Leyton and Wanstead (UK Parliament constituency)

Leyton and Wanstead
Borough constituency for the House of Commons
Boundary of Leyton and Wanstead in Greater London.
County	Greater London
Electorate	63,021 (December 2010)
Current constituency
Created	1997
Member of parliament	John Cryer (Labour)
Number of members	One
Created from	Leyton, Wanstead & Woodford
Overlaps
European Parliament constituency	London

Leyton and Wanstead is a constituency created in 1997 represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2010 by John Cryer of the Labour Party.

Uniting for general elections areas from the boroughs of Redbridge and Waltham Forest in inner north-east London, the constituency covers Leyton, Wanstead, Leytonstone and South Woodford. The seat was created for the 1997 election succeeding the Leyton constituency, with parts of what had been the Wanstead and Woodford constituency. It has an electorate of approximately 60,000.

The seat has electoral wards:

The seat arose from the enacting of the recommendations of the fourth periodic review of Westminster constituencies of the Boundary Commission for England to take account of demographic population change and seek to equalise electorates whilst in preference retaining the historic connections with the local authorites of the United Kingdom.

The constituency has consistently elected Labour Party MPs (Members of Parliament); the narrowest winning majority was 16%; the greatest, 38.6% in 1997. Harry Cohen was MP for the Leyton area from 1983 and this seat from 1997. Cohen retired in 2010 when the seat was won by John Cryer. The 2015 result made the seat the 46th safest of Labour's 232 seats by percentage of majority.

This seat combines deprived and economic-cycle vulnerable areas around Leyton with the more affluent, resilient Wanstead area. It is an ethnically diverse area with the biggest minority groups Pakistani British and Caribbean British, however has fewer ethnic minority constituents than in the London Borough of Newham.