It had been held from 2011 by Jonathan Ashworth of the Labour Co-op Party (which denotes he is a member of the Labour Party and Co-operative Party, one of 38 such current Labour MPs, and requires members to contribute practically to a cooperative business). A previous version of the seat existed between 1918 and 1950. Except for a 2004 by-election when it was won by the Liberal Democrats, Leicester South was held by the Labour Party from 1987 to 2024, when it was taken with a narrow majority by Shockat Adam standing as an independent.
Constituency profile
Leicester South has a population of 120,090 in an area of 19.2 km, making it the 51st smallest parliamentary constituency by area. Mainly built-up (92%), its land also has 6% green areas or leisure facilities and just 1% agricultural.
By broad ethnic group, most people are Asian (43.5%) or White (39.0%), with 9.2% Black, African or Caribbean.
The rate of child poverty in Leicester South is high. At 43.4% in 2022–3, it is more than twice the overall UK rate of 20.1%. The claimant rate for unemployment benefit is 15.9%, higher than the UK average of 11.3%.
In 2020, the most affluent part of the constituency, Knighton, reports estimated average household incomes after housing costs of £35,900, with Clarendon Park & Stoneygate South averaging £29,600. By contrast, households in neighbouring Saffron Lane average just £18,600.
History
The seat was held by Derek Spencer for the Conservative Party between the general elections of 1983 and 1987. Its electorate demonstrated increased Labour support thereafter in local and national elections. A 2004 by-election caused by the death of Labour MP Jim Marshall was fought under the shadow of the Iraq War, and was won by Parmjit Singh Gill who became at the time the only Liberal Democrat MP from an ethnic minority. He held the seat for a year before being defeated by Labour candidate Sir Peter Soulsby at the 2005 general election. Soulsby subsequently resigned in order to seek election as Mayor of Leicester in 2011, giving Leicester South its second by-election in the space of seven years; this time the seat was safely held by Labour.
The expansion of the city's suburbs and commuter belt has altered the incomes and other demographic measures of the constituency. The seat saw close contests between Conservative and Labour candidates in the 1980s, with Jim Marshall losing the seat by 7 votes to the Conservatives in the 1983 general election, but regaining it in 1987.
Marshall died in 2004, and the resulting by-election was fiercely contested. As in a by-election in Birmingham Hodge Hill held on the same day, the Liberal Democrat candidates hoped—despite having additional competition for the anti-Iraq War vote from Respect—to build on their previous by-election gain at Brent East. The seat was won by the Liberal Democrat Parmjit Singh Gill, with a majority of 1,654.
Sir Peter Soulsby won the seat at the 2005 election, and was re-elected in 2010. Sir Peter resigned to seek election for the new position of Mayor of Leicester in 2011, triggering a by-election on 5 May 2011, that coincided with the referendum on the voting system. Jonathan Ashworth was elected as his successor, holding the seat for the Labour Party; he was re-elected in 2015 and 2017.
Despite being the only seat in Leicester served by three major parties in the past 35 years, Leicester South became regarded as the safest of the Labour seats in the city, with a majority in 2017 of 26,261 votes (52.0%), falling to 22,675 (45.2%) in 2019.
However, the historic volatility continued, with Ashworth suffering a surprise defeat in the July 2024 General Election. The seat was won by Shockat Adam standing as an independent, with a narrow majority of 979 votes (2.3%).
Boundaries
1918–1950: The county borough of Leicester wards of Aylestone, Castle, Charnwood, De Montfort, Knighton, Martin's, and Wycliffe.
The initial report of the Boundary Commission for England dated October 1947 and published in December 1947 recommended that Leicester retain three seats, including a revised Leicester South constituency consisting of the wards of Aylestone, De Montfort, Knighton, North Braunstone and Spinney Hill, giving an electorate of 67,574 as of the review date of 15 October 1946. When the Representation of the People Bill enacting the commission's recommendations was debated in the House of Commons, the Government brought forward amendments at Committee stage on 24 March 1948 to allow 17 more constituencies in England. Home Secretary James Chuter Ede announced that the Boundary Commission would be invited to consider an additional constituency to each of nine cities, including Leicester. The Government issued a white paper proposing the new boundaries which created new borough constituencies of Leicester South East and Leicester South West in place of Leicester South. The Boundary Commission recommended no alteration to the proposals, and the revised constituencies were therefore enacted.
In 1969, the Second Periodical Report of the Parliamentary Boundary Commission for England reduced Leicester from four seats to three, and recreated Leicester South as a borough constituency.
1974–1983: The county borough of Leicester wards of Aylestone, De Montfort, Knighton, Spinney Hill, The Castle, and Wycliffe wards of Leicester.
1983–2010: The City of Leicester wards of Aylestone, Castle, Crown Hills, East Knighton, Eyres Monsell, Saffron, Spinney Hill, Stoneygate, West Knighton and Wycliffe.
Minor boundary changes were made as a result of the Third Periodical Report of the Boundary Commission in 1983. The new constituency took in about 3,000 voters who were previously in other Leicester seats. No changes were made in the Fourth Periodical Report of the Boundary Commission in 1995.
2010–2024: The City of Leicester wards of Aylestone, Castle, Eyres Monsell, Freemen, Knighton, Spinney Hills, and Stoneygate.
In the Fifth Periodical Report of the Boundary Commission in 2007, the constituency had only minor changes with 73 voters being added from Leicester West.
Further to a local government boundary review which became effective in May 2015, the Freemen ward was replaced by the Saffron ward and the additional Wycliffe ward was created, largely split off from the Spinney Hills ward.
2010–2024: The City of Leicester wards of Castle, Evington (part), Eyres Monsell, Knighton, Saffron, Spinney Hills, Stoneygate, and Wycliffe.
Size of the constituency was reduced with the transfer of Aylestone ward to Leicester West. To partly compensate, polling district EVF in Evington ward was added from Leicester East.
The Conservatives' 7 vote majority made Leicester South their most marginal constituency after the 1983 election and was the closest result in any constituency in the United Kingdom in the election.
^A borough constituency (for the purposes of election expenses and type of returning officer)
^As with all constituencies, the constituency elects one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post system of election at least every five years.
^"Media Guide to the New Parliamentary Constituencies (Fifth Periodical Review)", BBC/ITN/PA News/Sky (Local Government Chronicle Elections Centre), 2007, p. 108.
