From 1885 to 1918 it was in the inceptive Uxbridge seat, before which its electorate contributed to the two-seat Middlesex constituency since the 13th century creation of the House of Commons of England.

It amounted to the obsolete hundred plus the small west-to-east parishes in the north of Harmondsworth, Harlington and Cranford as the seat took in seven late 19th century-formed areas of local government, including the Staines Rural District.

It is a more built-up area with numerous but less expansive green spaces, fewer private roads and little woodland compared to further south in Surrey.

Workless claimants (registered jobseekers) were in November 2012 significantly lower than the national average of 3.8%, at 2.0% of the population based on a statistical compilation by The Guardian,[4] only 0.3% higher than the affluent neighbouring constituency of Twickenham in London.

Most residents can afford to buy their own homes: social housing accounts for only 10% of the total,[5] and the proportion of professionals and managerial workers is high.

Spelthorne exceeds the average quota of commercial property of Surrey's seats — it contains about 20% of the county's commercial/industrial property, including large plants or wholesale units of Complete Cover Group, Kingston Technology, Edmundson Electrical, Esso Petroleum, Johnson & Johnson Vision Products, Thames Water, Shepperton Film Studios, wholesalers and storage companies.

Major offices/creative facilities of BP (its global HQ), Del Monte, NatWest, Samsung, Richmond Film Services and film/television ancillary businesses are in the constituency.

In the 1945 general election George Pargiter (Lab) was elected in the Attlee Ministry landslide while the boundaries of the seat saw a favourable form to the party during expansion of London when the area extended to areas to the north, including Feltham and Bedfont (removed in 1955 — see Feltham and Heston) and had cast off Hampton, Hampton Wick and Teddington, before 1945 part of the seat.

Based on length of party tenure and majorities the seat would be considered safe by most UK electoral analysts including of academic standing.