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Post by bjornhattan on Mar 25, 2020 15:16:33 GMT
Doesn't have to be dropped. The Euro-constituencies are still the basis for English regional economic statistics, so still have some uses. I'm in two minds about it. On the one hand, the EU electoral regions allowed definite allotments of whole numbers of seats to the various parts of England, and this simplified and clarified the process (and I suspect also made Mr Larkin's life easier). On the other hand, regional boundaries that are in practice uncrossable create some rigidities. The obligation to treat N Lincs and NE Lincs UAs separately from Lincs is one example. Another is Milton Keynes UA: obviously we haven't got the numbers yet but we can pretty sure it will be too big for two seats and too small for three, so it will have to be paired. If you use the existing regions, or ceremonial counties, that pairing can only be with Bucks. It so happened that under the 2018 review (or 'Zombie II' as we should perhaps start to call it) a pairing with Bucks worked out reasonably well; but what if, when we see the numbers for the new review, it is obvious that a pairing with Nhants or Beds would work far better? It's a finely balanced argument. I think on the whole I prefer retaining the regions, but I can see a strong case either way. If the regions are dropped, I think there should remain a rule that no constituency should cross the boundary of Greater London.Finally on the tolerance: I've said this before (so feel free to stop reading at this point) but I strongly disagree with greenrobinhood's suggestion of 10%. It would mean that, if we assume for the purposes of illustration an electoral quota of 72500, you could have adjoining seats with electorates of 65251 and 79749 and you be obliged to regard this situation as perfectly regular and satisfactory. Even if there were a ward or two on the boundary ripe for shifting, you would not be able to make the change (absent some other factor such as better community ties with the smaller seat) because the obligation is only to get seats within the range, not to aim for the middle of the range. I do agree that the slightly smaller seats under the new review will make 5% very challenging to achieve, so I suppose I could live with 7% or 7.5%, but 10% is far too much. Even with that, I'm not entirely convinced - what if the numbers work out best if you have a Romford and Brentwood or Dartford and Crayford? The Greater London boundary isn't always clear cut on the ground. |
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Post by timrollpickering on Mar 25, 2020 15:21:12 GMT
You have to draw the line somewhere and the use of the regions has given some fixed boundaries to make a reasonably manageable task within them. If you don't nail down the London boundary then just where is the limit or can modifications in Dover have knock on effects in North Norfolk?
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Post by greenchristian on Mar 25, 2020 15:40:11 GMT
I’d pretty much stick with the European Parliament constituencies (or whatever were calling them). We need some way of breaking the review into reasonably manageable chunks and I’m not convinced by county allocation (inequality and just don’t think they’re as sacred as some others). Not to mention that there are some areas where using county boundaries would give you very little wriggle-room if the numbers prove difficult. In the second zombie review, pretty much everybody agreed that the best way to deal with Coventry being too small for three seats was to cross the border into Warwickshire (the only submission that didn't have a Coventry South and Kenilworth constituency was Labour's very awkward attempt to combine Coventry with Bedworth). In this particular case you have a single ward connecting Coventry with the rest of the West Midlands county and a single ward in Rugby which connects the north and south of Warwickshire. Which gives you very few options for finding constituencies that satisfy the various factors that are supposed to be taken into account.
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Post by La Fontaine on Mar 25, 2020 16:24:12 GMT
They should increase the tolerance limit from 5% to 10%, really, especially given that it will make many metropolitan constituencies messy to say the least. That means adjacent constituencies could vary by 20 percent. Also, it gives the BC a lot of discretion. From my experience of them, that's not a good idea. |
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Post by La Fontaine on Mar 25, 2020 16:30:20 GMT
They are not European Parliament constituencies, they are the standard regions of England. There haven't been any European Parliament constituencies since 1999, although they do indeed live on in ghostly form as the regional top-up areas for the Scottish Parliament and Senedd. No, they were European Parliamentary constituencies from 1999 to 2020. I believe that's how they are referred to in the current legislation. |
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Post by John Chanin on Mar 25, 2020 16:37:52 GMT
You have to draw the line somewhere and the use of the regions has given some fixed boundaries to make a reasonably manageable task within them. If you don't nail down the London boundary then just where is the limit or can modifications in Dover have knock on effects in North Norfolk? It really isn’t that difficult to start with a blank slate, and link counties (and unitaries) so that each collection is close to a whole number, of seats, and the total adds up to 646. The only restriction I would impose is not to cross the borders of Scotland and Wales. I reckon I could cobble together two or three possibilities in a couple of hours, and if I can do it, so can the Boundary Commissions. They then shove their preferred option out for consultation to see if anyone can come up with something better. Generally the closer the groupings are to whole numbers, the easier it then is to get sensible seats of roughly equal size within each grouping. And you don’t have to be rigid about it when you get into the detail. For example at the last zombie review one of the Birmingham problems was solved at a late stage by adding in a couple of Worcestershire wards. We just need competent numerate people in the Boundary Commissions. |
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Post by Davıd Boothroyd on Mar 25, 2020 17:42:08 GMT
They are not European Parliament constituencies, they are the standard regions of England. There haven't been any European Parliament constituencies since 1999, although they do indeed live on in ghostly form as the regional top-up areas for the Scottish Parliament and Senedd. No, they were European Parliamentary constituencies from 1999 to 2020. I believe that's how they are referred to in the current legislation. Sure about that? www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1999/1/pdfs/ukpga_19990001_en.pdf |
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Post by La Fontaine on Mar 25, 2020 18:24:17 GMT
I had forgotten that the 2011 legislation did not actually prescribe the regions. The BCE did, and referred to them as European Parliamentary constituencies or some such. I remember being slightly surprised at this. I don't know what is meant by English standard regions nowadays. |
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Post by 🏴☠️ Neath West 🏴☠️ on Mar 25, 2020 19:18:10 GMT
I hope it's replaced by ceremonial counties, paired if necessary. The problem with pairing counties is that they may need to be unpaired 8 years later, and new pairs found, which is unnecessarily disruptive. It's better to have a tolerance that allows counties to be kept whole, as it were, except for a few small counties which are statutorily paired, eg. Rutland with Leicestershire, Herefordshire with Worcestershire. Rutland with Lincolnshire and Herefordshire with Shropshire would make more sense (or actually, better still, Herefordshire and Monmouthshire, and Shropshire and Powys, but that would upset the Plaidies). Ted Heath's local government blunders should go the way of his EEC. |
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Post by 🏴☠️ Neath West 🏴☠️ on Mar 25, 2020 19:22:25 GMT
You have to draw the line somewhere and the use of the regions has given some fixed boundaries to make a reasonably manageable task within them. If you don't nail down the London boundary then just where is the limit or can modifications in Dover have knock on effects in North Norfolk? But the Euro-regions make no sense. We saw that with the 650 review, when putting Milton Keynes in the East Midlands (also describable as pairing Buckinghamshire and Northamptonshire) would have solved all sorts of problems. The awful unnecessary mess this made of Leicestershire was absurd. |
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Post by therealriga on Mar 25, 2020 19:41:17 GMT
Since they want to keep it tight, 5% target but with the option of going up to 7.5% deviation if the lower limit would force them to cross county boundaries. Reviews every ten years, but I think there should be a defined mechanism for interim reviews, say if any constituency deviates by more than 15% from the 646-seat national average. That might mean some variation in seat numbers, say a region gaining or losing a seat as a result of several adjacent seats being over or undersized, but the decennial review would bring it back to 650.
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Post by La Fontaine on Mar 25, 2020 19:55:21 GMT
In practice, I think the BCE is unlikely to change its regional allocation strategy. Except, however, that there must be a chance that the north east will be lumped in with Yorkshire. Post Brexit, there is a little less reason not to do so.
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Post by jamie on Mar 25, 2020 20:03:36 GMT
Except, however, that there must be a chance that the north east will be lumped in with Yorkshire. Post Brexit, there is a little less reason not to do so. I think not! (although the Labour gerrymander proposal for Teesdale would be entertaining). |
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Post by greenhert on Mar 26, 2020 17:24:39 GMT
They should increase the tolerance limit from 5% to 10%, really, especially given that it will make many metropolitan constituencies messy to say the least. That means adjacent constituencies could vary by 20 percent. Also, it gives the BC a lot of discretion. From my experience of them, that's not a good idea. 22.22 percent, actually, but my suggested 10% limit (in line with the tolerance permitted by the LGBCE in most circumstances when redrawing wards) is actually a lower tolerance limit than that of Germany or Lithuania (15%) regarding their single member constituencies. |
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Post by therealriga on Mar 26, 2020 19:19:12 GMT
That means adjacent constituencies could vary by 20 percent. Also, it gives the BC a lot of discretion. From my experience of them, that's not a good idea. 21 percent, actually, but my suggested 10% limit (in line with the tolerance permitted by the LGBCE in most circumstances when redrawing wards) is actually a lower tolerance limit than that of Germany or Lithuania (15%) regarding their single member constituencies. Yep, Germany has 15%, with a review triggered when a constituency deviates by 25% from the national average. It used to be more. Until 2002, a 25% tolerance was allowed with 33% being the trigger point for any review. |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 26, 2020 22:31:08 GMT
However with a mixed-member system electoral equality becomes less important because the constituency results have much less - if any - impact on the overall result.
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Post by La Fontaine on Mar 27, 2020 9:04:07 GMT
Bit baffled by the "21percent". There's no rounding.
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Post by islington on Mar 27, 2020 15:15:19 GMT
I make it 22% actually, or 22.222...% to be exact.
In other words, 110% of something exceeds 90% of it by 22%.
Anyway, it's too much.
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Post by La Fontaine on Mar 27, 2020 15:49:16 GMT
I make it 22% actually, or 22.222...% to be exact. In other words, 110% of something exceeds 90% of it by 22%. Anyway, it's too much. But they vary by 20 percent of the quota. |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 27, 2020 17:02:49 GMT
Except, however, that there must be a chance that the north east will be lumped in with Yorkshire. Post Brexit, there is a little less reason not to do so. I think not! (although the Labour gerrymander proposal for Teesdale would be entertaining). It would basically involve hacking both Middlesbrough and Stockton to pieces and combing the right bits of those with the right bits of Darlington and Redcar/Cleveland. The rest of Cleveland gets shoved in with Whitby, Scarborough takes in some of the current Thirsk and Malton seat. Eventually the aim is to have enough of a knock on effect to justify ripping a few Tory wards out of York and dividing it North/South rather than Central/Outer with both seats of the minimum size allowed. |
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