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Post by Pete Whitehead on Sept 6, 2017 17:04:05 GMT
We've reached peak Harry Hayfield
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Post by warofdreams on Sept 6, 2017 17:44:01 GMT
If the new bill proposes 650 seats, 10-yearly reviews and a 10% permitted variance, it's hard to see Labour and the Lib Dems not supporting it. I'm sure there will be the usual debates around which islands to exempt and whether a cross-border constituency in Devon/Cornwall is needed, but it should get through easily with or without the support of the DUP.
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Post by jigger on Sept 6, 2017 17:47:40 GMT
If the new bill proposes 650 seats, 10-yearly reviews and a 10% permitted variance, it's hard to see Labour and the Lib Dems not supporting it. I'm sure there will be the usual debates around which islands to exempt and whether a cross-border constituency in Devon/Cornwall is needed, but it should get through easily with or without the support of the DUP. Don't some Labour MPs think that the total population should be included in the electorate figures? That would probably serve as justification for not supporting a boundary review. In any event, why are the Liberal Democrats relevant? The third biggest party in the House of Commons is the Scottish National Party.
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iain
Lib Dem
Posts: 10,693
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Post by iain on Sept 6, 2017 18:00:38 GMT
If the new bill proposes 650 seats, 10-yearly reviews and a 10% permitted variance, it's hard to see Labour and the Lib Dems not supporting it. I'm sure there will be the usual debates around which islands to exempt and whether a cross-border constituency in Devon/Cornwall is needed, but it should get through easily with or without the support of the DUP. Don't some Labour MPs think that the total population should be included in the electorate figures? That would probably serve as justification for not supporting a boundary review. In any event, why are the Liberal Democrats relevant? The third biggest party in the House of Commons is the Scottish National Party. The SNP are unlikely to vote for a reduction in Scottish seats. The LDs could be the difference between a boundary review bill passing and not if Labour and the DUP vote against. Therefore they could be very relevant to the question.
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Post by East Anglian Lefty on Sept 6, 2017 18:10:55 GMT
If the new bill proposes 650 seats, 10-yearly reviews and a 10% permitted variance, it's hard to see Labour and the Lib Dems not supporting it. I'm sure there will be the usual debates around which islands to exempt and whether a cross-border constituency in Devon/Cornwall is needed, but it should get through easily with or without the support of the DUP. With 650 seats, Cornwall gets 6 seats anyway, so the Tamar problem shouldn't arise. A 10% variance probably isn't needed. A compromise wording aiming for 5% but allowing up to 10% when necessary for sane seats should be easy enough for anybody to accept in practice. Though if you're doing that, then you may as well also go back to reviews by county rather than region, especially as the regions aren't going to be very meaningful post-Brexit.
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Post by East Anglian Lefty on Sept 6, 2017 18:31:38 GMT
Looking more closely at Cambridgeshire, because it's home and because it's quite simple, 8 seats draw themselves fairly straightforwardly on current electorate figures (which is not to say that'll still be true when the new review actually happens.)
Starting with the borough seats, Peterborough can remain unchanged (well, one tiny parish moves due to ward boundary changes) whilst Cambridge needs to lose a ward. For now, that'd be Trumpington, returning it to the pre-2010 boundaries.
NE Cambs needs to lose around 10,000 electors, which is best accomplished by taking out the four East Cambs wards and making it co-extensive with Fenland. East Cambs then needs to lose around 30,000 South Cambs electors, leaving it with no more than a handful of South Cambs wards.
Absorbing that and Trumpington drags South Cambs eastwards, meaning that it no longer has room for the parts north and north-west of Cambridge. There's probably too much of that for it to be paired with St Neots, so instead it has to go with St Ives in some kind of Mid Cambridgeshire seat. Huntingdon then gets back up to size by grabbing enough of NW Cambs to put both back into the acceptable range.
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Harry Hayfield
Green
Cavalier Gentleman (as in 17th century Cavalier)
Posts: 2,753
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Post by Harry Hayfield on Sept 6, 2017 19:28:35 GMT
Here's the electorate figure I was trying to remember earlier on: Therefore the range would be as low as 71,030 and as high as 78,507. Based on the electorates for the general election 267 seats are too small, 136 seats are too large and the remaining 247 are just the right size.
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J.G.Harston
Lib Dem
Leave-voting Brexit-supporting Liberal Democrat
Posts: 13,591
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Post by J.G.Harston on Sept 6, 2017 19:32:47 GMT
Don't some Labour MPs think that the total population should be included in the electorate figures? That would probably serve as justification for not supporting a boundary review. Any review system based on poplation figures falls down the problem of the population only being counted every ten years, whereas the electorate is counted annually. You could work around it if you mandated that reviews occured automatically after the census, or calculate a local electorate:population ratio at the census and use that ratio over the next nine years. We had a thread on here a couple of years ago showing data that showed that the E:P ratio was very consistant within a region, sufficient that E is a sufficiently accurate proxy for P that allocation by E *is* allocation by P. Off the top of my head I think it showed that only London had an E:P ratio that wasn't the same as the rest of the country and would give London maybe half a dozen more seats.
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Post by lancastrian on Sept 6, 2017 19:45:12 GMT
With 650 seats, Cornwall gets 6 seats anyway, so the Tamar problem shouldn't arise. A 10% variance probably isn't needed. A compromise wording aiming for 5% but allowing up to 10% when necessary for sane seats should be easy enough for anybody to accept in practice. Though if you're doing that, then you may as well also go back to reviews by county rather than region, especially as the regions aren't going to be very meaningful post-Brexit. I agree with all those ideas - if it were up to me, I'd have 650 seats, 5% variance but 10% allowed to keep things sensible, ceremonial county boundaries respected, except for Rutland, and Bristol and Wirral might need to be considered parts of Gloucestershire and Cheshire respectively. I think you need to leave the strict 10% in to get roughly equal seats to override the importance given to the boundaries of relatively small Unitary/London/Met Boroughs which seemed to cause many of the worst outliers in the current system (e.g Walsall, Newham, Milton Keynes).
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Post by alexrichards on Sept 6, 2017 19:47:21 GMT
If they're going to try for a new review this parliament on the basis of 650 seats, there may still be trouble ahead. I recently crunched the numbers on electorates as of the general election and it's notable that Northern Ireland didn't see the surge in registration seen elsewhere (because they didn't have the recent botched introduction of IER to deal with, and because there aren't any parties there which even tried to enthuse the unregistered). If it was 600 seats using the general election as a freeze date, Northern Ireland would have an entitlement marginally under 16 constituencies, and even with 650 seats it still only receives 17 constituencies. That's an issue for the DUP, which is potentially very vulnerable to boundary changes affecting East Londonderry, Belfast North or Belfast South. Then again, it might be slightly easier to get some support from other opposition parties for a House of 650 seats. For those interested, the regional entitlements as of the general election are as follows (current seat allocations in brackets, new allocations leaving out the four island seats): East: 61.31 (58) London: 75.57 (73) South-East: 88.66 (84) South-West: 57.88 (55) West Midlands: 57.10 (59) East Midlands: 47.26 (46) Yorkshire: 54.38 (54) North-West: 73.43 (75) North-East: 26.94 (29) Wales: 31.79 (40) Scotland: 54.49 (59) Northern Ireland: 17.20 (18) I can provide figures broken down by county (or by groups of boroughs in London and the mets) if that's of interest to anybody.
I'd be interested in knowing where the East Midlands seat pops in. I think it'd be Leicestershire but I'm not sure.
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Post by Robert Waller on Sept 6, 2017 19:53:00 GMT
As I have said before, there was never any suggestion of also reducing the numbers of tame 'payroll' members of the government. A total of 600 would simply have reduced the number of potentially independently minded backbenchers by 50 and strengthened the grip of the Executive over the Legislature in our fused system. Since I regard the excessive strength of the Executive is one of the most major flaws in our polity, I welcome this news, if it is correct, whatever the less principled reasons that has occasioned the withdrawal of the government's proposals. There should, though, still be a fairly strict application of quotas to reduce the over-representation of certain parts of the UK and of certain types of seat, given the length of time that will have elapsed since the last review.
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jamie
Top Poster
Posts: 6,839
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Post by jamie on Sept 6, 2017 20:17:08 GMT
A couple of ideas on the scope of the 10% variance: Only allowed when the majority of the constituency is made up of wards exceeding specified electorate eg; 10000. Limited to specific circumstances eg; avoid split ward, orphan ward, or meet overall electoral quota (thinking of spare 0.39/0.47 in London). We obviously do want reasonable electoral equality between constituencies and there's no real need for 10% in Northern Ireland, Wales, North East etc, where ward boundaries are small enough to make goods seats within 5%, so there would probably need to be some limitation on the 10% variance. Also, the current constituencies are so uneven that even a universal 10% variance limit would be a big improvement on the status quo
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Post by therealriga on Sept 6, 2017 20:41:46 GMT
Looking more closely at Cambridgeshire, because it's home and because it's quite simple, 8 seats draw themselves fairly straightforwardly on current electorate figures (which is not to say that'll still be true when the new review actually happens.) 8 based on the boundary assistant site were fairly straightforward. Peterborough and Cambridge were unchanged, Huntingdon was split. The northern 45% around St Ives and Huntingdon formed a seat of that name, taking in excess bits of NW and NE Cambs. The 55% left over became St Neots, which also took in parts of South Cambs, the latter moving slightly east. Changes since then would require a ward or two moved but would generally follow that structure
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Post by therealriga on Sept 6, 2017 20:47:31 GMT
East Midlands: 47.26 (46) I can provide figures broken down by county (or by groups of boroughs in London and the mets) if that's of interest to anybody.
I'd be interested in knowing where the East Midlands seat pops in. I think it'd be Leicestershire but I'm not sure.
Like many others here I'd like to see the county by county figures. December 2016 electorates based on national quota for 646 seats (4 protected) gave East Midlands 47.55 for 2 extra seats. Local authority figures were Leicester 3.33 Leics 7.09 Rutland 0.40 Lincs 7.59 On that basis, for only one extra seat, revive Rutland and Stamford with consequent changes elsewhere.
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Post by LDCaerdydd on Sept 6, 2017 21:26:20 GMT
Could I ask the following? What would be the effect of regional electoral quotas based on that regions population as a percentage of the UK population? For instance Wales has a population of 3.063 million out of a UK population of 65.64 million (4.66%) and therefore the electoral quota for Wales should be 4.66% lower than the UK as a whole (67,930 to 75,080) I can't see how it can be justified allowing Wales to continue having 40 seats.
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Post by greenhert on Sept 6, 2017 21:46:48 GMT
It cannot, LDCaerdydd, but special consideration needs to be given to some rural counties, particularly Powys. The links within Montgomeryshire and Brecon & Radnorshire that lead outside Powys lead only east or west-not north or south. Ynys Mon should be kept intact and given protected status like the Isle of Wight, Orkney & Shetland and Na h-Eileanan an lar. The 10% limit should be exercised with caution in Wales due to special geographical considerations.
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Post by gwynthegriff on Sept 6, 2017 22:03:28 GMT
It cannot, LDCaerdydd, but special consideration needs to be given to some rural counties, particularly Powys. The links within Montgomeryshire and Brecon & Radnorshire that lead outside Powys lead only east or west-not north or south. Ynys Mon should be kept intact and given protected status like the Isle of Wight, Orkney & Shetland and Na h-Eileanan an lar. The 10% limit should be exercised with caution in Wales due to special geographical considerations. There is an important distinction between Ynys Mon and the "protected status" seats you mention. You can walk (I have!) to the neighbouring constituency.
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Post by No Offence Alan on Sept 6, 2017 22:21:24 GMT
How about an interim review, reducing the seats to 640 by a once-off reduction of 10 seats in Wales to combat their over-representation?
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maxque
Non-Aligned
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Post by maxque on Sept 6, 2017 22:33:53 GMT
How about an interim review, reducing the seats to 640 by a once-off reduction of 10 seats in Wales to combat their over-representation? No, as it would lead to underrepresentation. 30 seats for Wales was right with 600 seats. With 650, they are entitled 32.
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Post by johnloony on Sept 6, 2017 23:37:26 GMT
Could I ask the following? What would be the effect of regional electoral quotas based on that regions population as a percentage of the UK population? For instance Wales has a population of 3.063 million out of a UK population of 65.64 million (4.66%) and therefore the electoral quota for Wales should be 4.66% lower than the UK as a whole (67,930 to 75,080) How on Earth do you get that "therefore"? According to the same logic, England is about 85% of the UK population, therefore the quota for England should be 85% less than th UK as a whole, i.e. about 10,000. Or did you mean something completely different from what you wrote?
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