2005 was small and the Conservatives gained the seat at the 2010 election.

Members of Parliament

Election		Member	Party
	1983 United Kingdom general election, 1983 The 1983 United Kingdom general election was held on 9 June 1983. It gave the Conservative Party under Margaret Thatcher the most decisive election victory since that of Labour in 1945...	Timothy Wood Timothy Wood Timothy John Rogerson Wood, known as Tim Wood, is a British politician. He was the Conservative Party Member of Parliament for Stevenage, which he won at the 1983 general election....	Conservative Conservative Party (UK) The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
	1997 United Kingdom general election, 1997 The United Kingdom general election, 1997 was held on 1 May 1997, more than five years after the previous election on 9 April 1992, to elect 659 members to the British House of Commons. The Labour Party ended its 18 years in opposition under the leadership of Tony Blair, and won the general...	Barbara Follett	Labour Labour Party (UK) The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
	2010	Stephen McPartland Stephen McPartland Stephen Anthony McPartland is a British Conservative Party politician. He was elected as the Member of Parliament for Stevenage at the 2010 general election.-Education and early career:...	Conservative Conservative Party (UK) The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...

Elections in the 2010s

Elections in the 2000s

Elections in the 1990s