South West Bedfordshire 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 main settlements in the seat include Leighton Buzzard

Leighton Buzzard

-Lower schools:*Beaudesert Lower School - Apennine Way*Clipstone Brook Lower School - Brooklands Drive*Greenleas Lower School - Derwent Road*Dovery Down Lower School - Heath Road*Heathwood Lower School - Heath Road*Leedon Lower School - Highfield Road...

 and Dunstable

Dunstable

Dunstable is a market town and civil parish located in Bedfordshire, England. It lies on the eastward tail spurs of the Chiltern Hills, 30 miles north of London. These geographical features form several steep chalk escarpments most noticeable when approaching Dunstable from the north.-Etymology:In...

.

Following the latest review of parliamentary representation in Bedfordshire

Bedfordshire

Bedfordshire is a ceremonial county of historic origin in England that forms part of the East of England region.It borders Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Northamptonshire to the north, Buckinghamshire to the west and Hertfordshire to the south-east....

, the Boundary Commission for England made only minor changes to the existing constituencies.

South West Bedfordshire is formed from the following electoral wards from the district of Central Bedfordshire

Central Bedfordshire

Central Bedfordshire is a unitary authority in the ceremonial county of Bedfordshire, England. It was created from the merger of Bedfordshire County Council, Mid Bedfordshire and South Bedfordshire on 1 April 2009...

;

• All Saints, Chiltern, Dunstable Central, Eaton Bray, Grovebury, Heath and Reach, Houghton Hall, Icknield, Kensworth
  Kensworth
  Kensworth is a village and civil parish located in the Central Bedfordshire district of Bedfordshire, England. The parish is located on the edge of Dunstable Downs, and includes the hamlets of California and Kensworth Lynch....
  
   and Totternhoe, Linslade
  Linslade
  Linslade is an English town, located on the Bedfordshire side of the Bedfordshire-Buckinghamshire border . It abuts onto the town of Leighton Buzzard with which it forms the civil parish of Leighton-Linslade. Linslade was transferred from Buckinghamshire in 1965, and was previously a separate...
  
  , Manshead, Northfields, Parkside, Planets, Plantation, Southcott, Stanbridge, Tithe Farm and Watling

History

The constituency was created in 1983, mostly from the former seat of South Bedfordshire

South Bedfordshire (UK Parliament constituency)

South Bedfordshire was a county constituency in Bedfordshire. It returned one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, elected by the first past the post system....

. It was represented by Sir David Madel of the Conservative Party from its creation until his retirement in 2001; he almost suffered one of the biggest upsets of the 1997 general election, when the Labour Party spectacularly cut his majority from 21,273 to just 132.

The present Conservative MP for the seat is Andrew Selous

Andrew Selous

Andrew Edmund Armstrong Selous is a Conservative Party politician in the United Kingdom who has been the Member of Parliament for South West Bedfordshire since 2001.-Early life:...

; he won the seat in 2001, when he managed to increase the party's majority, but only just. It increased somewhat more healthily in 2005 and 2010.

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...	Sir David Madel David Madel Sir David Madel is a politician in the United Kingdom. He was a Conservative Party Member of Parliament for South Bedfordshire and later South West Bedfordshire from 1970 until he stood down at the 2001 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...
	2001 United Kingdom general election, 2001 The United Kingdom general election, 2001 was held on Thursday 7 June 2001 to elect 659 members to the British House of Commons. It was dubbed "the quiet landslide" by the media, as the Labour Party was re-elected with another landslide result and only suffered a net loss of 6 seats...	Andrew Selous Andrew Selous Andrew Edmund Armstrong Selous is a Conservative Party politician in the United Kingdom who has been the Member of Parliament for South West Bedfordshire since 2001.-Early life:...	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

Elections in the 1980s