Parliamentary Boundary Review kicks off.

Yesterday the Boundary Commission started the review into parliamentary boundary changes for the Westminster Parliament. It will reduce the number of MPs in the commons to 600.

What effect will this have on the nature and make up of our parliament?

English constituencies are on average bigger than other UK nations.

There is an agreement in place already about the balance between the nations.

There is an agreed plan in place already about the balance between the regions of England with Yorkshire and Humberside losing 4 seats from 54.

Having tried to balance the numbers of voters for decades the Boundary Commission of England will have to increase the size of an English constituency to "no fewer than 71,031 and no more than 78,507".

Leeds, Sheffield, Humberside/NELincolnshire, Keighley/Bradford and Huddersfield/Barnsley/Wakefield areas are particularly vulnerable.

The Cleveland area (if included)will also lose one.

The Labour party have historically seen the independent Boundary Commission as a threat as its review work is often instigated by a Conservative Government. This is because there has been a different trend in population change of the traditional urban Labour seat.

Eastern and Southern England(-9) will see their influence in Parliament increase to the detriment of the North(-15).

Boundary Commission for England

Seats and electorate click on area for local comparisons.

What effect will this have on the nature and make up of our parliament?

It stops Labour being an effective opposition for longer than Corbyn. Is is something like 32 red seats gone versus 14 blue ones?

English constituencies are on average bigger than other UK nations.

There is an agreement in place already about the balance between the nations.

There is an agreed plan in place already about the balance between the regions of England with Yorkshire and Humberside losing 4 seats from 54.

 

Having tried to balance the numbers of voters for decades the Boundary Commission of England will have to increase the size of an English constituency to "no fewer than 71,031 and no more than 78,507".

 

Leeds, Sheffield, Humberside/NELincolnshire, Keighley/Bradford and Huddersfield/Barnsley/Wakefield areas are particularly vulnerable.

 

The Cleveland area (if included)will also lose one.

 

The Labour party have historically seen the independent Boundary Commission as a threat as its review work is often instigated by a Conservative Government. This is because there has been a different trend in population change of the traditional urban Labour seat.

 

Eastern and Southern England(-9) will see their influence in Parliament increase to the detriment of the North(-15).

 

Boundary Commission for England

Seats and electorate click on area for local comparisons.

If it makes constituencies closer in size it makes each voter have a more equal value. I note Scotland will lose 6 seats to the changes. If Scotish voters had an undue influence on UK elections, that can only be a good thing.

There is a lovely sounding word that I have wanted to bring into a conversation for years, now I can. Gerrymandering.

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/gerrymander

Whether it's true or not, I got to use the word.

There is a lovely sounding word that I have wanted to bring into a conversation for years, now I can. Gerrymandering.

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/gerrymander

Whether it's true or not, I got to use the word.

Obvious exceptions aside like the far north and islands, are you saying that some MP's should represent much fewer people than others?

The typical size of constituencies differs between parts of the UK. The Office for National Statistics gives the median total parliamentary electorate across constituencies of about 72,400 in England, 69,000 in Scotland, 66,800 in Northern Ireland and 56,800 in Wales.

The numbers mean that Sheffield would be entitled to very close to exactly 5.0 seats, so a good model would be one that had exactly 5 seats entirely within Sheffield. (Similarly, Leeds is almost exactly 7, North Yorkshire 8, East Yorkshire and Northern Lincolnshire 9 link)

Some initial playing with the numbers shows that the area west of the Don/Sheaf would give exactly 2 seats, the current Heeley plus Manor/Castle minus Mosborough Parkway would give exactly 1 seat, and the area east of the Don/Heeley would give exacty 2 seats.

The numbers mean that Sheffield would be entitled to very close to exactly 5.0 seats, so a good model would be one that had exactly 5 seats entirely within Sheffield. (Similarly, Leeds is almost exactly 7, North Yorkshire 8, East Yorkshire and Northern Lincolnshire 9 link)

 

Some initial playing with the numbers shows that the area west of the Don/Sheaf would give exactly 2 seats, the current Heeley plus Manor/Castle minus Mosborough Parkway would give exactly 1 seat, and the area east of the Don/Heeley would give exacty 2 seats.

Could any party be under direct threat solely through the changes, say if the west of Hallam gets the east of Hope Valley, yellow to blue, or east Hallam to west Central, red to yellow?

As I see it, there are two main aspects to parliamentary boundaries:

1. The total number of seats in parliament, and

2. The actual boundaries of each seat.

In the case of 1, this is a political decision, based on how many MPs we need to run the country.

In the case of 2, this is to aim to manage the boundaries to ensure they are roughly all the same size (in terms of population of voting age, or possibly but with less validity, total population). Over time, demographics change and so we need to take a look at the boundaries every few years to make sure they are all still roughly the same size, and adjust if necessary. One thing I have not been able to understand is what justification there has been in the past for not adjusting the boundaries by enough to equalize constituency sizes. Each time the boundaries have still retained much of the imbalance that means that outlying areas with low density of population have a disproportionally low number in the electorate. As noted in posts above, the English electorate do not have the level of representation given to Scotland, Wales and N Ireland. I know that equalizing the numbers would mean that some constituencies would become extremely large (in terms of land area and distances from one end to the other), but I think that this is less important than basic democracy. Each vote should be of similar value. At present it is not.

Could any party be under direct threat solely through the changes, say if the west of Hallam gets the east of Hope Valley, yellow to blue, or east Hallam to west Central, red to yellow?

Hope Valley is in East Midlands, Hallam is in Yorkshire & Humberside, different review regions. Seats won't cross regional boundaries.

I see. That seems to hamstring the process then. I can see arguments for and against plopping some city into a country constituency to help numbers but a notional political regional boundry seems like an needless distinction. It sums up the silly bureaucracy nicely.

It's been long overdue, but the Labour haven't been keen on the fairness of it, because of the inbuilt bias towards them. So they did nothing about this.

The electoral commission is relatively independent.