Following a new Act of Parliament, work has begun work on redrawing the map of parliamentary constituencies.
The Isle of Wight’s single seat, currently the largest in the Commons, will be split into two , as one of a handful of island areas exempted from the population rules.
The Independent Boundary Commission for England will also be visiting areas across all of England to hear views on the redrawn boundaries.
The review must be completed by autumn 2013 and changes will come into effect at the next General Election. New rules mean that there will also be fewer MPs and that their constituencies must be of more equal size.
As Island Pulse reported last month, Island MP Andrew Turner (pictured) was delighted to announce that the Isle of Wight is to have two MPs after the next election (due in 2015).
England will have 502 MPs rather than the current 533 and the number of electors in each constituency must be no smaller than 72,810 and no larger than 80,473.
Early indications are that the changes will have to be significant in order to reduce the number of constituencies by 31 and to ensure that they are of equal size. The majority of existing constituencies are likely to be affected.
Simon James, the Secretary to the Boundary Commission for England said:
“Parliament has set the Commission clear rules about how many electors each constituency can have. The first stage of the review is for the Commission to come up with its provisional recommendations – we will be seeking views on these once they are published in the autumn. Everyone will have a chance to see and comment on the proposals.”
More information is available at www.boundarycommissionforengland.org.uk
Further details about the 2011 Act and how the Commission intends to conduct the review are published in a newsletter ( full details click here)
In brief, relating to the Isle of Wight:
The UK electoral quota is, to the nearest whole number, 76,641. Therefore, every constituency in England, with the specific exemption of the two constituencies to be created on the Isle of Wight, must have an electorate that is no smaller than 72,810 and no larger than 80,473.
Following some preliminary modelling work, the Commission has concluded that implementing the new statutory framework is likely to require very extensive and wide-ranging changes to be made to the existing pattern and composition of constituencies. The fact that major changes will be required by the new framework has been noted by a range of politicians, academics and political commentators.
The Commission wishes to make very clear that those with an interest in the review process should understand that the defined number of constituencies and the 5% electoral parity target are statutory requirements that it must apply and that it has absolutely no discretion in respect of either matter. Those areas where the Commission does have some discretion, such as the local government boundaries to be observed or the local ties that will be broken by the changes made to the existing constituencies are, as stated above, all subordinate to these two main statutory requirements.
The Commission emphasises that one of the effects of reducing the overall number of constituencies allocated to England, together with the requirement that all those constituencies (with the exception of the two Isle of Wight constituencies) must have an electorate that is within 5% of the UK electoral quota, is that many of the existing constituencies that have an electorate that is currently within the 5% parity target will, nonetheless, need to be altered as a result of the need to create feasible constituencies in the surrounding area. It cannot be assumed that, simply because an existing constituency appears to have an electorate within the mandatory parameters of 72,810 and 80,473, it will be immune from change in the course of the review.
The Commission has also published the 2011 Electorate figure in full click here
The total electorate for England of 38,332,557(excluding Isle of Wight) means the average size of each constituency should be just over 76,641. The rules in the 2011 Act state that every constituency must be within 5% of this number, meaning constituencies must have no fewer than 72,810 and no more than 80,473 electors (with two exceptions – the Act specifically provides for two constituencies for the Isle of Wight which is why its electorate has not been included in total for England’s electorate).
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