Leicester South

Leicester South
Borough constituency for the House of Commons
Boundary of Leicester South in Leicestershire.
Location of Leicestershire within England.
County	Leicestershire
Electorate	78,433 (December 2010)
Current constituency
Created	1974 (1974)
Member of parliament	Jon Ashworth (Labour Co-operative)
Number of members	One
Created from	Leicester South East and Leicester South West
1918–1950
Number of members	One
Type of constituency	Borough constituency
Replaced by	Leicester South East, Leicester South West and Leicester North East
Created from	Leicester
Overlaps
European Parliament constituency	East Midlands

Leicester South is a constituency, recreated in 1974, represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2011 by Jon Ashworth of the Labour Co-operative Party (which denotes he is a member of the Labour Party and Co-operative Party, one of 27 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 has been held by the Labour Party since 1987.

When originally created in 1918, the South division of the Parliamentary Borough of Leicester was defined as including the municipal 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.