Knowsley (constituency)

Knowsley is a constituency located in Merseyside and covers most of the Metropolitan Borough of Knowsley. The constituency forms part of Liverpool's wider urban area but lies outside the city's official boundaries. It includes the towns of Kirkby, Huyton and Prescot and the villages of Knowsley and Stockbridge Village. Kirkby was developed after World War II to house Liverpool residents displaced by the Liverpool Blitz and slum clearances, and to house workers at ROF Kirkby, a large munitions factory. The constituency mainly consists of low-income social housing. It is one of the country's most deprived constituencies, with almost all of it falling within the top 10% most-deprived areas in England.^[2] The average house price is lower than the rest of North West England and is around half the national average.^[3]

Knowsley has the highest proportion of residents identifying as Christian of any local authority in England and Wales.^[4] Like much of the Merseyside area, there is a large Catholic population. In general, residents have low levels of education, income and professional employment.^[3] A high proportion work in retail, manufacturing and transport.^[5] White people made up 96% of the population at the 2021 census.^[3] At the local borough council, most of the constituency is represented by Labour Party councillors with some independents elected in Kirkby and Liberal Democrats elected in Knowsley village. An estimated 52% of voters in the constituency supported leaving the European Union in the 2016 referendum, identical to the nationwide figure.^[3]

Created for the 2010 general election (during the Boundary Commission for England's Fifth periodic review of Westminster constituencies^[6]), it was believed to present the safest seat in the country, with an estimated Labour majority of 24,333 votes.^[7] The area returned the second highest share of the vote seen by a candidate for the Labour Party, of 70.9%, behind the 72.0% achieved in Liverpool Walton. The same ranking of results nationally by percentage majority occurred in 2015,^[8] when it became the safest seat in the country in absolute terms, beating East Ham by 403 votes.^[9]

It ranked foremost by party majority in 2017, where it was followed directly by East Ham and 28 other seats won by Labour candidates, after which followed North East Hampshire.^[9] It achieved the highest majority for any British Member of Parliament since the advent of universal suffrage, with Labour winning with a majority of 42,214 votes, surpassing the 36,230-vote majority held by then-Conservative Prime Minister John Major in his Huntingdon constituency in 1992.

On its creation, the seat was won by George Howarth, who had served as MP for the predecessor seats of Knowsley North (1986–1997) and Knowsley North and Sefton East (1997–2010). On his retirement for the 2024 general election, he was succeeded by Anneliese Midgley on a reduced majority over Reform UK of 50.9%.

• List of parliamentary constituencies in Merseyside