Cowdenbeath and Kirkcaldy (UK Parliament constituency)

Template:Short description Template:Use British English Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox UK constituency Cowdenbeath and Kirkcaldy is a county constituency representing the areas around the towns of Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, in Fife, Scotland, in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It has been represented since 2024 by Melanie Ward of Scottish Labour.

Prior to the 2023 review of Westminster constituencies, which came into effect for the 2024 general election, the seat had different boundaries and was known as Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath.^[1]

It was previously represented by former Prime Minister Gordon Brown from 2005 until 2015, who had been MP for the Dunfermline East constituency from 1983–2005 until boundary changes. He served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1997 to 2007 and as UK Prime Minister from 2007 to 2010.

Boundaries

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2005–2024: Under the Fifth Review of UK Parliament constituencies, the constituency boundaries were defined in accordance with the ward structure in place on 30 November 2004 and contained the Fife Council wards of Aberdour and Burntisland West; Auchtertool and Burntisland East; Ballingry and Lochore; Bennochy and Valley; Cowdenbeath Central; Crosshill and Lochgelly North; Dalgety Bay East; Dalgety Bay West and Hillend; Inverkeithing; Dunnikier; Dysart and Gallatown; Glebe Park, Pathhead and Sinclairtown; Hayfield and Balsusney; Kelty; Kinghorn and Invertiel; Linktown and Kirkcaldy Central; Lumphinnans and Lochgelly South; Oakfield and Cowdenbeath North; Raith and Longbraes; Smeaton and Overton; Templehall East; and Templehall West.

2024–present: Under the 2023 review of Westminster constituencies which came into effect for the 2024 general election, the constituency contains the following wards or part wards of Fife Council:^[2]^[3]

In full: Inverkeithing and Dalgety Bay, Burntisland, Kinghorn and Western Kirkcaldy, Kirkcaldy North, Kirkcaldy Central, and Kirkcaldy East.
In part: Dunfermline North (the community of Kingseat) and Cowdenbeath (except the community of Kelty).

As a result of the boundary review, the communities of Lochgelly, Kelty and the Benarty area were included in the Glenrothes and Mid Fife constituency. To compensate, the boundaries were moved westwards to include Inverkeithing, North Queensferry and Crossgates, previously part of Dunfermline and West Fife.

The constituency is bounded by Dunfermline and Dollar to the west and Glenrothes and Mid Fife to the north.

Along with Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, the towns of Burntisland, Dalgety Bay, Dysart, Inverkeithing and Kinghorn, and the villages of Aberdour, Auchtertool, Crossgates, Kingseat, Lumphinnans and North Queensferry make up the constituency.

History

The first Member of Parliament after the seat's creation in 2005, was the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown; who had previously represented Dunfermline East from 1983 to 2005, and later succeeded Tony Blair as Prime Minister in 2007. At the general election of 2010, Brown was re-elected as an MP, but was defeated as Prime Minister, and soon resigned as Leader of the Labour Party. He announced that he would continue to serve as an Opposition backbencher,^[4] and did not retire from the Commons until the 2015 general election, which he did not contest. On that occasion, the SNP won parliamentary representation in the area for the first time, in line with the party's landslide victory throughout Scotland at that election. In 2017, Labour regained the seat from the SNP, with Lesley Laird winning over the SNP incumbent Roger Mullin by 259 votes.^[5]^[6] Laird was appointed Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland less than a week later on 14 June 2017.^[7]

In 2019, Neale Hanvey unseated Laird with a majority of 1,243 votes. Hanvey was suspended from the SNP before the election for use of anti-Semitic language in social media posts. Although Hanvey was suspended from the SNP, he was still listed as such on the ballot and his victory is recorded as an SNP gain from Labour.^[6] It is the only known time in which a candidate has won a seat and sat as an independent following a suspension from their party.^[5] He was later re-admitted to the party in June 2020.^[8] Hanvey defected from the SNP to join the new Alba Party in late March 2021, becoming Alba's second MP after Kenny MacAskill of East Lothian.^[9]

Labour regained the seat at the 2024 election, with Melanie Ward defeating the SNP candidate by a majority of 17.7%. The incumbent MP, Neale Hanvey, stood as the Alba Party candidate, receiving just 1,132 votes (2.8%).

Members of Parliament

Election		Member	Party
style="color:inherit;background-color: Template:Party color" \|	2005	Gordon Brown	Labour
style="color:inherit;background-color: Template:Party color" \|	2015	Roger Mullin	SNP
style="color:inherit;background-color: Template:Party color" \|	2017	Lesley Laird	Labour
style="color:inherit;background-color: Template:Party color" \|	2019	Neale Hanvey	Independent¹
style="color:inherit;background-color: Template:Party color" \|	2020		SNP
style="color:inherit;background-color: Template:Party color" \|	2021		Alba Party
style="color:inherit;background-color: Template:Party color" \|	2024	Melanie Ward	Labour

¹After nominations for the 2019 general election closed, the Scottish National Party suspended Neale Hanvey and withdrew all support for his campaign on 28 November 2019 due to allegations of antisemitism.