Conservative leader in Stevenage claiming reported growth is made up (8)
I believe the answer is:
consists
'is made up' is the definition.
(to consist of something is to be made up of it)
'conservative leader in stevenage claiming reported growth' is the wordplay.
'conservative' becomes 'con' (I've seen this in other clues).
'leader in' says to take the initial letters.
'claiming' is an insertion indicator.
'reported growth' becomes 'sist' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
The first letter of 'stevenage' is 's'.
'con'+'s'='cons'
'cons' going around 'sist' is 'CONSISTS'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Another definition for consists that I've seen is " Comprises".)