Kensington and Chelsea was a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom 1997–2010.

In the run-up to the 1997 election the nomination was initially won by Nicholas Scott, MP for the previous Chelsea constituency, but following allegations of alcoholism he was deselected.

The nomination was subsequently secured by Alan Clark, the former minister and diarist who was seeking to return to the Commons after standing down at the 1992 general election.

In 2003 he announced his intention to retire from politics at the next general election to pursue a career in the media.

In October 2007, amid speculation that then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown was about to call a snap general election, former Labour minister Tony Benn announced that he wanted to come out of retirement and return to the Commons, offering himself to the Kensington and Chelsea constituency Labour Party to challenge Malcolm Rifkind.