Cardiff Central () was a

borough constituency In the United Kingdom (UK), each of the electoral areas or divisions called constituencies elects one member to the House of Commons. Within the United Kingdom there are five bodies with members elected by electoral districts called " constituen ...

in the city of

Cardiff Cardiff (; ) is the capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of Wales. Cardiff had a population of in and forms a Principal areas of Wales, principal area officially known as the City and County of Ca ...

. It returned one Member of Parliament (MP) to the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of ...

of the

Parliament of the United Kingdom The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, and may also legislate for the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace ...

, elected by the

first past the post First-past-the-post (FPTP)—also called choose-one, first-preference plurality (FPP), or simply plurality—is a single-winner voting rule. Voters mark one candidate as their favorite, or First-preference votes, first-preference, and the cand ...

system. The seat was last held by

Jo Stevens Joanna Meriel Stevens (born 6 September 1966) is a Welsh politician serving as Secretary of State for Wales since 2024. A member of the Labour Party, she has been a Member of Parliament (MP) since 2015, representing Cardiff East since 20 ...

of the Labour Party. She was appointed as

Shadow Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport The shadow secretary of state for culture, media and sport (DCMS), previously the shadow secretary of state for national heritage and shadow secretary of state for digital, culture, media and sport, is a position in the Official Opposition Shad ...

on 6 April 2020. The constituency was abolished as part of the

2023 Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies The 2023 review of Westminster constituencies was the most recent cycle of the process to redraw the Constituencies of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, constituency map for the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. The new constituency b ...

and under the June 2023 final recommendations of the

Boundary Commission for Wales In the United Kingdom, the boundary commissions are non-departmental public bodies responsible for determining the boundaries of parliamentary constituencies for elections to the House of Commons. There are four boundary commissions: one each f ...

. The constituency's wards were split between Cardiff East and Cardiff South and Penarth.

Boundaries

1983–2010: The City of Cardiff wards of Adamsdown, Cathays, Cyncoed, Pentwyn, Plasnewydd, and Roath. 2010–2024: The Cardiff electoral divisions of Adamsdown, Cathays, Cyncoed, Pentwyn,

Penylan Penylan is a district and Community (Wales), community in the east of Cardiff, the capital city of Wales, known for its Edwardian era period houses and spacious tree lined roads and avenue (landscape), avenues. Situated to both the north and ...

, and Plasnewydd. As its name suggests, Cardiff Central covered the central area of the City of

. It extended from the area around the

Millennium Stadium The Millennium Stadium (), known since 2016 as the Principality Stadium () for sponsorship reasons, is the national stadium of Wales. Located in Cardiff, it has a retractable roof and is the home of the Wales national rugby union team; it has ...

in the south to Llanishen Golf Course in the north, taking in the

City Centre A city centre, also known as an urban core, is the Commerce, commercial, Culture, cultural and often the historical, Politics, political, and geographic heart of a city. The term "city centre" is primarily used in British English, and closely e ...

and the

University A university () is an educational institution, institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly ...

History

This was a Conservative-held three-way marginal constituency throughout the 1980s but since 1997 Labour and the Liberal Democrats have pushed the Conservative candidate into third place. The Liberal Democrats won the equivalent Welsh Assembly seat in 1999 and 2003 and also dominate the wards which make up the seat in elections to

Cardiff Council Cardiff Council, formally the County Council of the City and County of Cardiff () is the governing body for Cardiff, one of the Administrative divisions of Wales, principal areas of Wales. The principal area and its council were established ...

. The later constituency was socially diverse, with both very affluent and very deprived areas. It has a large student population which seems to have helped Labour to win in 1992 and 1997 but thereafter increasingly switched to the Liberal Democrats due to opposition to government plans for reforming student support. This switched yet again in the 2015 general election where students were disillusioned by the broken promises the Liberal Democrats made regarding tuition fees. This was despite the fact that these student loan promises did not apply to Wales, which has a different funding system and MP Jenny Willott had also voted against the English changes in Parliament. The seat was unchanged in the Fifth Periodical Report of the Parliamentary Boundary Commission for Wales, which took effect at the 2010 general election. Since the seat's re-creation in 1983, it was held successively by each of the three main political parties; the Liberal Democrats gained it at the 2005 election after 13 years of Labour representation. The constituency has transformed dramatically from being a Conservative seat for some years, to a Labour–Lib Dem marginal to the safest Labour seat in Wales at the time.

Members of Parliament

MPs since 1983

Elections

Elections 1983 to current

Elections in the 1980s

Elections in the 1990s

Elections in the 2000s

Elections in the 2010s

Of the 117 rejected ballots: *81 were either unmarked or it was uncertain who the vote was for. *32 voted for more than one candidate. *4 had writing or a mark by which the voter could be identified. Of the 80 rejected ballots: *59 were either unmarked or it was uncertain who the vote was for. *19 voted for more than one candidate. *2 had writing or a mark by which the voter could be identified. Of the 204 rejected ballots: *166 were either unmarked or it was uncertain who the vote was for. *38 voted for more than one candidate.

Notes

References

External links

nomis Constituency Profile for Cardiff Central
– presenting data from the ONS annual population survey and other official statistics.

(Election results from 1922 onwards)

(Election results from 1955 onwards)
2017 Election
House Of Commons Library 2017 Election report
A Vision Of Britain Through Time
(Constituency elector numbers)
BBC Vote 2001BBC Election 2005UK Constituency Maps
(boundaries April 1997 – April 2010) at ''MapIt UK''

(boundaries April 2010 – May 2024) at ''MapIt UK'' {{Coord, 51.504, -3.159, display=title, region:GB-CRF_scale:50000 Constituencies of Cardiff Historic parliamentary constituencies in South Wales Constituencies of the Parliament of the United Kingdom established in 1983 Constituencies of the Parliament of the United Kingdom disestablished in 2024