piperdave
SNP
Dalkeith; Midlothian/North & Musselburgh
Posts: 911
|
Post by piperdave on Apr 7, 2024 20:05:31 GMT
The current government regions of England are based on the European Parliament regions which were created for the first PR elections in 1999. The South East England euro-constituency was the largest in the UK at the time, representing over 6 million electors across 83 Westminster constituencies. Following the recent boundary review, the South East region will soon comprise more than 7 million electors across 91 Westminster constituencies.
Coming in behind the South East in 1999 was North West England which had more than 5 million electors and 76 Westminster constituencies. Now, Greater London is the second largest region with over 5.5 million electors across 75 constituencies come the next general election.
My question for the forum is should the South East be broken in two? Personally, my answer is yes, and I would probably have always split it into two. I would have a South Central region made up of Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. The new South east region would be Surrey, Kent, East and West Sussex.
The new regions would be roughly equal in size. South Central would have an entitlement to 44 Westminster constituencies as per the boundary review and South East would get 47. I note the Boundary Commission decided to cross the Hampshire / Surrey border to create a constituency which they presumably would not have done had this regional split been in place, as per the boundary rules.
With the demise of representation in Strasbourg, it doesn't massively matter what these administrative regional boundaries are. Just a bit of fun! But curious to see what others make of it, and if folk would propose any other changes.
|
|
|
|
Post by Pete Whitehead on Apr 7, 2024 20:26:18 GMT
They also crossed the Berkshire/Surrey border. Had your regions been in place they would have had to create a cross border Berkshire/Hampshire seat - I expect we could have a lively discussion on here about what that might look like.
I agree the South East region is too large and incohesive. Surrey, Sussex and Kent absolutely form a logical unit but there aren't reeally strong links between the Northern Thames Valley and most of Hampshire. Hampshire and IoW more logically link with Dorset while the Thames Valley link better to Herts and Beds in a Chiltern region. It depends if you were drawing up some potential administrative regions (in which case the South West is also too large (geographically) and incoherent) or merely using them for the convenience of electoral regions. Since we no longer return MEPs, the only purpose of the latter is to apportion parliamentary constituencies and there's no inherent reason why regions are necessary for this purpose
|
|
J.G.Harston
Lib Dem
Leave-voting Brexit-supporting Liberal Democrat
Posts: 14,840 
|
Post by J.G.Harston on Apr 7, 2024 23:51:03 GMT
The current government regions of England are based on the European Parliament regions which were created for the first PR elections in 1999. I thought it was the other way around, the European Parliament regions were formed from the pre-existing government regions. |
|
Harry Hayfield
Green
Cavalier Gentleman (as in 17th century Cavalier)
Posts: 2,922
|
Post by Harry Hayfield on Apr 8, 2024 6:36:57 GMT
The old pre EU parliament region was the current South East plus the counties of Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire and Essex, therefore one possible answer would be to create four new regions.
The Cotswolds: Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire
The South Coast: Hampshire, West Sussex, East Sussex, Isle of Wight
The Home Counties: Surrey. Kent
The Commuter Belt: Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Essex
|
|
Merseymike
Independent
Posts: 40,562
Member is Online
|
Post by Merseymike on Apr 8, 2024 7:45:17 GMT
The old pre EU parliament region was the current South East plus the counties of Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire and Essex, therefore one possible answer would be to create four new regions. The Cotswolds: Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire The South Coast: Hampshire, West Sussex, East Sussex, Isle of Wight The Home Counties: Surrey. Kent The Commuter Belt: Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Essex Not the Cotswolds!! Thames Valley? |
|
|
|
Post by evergreenadam on Apr 8, 2024 16:02:06 GMT
The old pre EU parliament region was the current South East plus the counties of Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire and Essex, therefore one possible answer would be to create four new regions. The Cotswolds: Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire The South Coast: Hampshire, West Sussex, East Sussex, Isle of Wight The Home Counties: Surrey. Kent The Commuter Belt: Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Essex Not the Cotswolds!! Thames Valley? Not the Home Counties either as that has a specific definition. |
|
|
|
Post by jamesdoyle on Apr 9, 2024 8:44:14 GMT
Not the Cotswolds!! Thames Valley? Not the Home Counties either as that has a specific definition. The Home Counties have about a dozen different definitions |
|
|
|
Post by islington on Apr 12, 2024 12:49:46 GMT
They also crossed the Berkshire/Surrey border. Had your regions been in place they would have had to create a cross border Berkshire/Hampshire seat - I expect we could have a lively discussion on here about what that might look like. I agree the South East region is too large and incohesive. Surrey, Sussex and Kent absolutely form a logical unit but there aren't reeally strong links between the Northern Thames Valley and most of Hampshire. Hampshire and IoW more logically link with Dorset while the Thames Valley link better to Herts and Beds in a Chiltern region. It depends if you were drawing up some potential administrative regions (in which case the South West is also too large (geographically) and incoherent) or merely using them for the convenience of electoral regions. Since we no longer return MEPs, the only purpose of the latter is to apportion parliamentary constituencies and there's no inherent reason why regions are necessary for this purposeThis is intellectually an appealing position but there's a snag, and it's illustrated by the recent thread about a 600-seat House based on current rules. There was a proposal by nyx to assign 14 seats to Oxon/Bucks, with Berks 8, Surrey 11, and 24 seats to Kent + E Sx. I counterproposed to treat Kent and E Sx separately with 17 and 8 respectively, Oxon separately with 6, Slough + Spelthorne = 2, rdr Surry = 10, and Bucks with Berks (excl Slough) = 14. Both schemes add up correctly, but the effect of my suggestion, compared with the nyx plan, is to shift an entire seat into the eastern part of the region at the expense of the western part. This is possible only because SE is such a large region; if it were divided, say on the lines suggested by piperdave , then it would become much more difficult, perhaps impossible, to engage in this kind of wholesale shifting of an entire seat.
So I think that under the current rules, the problem with getting rid of the English regions - in effect treating the whole of England (bar the IoW) as a single region - is that it would open up the possibility of economizing on seats in one part of England by drawing boundaries that were mostly on the large side (whilst not exceeding the 5% tolerance) in order to shift representation to another area, perhaps a completely different of the country, where the seats would then be drawn relatively small (whilst staying above the minimum).
For instance, it was a notable mathematical quirk of the 2023 review that the apportionment of seats under the objective formula used by the BCE meant that London received one seat fewer than its entitlement based on dividing its electorate by the UK quota. Given the rules, and the use of English regions, this was unavoidable and so far as I know, no one queried it. But if England had been treated as a single region, it would have been tempting to 'save' a seat elsewhere in England, probably by some ingenious combination of counties somewhere, so that London could receive its 'proper' allocation.
Would this be a serious problem in practice? I'm not sure; but it does open up a potential complication so I can see why the BCE might reasonably prefer to operate on a basis that determines how many seats are awarded to each part of the country, so that all proposals have to operate within that constraint.
On the specific issue raised by the original post, I'd leave SE region as it is for now but if its entitlement gets to 100 seats I'd be minded to split it in two along the lines proposed.
|
|
|
|
Post by East Anglian Lefty on Apr 12, 2024 13:30:59 GMT
I'd take the view that the simplest option is to treat each county or county-equivalent as its own region. Where this doesn't lend itself to an arrangement with all seats within 5%, the legislation allows regions to be combined, but it would mean that a) the Commission would have to try harder to find ways to avoid crossing county boundaries than it did this time and b) that where it was necessary, they could pick better options (eg rather having to combine Berkshire with Hampshire/Surrey or Wiltshire with Gloucestershire, you could just have combined West Berkshire with East Wiltshire and minimised disruption all round.
|
|
|
|
Post by greenhert on Apr 12, 2024 20:35:15 GMT
Not the Home Counties either as that has a specific definition. The Home Counties have about a dozen different definitions The Home Counties are basically the (overall) affluent counties surrounding Greater London: Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Kent, and Surrey. |
|
|
|
Post by jamesdoyle on Apr 12, 2024 20:42:48 GMT
|
|
J.G.Harston
Lib Dem
Leave-voting Brexit-supporting Liberal Democrat
Posts: 14,840
|
Post by J.G.Harston on Apr 12, 2024 20:44:09 GMT
The Home Counties have about a dozen different definitions The Home Counties are basically the (overall) affluent counties surrounding Greater London: Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Kent, and Surrey. An early definition was that the Home Counties were where "it has been possible for civil servants and politicians to have their country homes and still be able to travel into London without excessive delay when they were needed". So.... Birmingham? |
|
|
|
Post by jamesdoyle on Apr 12, 2024 20:51:39 GMT
The Home Counties are basically the (overall) affluent counties surrounding Greater London: Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Kent, and Surrey. An early definition was that the Home Counties were where "it has been possible for civil servants and politicians to have their country homes and still be able to travel into London without excessive delay when they were needed". So.... Birmingham? Tuscany and the Dordogne, surely? |
|
