East Oxford

Oxford East
Borough constituency for the House of Commons
Boundary of Oxford East in Oxfordshire.
Location of Oxfordshire within England.
County	Oxfordshire
Electorate	81,644 (December 2010)
Major settlements	Oxford and Cowley
Current constituency
Created	1983
Member of parliament	Andrew Smith (Labour)
Number of members	One
Created from	Oxford (majority) (abolished), Mid Oxfordshire and Henley
Overlaps
European Parliament constituency	South East England

Oxford East is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament by Andrew Smith of the Labour Party, who will not seek reelection in 2017.

The constituency covers the eastern and southern parts of Oxford in Oxfordshire. It borders Oxford West and Abingdon to the West and Henley to the North, East and South.

The constituency includes Oxford city centre and the majority of the Oxford colleges, Cowley (famous for its car factory) and the Blackbird Leys council estate, but it contains a large percentage of students from Oxford and Oxford Brookes universities (the latter being based in the seat, in leafy suburban Headington). At the end of 2010 unemployment claimant count was 2.3%, 45th of the 84 South East constituencies and close to the mean of 2.45%.

Until 1983, the whole of Oxford, including most of this seat, was part of the Oxford constituency.

For the first four years Oxford East was served by Conservative Steven Norris; since his defeat at the hands of the current MP the seat saw the Conservative share of the vote fall to 18.8% in 2010 to become between 2001 and 2010 inclusive a Labour–Lib Dem marginal. Due to the high student and university-related vote, Smith came within a thousand votes of losing the seat to a Liberal Democrat at the 2005 election with such issues as the Iraq War and top-up fees losing many votes for the former Work and Pensions Secretary.