The seat has been represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom by Jonathan Reynolds of the Labour and Co-operative Party since 2010.

The constituency lies on the lower slopes of the Pennines and beginning of the plain below, on the cusp of Greater Manchester and has three broad settlements, the largest of which are Hyde which is bordered by the River Tame and Peak Forest Canal, and Stalybridge which similarly has several parks and recreation grounds and leads up the Tame Valley to Mossley.

On 1 April 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972, the bulk of the area covered by the constituency was incorporated into the newly created Borough of Tameside within Greater Manchester; the sparsely-populated rural district of Tintwistle was transferred to Derbyshire.

The 2023 Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies, which was based on the ward structure in place at 1 December 2020, left the boundaries unchanged.

Gordon Lang who was honorary secretary of the United Europe Movement and a leading member of the Proportional Representation Society but who retired on ill health in 1951.

[8] Senior Labour Party officials were concerned that Unite was strategically attempting to have Peter Wheeler, a senior Unite official, selected as the Labour candidate, as one of a series of seats, leading to the National Executive Committee putting forward Jonathan Reynolds on the selection shortlist who, as widely expected, won the election.