Second Periodical Review of Scottish Parliament boundaries

[piperdave]

Before you all get excited, no – there has been no announcement of the review officially commencing!

I post this because we are at the halfway point of the period for the Local Government Boundary Commission for Scotland (LGBCS) to issue the second periodical review of Scottish Parliament boundaries. A report must be submitted to the Scottish Ministers between 1 May 2018 and 1 May 2022. National Records for Scotland also published the annual electoral statistics last week.

For those of you who want to geek out on the full rules on the
review process and also designing the constituencies and regions, they
are contained in Schedule 1 to the Scotland Act 1998.

There have been changes to the Scottish electoral landscape by several pieces of legislation since the last boundary review. These include the Scottish Elections (Reduction of Voting Age) Act 2015, the Scotland Act 2016, the Islands (Scotland) Act 2018, the Scottish Elections (Franchise and Representation) Act 2020. What do all these do and how will they affect the review? Let's find out!

The Franchise

Since the publication of the last review in 2010, several changes have been made to the local government franchise in Scotland, which is the eligible electorate for elections to the Scottish Parliament. These include reducing the voting age to 16 and enfranchising prisoners serving a sentence of less than 12 months. Prisoner voting was introduced temporarily for the Shetland by-election last year but is now on a permanent footing.

The Scottish Parliament has also agreed to extend the franchise to “qualifying foreign nationals”, i.e. any foreign national who has leave to remain, or does not require such leave, and would otherwise be eligible to be registered. This change has not yet been commenced although this will likely happen in time for the 2021 election.

The changes to prisoner and foreign national voting may mean the LGBCS decides to delay the start of the review until after the conclusion of the 2020 annual canvass so they have better data on the enlarged electorate, but that presents its own issue.

Timescales and process
The first periodic review lasted nearly three years, from July 2007 to May 2010. Clearly, the second review will have to be completed much more quickly as there are only two years until the report must be submitted. On that basis, it seems unlikely that new boundaries will be in place in time for the 2021 Scottish Parliamentary election.

The review process is the one we were all used to before the Cameron-Clegg Government starting mucking around with it. There will be provisional recommendations for the constituencies first and then a month for public comment, there might be revised recommendations for some areas which will then have another month for comment. There is also the possibility of local inquires for particularly contentious proposals. After the constituencies are settled, the process starts again for the regions and follows the same path.

Constituencies

As a consequence of the Islands Act, na h-Eileanan an Iar is now a protected constituency in addition to Orkney and Shetland. The rest of Scotland is to be divided into 70 constituencies. Based on the published figures from the NRS, the quota would be around 58,715 electors and the overall outcome might be an extra constituency in the Lothians and one fewer in the West Scotland region, probably in Renfrewshire.

However, the figures published by NRS come with the caveat that EROs in Scotland published the revised registers at different times. Ten published in November 2019, one in early December 2019 and 4 others published in February 2020, so the stats aren’t directly comparable from area to area. Certainly for those who published in November, their stats won't include any surge in registrations for the last UK General Election.

Regions

Once the constituencies have been finalised, they can then be grouped into 8 regions of relatively equal electorates, each to return 7 MSPs. Again, based on the most recent electoral statistics, the average size would be 521,000 electors. Highlands and Islands will likely stay at 8 constituencies, including the three protected islands constituencies, so will have a lower electorate. Most of the rest will contain 9 constituencies but two regions will have 10 constituencies.

So I leave this all here, ready and waiting for the starting pistol to fire!

[Deleted]

Bring on the names!

[piperdave]

Overall I think most constituencies will remain the same, a little tidying up here and there. Except for the Lothians. My plans so far include Linlithgow & Queensferry and Lothian West!

[andrewteale]

May 2, 2020 22:30:39 GMT piperdave said:

Before you all get excited, no – there has been no announcement of the review officially commencing!

I post this because we are at the halfway point of the period for the Local Government Boundary Commission for Scotland (LGBCS) to issue the second periodical review of Scottish Parliament boundaries. A report must be submitted to the Scottish Ministers between 1 May 2018 and 1 May 2022. National Records for Scotland also published the annual electoral statistics last week.

Hmmm. We're still waiting for the ONS 2019 electoral statistics release which was due in March.

[Deleted]

Using that link - 3,988,600 (Westminster) electors in Scotland, divided by the existing 59 constituencies: 67,603.389 electors per seat. The Seventh/Eighth review of Westminster constituencies will perhaps not have such a difficult time of it after all.

[piperdave]

I hadn't noticed the Scottish Elections (Reform) Act 2020 was passed in June and section 32 delays the latest date for the next boundary review until May 2025.

[Foggy]

Oct 9, 2020 16:52:31 GMT piperdave said:

I hadn't noticed the Scottish Elections (Reform) Act 2020 was passed in June and section 32 delays the latest date for the next boundary review until May 2025.

Specifically that section is entitled "timing of first report" so that's the date by which the review should finish rather than the commencement date.

I suspect the original timing was based on the assumption that the seventh Holyrood election would take place in 2019, but the move to five-year terms has given them a bit more breathing space.

[Eastwood]

So I had a thought after posting on the Scottish Politics thread. Can I gerrymander a 2021 SNP majority just by rejigging the existing Constituencies amongst the regions.

I've come up with a plan that doesn't look too awful on a map:

Highlands and Islands gains Dumbarton to improve electorate equality and reduce the number of 10 Constituency regions to 1 (NE Scotland)

West Scotland covers all of Ayrshire to improve community cohesion:
Gains Kilmarnock & Irvine Valley, Ayr, Carrick Cumnock & Doon Valley
Dumbarton to Highlands and Islands
Clydebank & Milngavie and Strathkelvin & Bearsden to Central Scotland
Eastwood to South Scotland

South Scotland is reduced in size to make it easier to represent by having more of the M74 corridor and excluding Ayrshire:
Gains Eastwood,  Hamilton, Larkhall & Stonehouse, East Kilbride
Loses Kilmarnock & Irvine Valley, Ayr, Carrick, Cumnock & Doon Valley

Central Scotland has an improved focus on north and east of Glasgow:
Gains Clydebank & Milngavie and Strathkelvin & Bearsden
Loses Hamilton, Larkhall & Stonehouse and East Kilbride

Who could object to any of that?

Without having done any actual maths and with the 2021 results not yet fully counted my rough guess is that those changes would definitely give the SNP an increase of 1in South Scotland and possibly also 1 in Highlands and Islands using the 2021 results.