UK parliamentary boundary review 2016-2018

[Gary J]

This exercise is due to be repeated every five years from now on. It remains to be seen if Parliament will let the boundary review be finished and implemented this time.

Cameron only has a small overall majority. There are far more Conservative MPs who would be adversely affected by the review than would be needed to erase the majority.

As the House of Commons would need to pass a resolution to approve the orders in council, to give effect to the new boundaries, it is not impossible that they would be rejected.

[Gary J]

The reduction in the number of parliamentary seats from 650 to 600 was pretty arbitrary, although for the first time there is going to be a fixed mathematical relationship between the registered electorate and the number of constituencies.

However the number of seats in the House of Commons, since 1922 when the current UK boundaries were fixed, have varied between 615 (1922-1945) and 659 (1997-2005). For the 2005 general election the number of Scottish seats were reduced (by requiring them to contain similar numbers of electors than those in England, as it was felt that the existence of the Scottish Parliament made the continued over representation of Scotland at Westminster unjustified). The UK total then stood at 646. It was increased to the current 650, by the last set of boundary changes, in effect from the 2010 general election.

[Gary J]

The Commission has to do a balancing exercise to take account, as best it can, of various rules. The only rule which (for most constituencies) overrides everything else is the one about having an electorate plus or minus five percent of the average registered electorate as at December 2015. The relevant electorate range for the current review is 71,031 to 78,507.

The Commission starts drafting its proposals by working out the theoretical seat entitlement of each county/unitary authority or metropolitan/London borough (hereafter referred to as areas although that is not official terminology). If an area does not have the right number of electors to comply with the electorate range requirement, then the Commission look for the adjacent area or areas to be grouped together and which will divide neatly into the required size constituencies.

Having worked out how many seats each area or groups thereof are to receive (if more than one) the Commission will then propose the required number of constituencies taking into account the other statutory factors.

The other statutory factors are referred to in the Guide to the 2018 Review, published by the Boundary Commission for England.

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[Gary J]

So unsurprisingly, its as bad as the last review then?

It'll be interesting to see what they do up here - the Scottish Boundary Commission has a very different attitude on ward splitting than the England and Wales one though, which I think will lead to a better map.  There certainly wasn't anything totally awful in the last one; other than the fact that the highland seats now have to a much bigger than they were which isn't particularly great for rural representation; especially since the effective Scottish quota is higher due to Orkney and Shetland and Na h-Eileanan an Iar...

The electoral quota, for the 596 seats outside the island areas with special provisions, is calculated excluding the island area electorates; so the effective quota is the same throughout the United Kingdom. http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2011/1/section/11
 

[Gary J]

The Boundary Commission for England plans to submit its final report to the Secretary of State, in about one month, on or about 5th September 2018.

https://boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/towards-the-final-recommendations/

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[Gary J]

Are they still reducing the number of seats to 600? Boy this is gonna suck.

Yes this boundary review is for a 600 member House of Commons, reduced from the existing 650 seat House.

[Gary J]

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Full press release:-
https://boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/2018_09_05_Final_recs_news_release.pdf

The next stage may take some time. In the last completed review it was more than a year between submission of the report and it being laid before Parliament.

The UK government is currently focused on the Brexit negotiations, so it would probably not welcome renewed arguments about parliamentary boundaries any time soon.

[Gary J]

My suspicions of delay were unjustified. The government has announced its intentions. Extract from today's Hansard.

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[Gary J]

The long running soap opera of the UK parliamentary boundary review has had another twist.

The government has issued a written statement, strongly implying that the 2018 boundary review will not be implemented.

https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2020-03-24/debates/20032433000010/UKParliamentaryBoundaries

The most important developments seem to include:-

a) the plan to reduce the number of parliamentary constituencies from the existing 650 to 600 has been dropped.
b) future boundary reviews will take place on an eight year cycle instead of five, so a set of boundaries will probably be used for at least two general elections instead of just one.
c) the government want to leave the plus or minus 5% average registered electorate rules as they are, although they may legislate to alter some of the details of the boundary review process.
d) as a historic change, Parliament will no longer be required to approve the new boundaries, before the Privy Council brings them into legal effect.

The plan seems to be to legislate later this year, to change the rules the boundary commissions have to work to. The next boundary review could then start in 2021 with the new boundaries emerging by 2023 so they can be in place for a 2024 general election.