Sixth Periodic Review (Redux)

[greatkingrat]

May 26, 2015 19:53:30 GMT kevinlarkin said:

May 26, 2015 18:27:08 GMT Khunanup said:

The electorates, and therefore the wards used, will be December 2015 so we know exactly what they are in Wales and pretty much everywhere else, apart from places that have reviews that will be finalised before then.

The legislation makes it clear that the wards to be used are the wards at the time of the last ordinary elections held in each local authority area prior to the commencement of the review. This is the May 2015 wards for almost everywhere in England, even if reviews taking effect in 2016 or later have been completed before December (so it will be the old wards in Sheffield, Peterborough, Colchester, Lincoln and Woking). In Wales and Scotland it will be the May 2012 ward boundaries and in Northern Ireland the full re-warding first used in May 2014.

Although that may change. One of the recommendations of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee was that the Boundary Commission should be allowed to take account of new wards that had been agreed, but not yet used.

[kevinlarkin]

May 26, 2015 20:59:34 GMT greatkingrat said:

May 26, 2015 19:53:30 GMT kevinlarkin said:

The legislation makes it clear that the wards to be used are the wards at the time of the last ordinary elections held in each local authority area prior to the commencement of the review. This is the May 2015 wards for almost everywhere in England, even if reviews taking effect in 2016 or later have been completed before December (so it will be the old wards in Sheffield, Peterborough, Colchester, Lincoln and Woking). In Wales and Scotland it will be the May 2012 ward boundaries and in Northern Ireland the full re-warding first used in May 2014.

Although that may change. One of the recommendations of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee was that the Boundary Commission should be allowed to take account of new wards that had been agreed, but not yet used.

True, although the previous government ignored almost all the recommendations of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee and the present government has abolished it. We should find out quite soon whether there will be an attempt to amend the legislation, if not in the Queen's Speech tomorrow, as it stands the process restarts in October.
The Conservatives might find it easier to stick with the current legislation including the reduction to 600 seats than attempt to amend a law that several of their backbenchers opposed first time round.

[ohhowshechanged]

May 26, 2015 15:10:06 GMT East Anglian Lefty said:

Starting to take a look at this for Eastern England using the general election constituency electorates. Essex and Norfolk can both retain their current number of seats. Cambridgeshire definitely gains one and Suffolk just about deserves an eighth seat, but with a 5% limit it'd realistically have to be paired with Cambridgeshire.

As Pete says, there's a large amount of guesswork where we don't have up to date ward electorates. However, I've got up to date parish figures for Cambridgeshire and Suffolk and changes have been fairly limited since 2010 in Essex, so I think I can do best guesses for all three.

Essex:

Theoretical entitlement to 18.07 seats including the unitaries, so obviously no need to pair it. My figures have an English quota of 71593 rather than 71420 (and England getting 540 seats instead of 539), but this arrangement would probably work easier with the lower figure anyway so I don't think it signifies.

5% limit means nothing smaller than 68,014, which requires changes to Basildon & Billericay; Harlow; Southend West; and Witham. Also means nothing larger than 75173, which requires changes to Chelmsford; Rayleigh & Wickford; Saffron Walden; and Thurrock. All the rest are within the limit, though only by a couple of hundred in Castle Point's case. Ward reviews have recently completed or are in their final stage in Braintree; Colchester; Rochford; and Uttlesford districts and hence new constituency boundaries must follow those.



Beginning in the north-east, Clacton can stay as is. Harwich & North Essex must lose East Donyland ward, all of which will be moved into Colchester wards from 2016, but will gain most of the present Lexden ward. This makes the inclusion of Mersea in the seat even odder, but the new ward boundaries make it difficult to avoid without a messy split of Colchester. Aside from the aforementioned swaps, Colchester needs no further change.

Witham then heads north to re-align with ward boundaries. That probably makes Braintree undersized, so I picked off a few Uttlesford wards (fitting as closely to new ward boundaries as possible), which also gets Saffron Walden within the acceptable range.

The removal of Galleywood ward from Chelmsford to Maldon should get both within quota. Harlow gains one ward from Epping Forest and Brentwood & Ongar is unchanged.

Thurrock needs to lose a ward and Chadwell St. Mary seems like the only vaguely justifiable option. South Basildon & East Thurrock then needs to pass a ward on to Basildon & Billericay and Vange seems like the best bet. Castle Point can stay as is, assuming nobody prunes the register there any time soon.

Southend West needs to gain a ward and Victoria is probably the best option. The boundary changes in Rochford are a bit of a bugger, but I think aligning with ward boundaries then moving the Hawkwell wards into Rochford & Southend East should make both it and Rayleigh & Wickford pass muster, if only barely.

Net electoral impact is minimal - Conservatives slightly safer in Thurrock but not enough to win in an even year, everywhere else much of a mucHahness.

Has it been done with a 5% limit or 10%. There is a lot of talk of 10%, no show that the limit will be relaxed. THe current law says 5%.

[cibwr]

May 26, 2015 18:27:08 GMT Khunanup said:

May 26, 2015 18:07:36 GMT cibwr said:

I tend to agree Richard, and we still have no idea what the local government map - let alone ward structure in Wales will be, which makes the Welsh exercise doubly irrelevant at the moment.

The electorates, and therefore the wards used, will be December 2015 so we know exactly what they are in Wales and pretty much everywhere else, apart from places that have reviews that will be finalised before then.

Thank you for that clarification, I suspect then another major reorganisation at the following election after major rewarding next year.

[Crimson King]

I guess we will know a bit more by this evening

[East Anglian Lefty]

May 26, 2015 18:24:46 GMT ntyuk1707 said:

May 26, 2015 18:20:45 GMT East Anglian Lefty said:

I dislike rather more than that, but those two seats are as close to the current arrangement as I could get them. The Boundary Commission will, all things being equal, tend to prefer a least change option. What specifically bothers you about those?

Mainly that Rockford hangs off of the Southend East constituency when it would probably make more geographic sense to group it with Southend West and bring the boundaries in a more 'flowing' line through Southend. The name would probably make more sense being 'Southend East, (Rochford - if you're going to keep it in that constituency) & Wakering (or Foulness Island)'.

If you have the room then you could just add the ward north of the Wakering/Foulness Island electoral ward onto the constituency (it's within Chelmsford constituency I believe). 

The ward to the north of Wakering (Ashingdon & Canewdon) is an option if the current boundaries are used, but not if the new boundaries are used - both because of size and because the largest portion of it will go with part of Hockley and you certainly couldn't include Hockley in toto.

The idea of a Southend East seat isn't a bad one (presumably you'd just remove the Rochford portions and add Chalkwell and Westborough). I doubt you'd be able to justify the change to a Boundary Commission unless Rochford & Southend East had to split a town to get electoral equality, though.

May 26, 2015 21:55:24 GMT ohhowshechanged said:

Has it been done with a 5% limit or 10%. There is a lot of talk of 10%, no show that the limit will be relaxed. THe current law says 5%.

5% - a few may be out by a percent or so, but only around Southend is it likely to require changes more significant than shifting a rural ward from one seat to another.

[East Anglian Lefty]

According to my figures, Cambridgeshire has an entitlement to 8.14 seats and Suffolk to 7.62 seats. Both round to 8 seats, but unless you get implausibly lucky with ward sizes (and I think that's particularly unlikely in Ipswich), Suffolk needs to be paired if you're having a 5% limit. As both Norfolk and Essex can be retained with fairly minimal changes and as the boundary around Newmarket is arbitrary, Cambridgeshire is the natural partner.

In general Suffolk's electorate has been pretty static since 2010, whereas all of Cambridgeshire bar North East Cambs and Peterborough have seen sizeable increases in electorate. By and large this is what you'd expect, but Cambridge has seen a particularly sharp rise in the past year (see link for local electorate figures year by year). I'm told that the register looks to have a fair number of duplicates, especially in the student wards, probably related to reregistrations by people ensuring they didn't get caught out by IER. If those are pruned out soonish, that may mean Cambridge needs an extra ward than the one I've allowed it, which will cause a shuffling along elsewhere. Otherwise I'm reasonably confident I know where the greatest rises in electorate will have occurred, so I think all these are probably within 5%:

Cambridgeshire



Beginning in the north, Peterborough can remain unchanged. North East Cambridgeshire needs to shrink and it should be possible to make it co-terminous with Fenland DC, justifying a change of name to Fenland. North West Cambridgeshire currently has over 90,000 electors, so needs to slim down considerably. To promote electoral equality elsewhere, I've taken out Ramsey and everything to the south-east, though this does produce a somewhat ugly dogleg.

Huntingdon shifts north and effectively covers the eastern part of its district, whilst a new seat of South West Cambridgeshire is created along the A14 and A428 corridors, similar to what the 6th Review initially proposed.

Cambridge needs to drop two additional wards. Trumpington is an obvious candidate (it's ugly dogleg to the station notwithstanding) and Cherry Hinton makes sense, because then you put the whole south area in the same seat. There would be complaints, obviously.

South Cambridgeshire wheels about 90 degrees, becoming more southern in orientation. Ely is the replacement for the present South East Cambridgeshire and comprises the A10 corridor, reaching west as far as Sutton and east as far as Soham. The detached portion of Milton ward is an issue, but whatever happens it'll have no road link to the rest of the seat, so lack of contiguity doesn't strike me as a deal-breaker. If the Commission disagrees, they can always put Milton into South Cambs, Longstanton into Ely (which would keep Northstowe together, and that was the justification for the present boundary) and any single-member ward into South West.

Suffolk



The cross-county Newmarket seat came out looking nicer than I expected. The town itself, those bits of East Cambs that look to it, the rest of Forest Heath and some northern areas of St. Edmundsbury that are mostly already in West Suffolk anyway. Bury St Edmunds then loses Stowmarket and gains Haverhill, meaning that it'd all be in St Edmundsbury.

South Suffolk can become co-terminous with Babergh DC, but there's no need to rename it, because who calls the area Babergh? Ipswich is towards the upper end of the acceptable variance, but if you removed a ward it'd probably be undersized and if you can keep it unchanged it probably will be.

Central Suffolk & North Ipswich is under this scheme primarily made up of areas that were in Bury St Edmunds, but is now less of a grab-bag of unconnected areas. A name-change would be easy to justify.

Felixstowe is the successor to Suffolk Coastal, dropping the northern end and adding Ipswich suburbs like Kesgrave. East Suffolk is then a new seat, distinguished primarily by not having any town with more than 6,000 inhabitants. I'm sure some people would like to see it named Eye, but that would be ridiculous. Waveney sheds areas south and west of Beccles.


Obviously both new seats would be Conservative. Waveney gets better for Labour (though not nearly enough to change the result this year and the impact is still less than we'll feel from not having Bob Blizzard on the ballot next time). In Cambridge we benefit from losing Trumpington, but the Lib Dems benefit more from losing Cherry Hinton. This is not the map I'd propose (I think there's a strong case for pairing Ipswich's surplus with Felixstowe instead of Stowmarket), but I think it's a reasonably fair least-change map.

[Davıd Boothroyd]

Just pause here to note that there is no announcement, in the Queen's Speech or in the associated briefing documents, of any amending Bill to the boundary process.

[Harry Hayfield]

May 27, 2015 13:35:36 GMT Davıd Boothroyd said:

Just pause here to note that there is no announcement, in the Queen's Speech or in the associated briefing documents, of any amending Bill to the boundary process.

I am so glad that someone else didn't hear it. I was wondering if I must have missed it as I was listening for the word "boundary"

[Crimson King]

I guess there is always 'other measures will be laid before you' but interesting non the less. On a technical point could the upcoming review process be amended by secondary legislation of some sort?

[The Bishop]

May 27, 2015 16:43:31 GMT Crimson King said:

I guess there is always 'other measures will be laid before you' but interesting non the less. On a technical point could the upcoming review process be amended by secondary legislation of some sort?

Its still clear as mud at the moment, then

It has been claimed that some changes at least could simply be made by statutory instrument - is this true?

[Deleted]

I can't see what those changes would be. All of the detail is written into the primary legislation at present.

[Crimson King]

that's what I was wondering, could somethings like the total number of MPs or the allowed variance be changed - I would think the former unlikely - imagine if the government could for example half the size of the HoC on a whim

[Deleted]

Bumping this thread whilst the other gets bogged down in Cornwallian considerations

[Harry Hayfield]

Having found the correct way of tallying winners in Excel (which I will now keep for future reference) and based on the % similarities between the seats in 2015 and the proposals announced in 2013, the 2015 general election on a 600 seat House would have been as follows:

Conservatives 314 seats* (+18 on 2010)
Labour 212 seats (-22 on 2010)
Scottish National Party 51 seats (+45 on 2010)
Democratic Unionists 8 seats (unchanged on 2010) assuming DUP / UUP pact in operation in 2010
Sinn Fein 5 seats (unchanged on 2010)
Liberal Democrats 3 seats (-44 on 2010)
Plaid Cymru 3 seats (+2 on 2010)
Social Democratic and Labour Party 2 seats (unchanged on 2010)
Green Party 1 seat (+1 on 2010)
Independent 1 seat (unchanged on 2010)
Conservative majority of 28 seats

* includes the Speaker

[Pete Whitehead]

Thats quite different from my own calculations on the neigbouring thread

Aug 29, 2015 21:02:25 GMT Pete Whitehead said:

	Actual				Notional
	Con	Lab	LD	Oth	Con	Lab	LD	Oth
London	27	45	1		29	39
East	52	4	1	1	50	4	1	1
South East	79	4		1	78	4		1
South West	51	4			48	5
East Midlands	32	14			30	14
West Midlands	34	25			34	20
North West	22	51	2		23	44	1
Yorkshire	19	33	2		19	31
North East	3	26			3	23
England	319	206	6	2	314	184	2	2
Wales	11	26	1	2	8	18	1	3
Scotland	1	1	1	56		1	1	50
NI				18				16
Total	331	233	8	78	322	203	4	71

Can you do a similar regional breakdown so we can see where the differences lie. Presumably the Lib Dem seat you have as being lost compared with mine is North Norfolk which I considered 'too close to call'. There look to be a number of seats you've awarded to Labour which I have as Tory

[Harry Hayfield]

East Midlands: Con 30 Lab 14
Eastern England: Con 52 Lab 4
Greater London: Lab 41 Con 27
North Eastern England: Lab 23 Con 3
North Western England: Lab 46 Con 21 Lib Dem 1
Scotland: SNP 51 Lib Dem 1
South Eastern England: Con 78 Lab 4 Green 1
South Western England: Con 49 Lab 4
Wales: Lab 20 Con 6 Plaid 3 Lib Dem 1
West Midlands: Con 32 Lab 22
Yorkshire: Lab 34 Con 16
Northern Ireland: 16
Totals: Con 314 Lab 212 SNP 51 Plaid 3 Lib Dem 3 NI 16

[Pete Whitehead]

OK - so looking at that we agree on the South East, the North East and the East Midlands. In the East of England you've got the Tories knocking out the UKIP and Lib Dem seats. I agreed that both were very close though having done some more detailed work on Essex I'm fairly confident that UKIP would have won Harwich & Clacton.
In London you've got Labour winning two extra seats at Tory expense, likewise the West Midlands and North West and three in Yorkshire. The two in Wales where we differ would be Gower & Swansea West and Cardiff North and Gwent SW which I reckon are narrowly Tory but could easily have gone the other way. In the South West you've obviously awarded Plymouth Devonport to the Tories and I am absolutely sure that the seat would have been Labour on those boundaries.
I'd like to know which other seats we differed on. You can see my detailed discussions for each region on the 600 seats thread.

[Deleted]

Unless I miss my guess, not one line of legislation relating to the review has been changed.