Eliminating cross-county constituencies

[East Anglian Lefty]

Earlier this week, I suggested that if you eliminated cross-county constituencies, most of the least popular constituencies offered by the Commission would rapidly fall by the wayside. This thread is an attempt to either demonstrate that, or to prove I had no idea what I was talking about.

At present the 5% rule and the practice of assigning seats to European regions necessitates the crossing of county boundaries. But that's a new system (and one that will rapidly make less and less sense, as we'll be leaving Europe and what little regional planning we do do these days doesn't generally use those administrative geographies.) Prior to the 6th Review, seats were assigned to preserved counties (broadly speaking, former metropolitan counties on the one hand, and shire counties and unitaries created from them on the other.) So what if we went back to that system, but with a little more concern for equalising electorates?

My methodology is as follows:

1. I assign an integer number of seats to each preserved county by simple rounding (you could use the harmonic mean, or St-Lague, or D'Hondt, but the former creates additional seats and the latter two don't change the outcome much but take more effort to work out.)
2. I work out the average size of a constituency in the preserved county, and make sure all my proposed seats are within 5% of that.
3. I also make sure they're within 10% of the national average.
4. If this is impossible (it might be with some small counties, though I'm going to follow the practice of earlier reviews in treating Rutland as Leicestershire and doing Herefordshire and Worcestershire together), then and only then can you combine two neighbouring counties.

I'm taking the North-East as my test case, because it's a small region I've frequently worked with and because the geographical constraints minimise the temptation to gerrymander.

Northumberland

Northumberland has an electorate of 232,448, which entitles it to 3.11 constituencies. That's within the 5% rule and it is possible to assign three seats wholly in the county under the present restrictions, but I figured I might as well take advantage of a little extra flexibility to draw neater seats:



Berwick & Ashington (75,406)
Hexham & Morpeth (76,906)
South East Northumberland (80,136)

The allowable seat range under my criteria would be 73,609 to 81,357, so there's no great difficulty involved.

Naturally the first seat won't be to everybody's taste and I can readily see why (though I'm increasingly happy with it, because regardless of the social differences it's much easier to get from Berwick to Ashington staying in the seat than it is to get from Cramlington to Hexham.)

But if you don't like it, you can always shift round Cramlington, Ashington and Morpeth for essentially the same result.

Tyne & Wear

Tyne & Wear has an electorate of 792,738, good for 10.60 constituencies. Again, you could do this under the current rules (though it'd look horrible), but if you use my criteria then the acceptable range is 68,464 to 75,670.

Within that you can just about assign two seats to North Tyneside, though you need to move three wards in each direction to get the two existing seats to work and look vaguely reasonable.

Sunderland could mathematically have three whole seats, but it's tight enough that I suspect it's not possible in practice and if it is it'll look abominable.

Gateshead is exactly the right size for two seats, but Newcastle is too small for three and unless somebody starts building a new bridge quickly you can't combine it with South Tyneside.

Taking all that into account, here's what I came up with:



North Tyneside (75,507) - actually the successor to Tynemouth, but this is the least terrible name I could think of
Tynemouth & Wallsend (75,538)
Newcastle Upon Tyne Central (68,944)
Newcastle Upon Tyne North (74,496)
Newcastle Upon Tyne West & Blaydon (70,829)
Gateshead (68,913)
Jarrow & Felling (69,909)
South Shields (70,109)
Washington & Sunderland West (71,848)
Sunderland Central (71,232) - unchanged
Houghton & Sunderland South (75,413)

Despite the name (it doesn't feel appropriate to call a seat containing Elswick Newcastle East), Newcastle Central is the abolished seat. In reality, Chi Onwurah would be eligible for North and Catherine McKinnell would be eligible for North and West. If you prefer, you could do a Tyne Bridge seat, in which case Gateshead would probably be the seat to nominally disappear.

County Durham

County Durham including Darlington has an electorate of 452,644, which entitles it to 6.05 seats. One of those can cover Darlington and the other five the current County Durham UA. The range here is from 79,213 to 71,669, so fairly close to the nationwide range.

Darlington more or less draws itself, but then you have to decide which Durham seat to eliminate. The natural candidate is Sedgefield, as it's already small before you consider the 10,000 electors it loses to Darlington. Another 12,000 electors then get Easington up to size. The problem is dividing up the rest without splitting Spennymoor three ways or tearing City of Durham away from its hinterland. This is the best I could manage without ending up with Barnard Castle in the same seat as Consett. I'm perfectly willing to believe there's a better solution:



Darlington (74,929) - co-extensive with the UA.
Bishop Auckland & Aycliffe (78,467)
North West Durham (73,830)
North Durham (77,303)
City of Durham (74,529) - I'd feel a lot happier about this if I'd managed to get Deerness ward in as well.
Easington (73,586)

Sedgefield would be the eliminated seat, and Phil Wilson wouldn't have an automatic claim to any other seat.

Cleveland

Yes, I know Cleveland isn't a county any more. But it was still used as a preserved county by the 5th Review, so I'm going to keep using it.

The area has an electorate of 396566, which entitles it to 5.30 constituencies. Round that down to five, and you've got a range from 82,446 (because no seat can be more than 110% of the nationwide quota) to 75,348.

There are 165,794 electors north of the Tees, which is too much for two constituencies, so the river has to be crossed. None of the authorities can stand alone.

Hartlepool stays whole, but it can't get up to the local quota without venturing into Billingham (or Stockton, I guess). However, you can then fit the rest of Stockton and Billingham into a single seat. Eaglescliffe goes with Thornaby and you then have to decide where in Middlesborough you want to find 30,000 electors. 20,000 electors from Redcar & Cleveland then end up in a Middlesborough-based seat.

This would be my best attempt at least-change, though in practice it'd look a lot neater if you split the Greater Eston area:



Hartlepool (78,310)
Stockton-on-Tees (79,572)
Thornaby & Middlesborough West (81,281)
Middlesborough East & Guisborough (78,977)
Redcar (78,426)

There are, I will confess, a fair amount of unlovely seats there - Teesside is, if anything, even worse this way. But there are, I'd argue, fewer utterly daft constituencies and this approach does make it easier to consider minimum change criteria, which reduces the likelihood of monstrosities such as you get every time the BCE decides to put Barnard Castle somewhere daft. However, I suspect the benefits are more obvious when we're dealing solely with shire counties, so that's where I'll turn to in my next few attempts.

[islington]

EAL -

When you get to the North West, are you planning to treat Wirral with Merseyside or Cheshire?

[East Anglian Lefty]

Merseyside, for the sake of consistency. Yes, that means a Wirral ward has to go into Riverside, but if I'm going to oppose cross-county boundaries generally, I can't see an excuse for making an exception there.

[islington]

EAL -

I don't know whether this is helpful (it's meant to be) but I'm not sure that a seat that puts a Wirral ward in with a Cheshire seat, say, or a Durham UA ward with Hartlepool, would be seen by those affected as a cross-county seat because both parts were in the same pre-1974 county and, as Foggy tirelessly points out, the old boundaries still resonate.

So I am tentatively suggesting a more limited 'cross-county' concept consisting seats that either
(a) comprise parts of two different two-tier counties; or
(b) comprise areas that fell into two different pre-1974 counties AND two different post-1974 counties.

This gets the numbers down a lot. In category (a), for instance, I ended up with only four; and I could have got rid of two of these, maybe three, had I prioritised it over other factors.

In category (b), I ended up with six. Again, not a huge number that could probably have been reduced.

[East Anglian Lefty]

I'm not convinced. The advantage of this approach is that rather than having nine different regions across the UK and having to take into account ward patterns in Sheffield when drawing seats in North Yorkshire, you can instead break it down to a larger number of units and have the quota there respond to local electorate sizes. If you decide to consider them as a group, this advantage disappears.

I'd be perfectly happy to consider a different set of preserved counties. But I think Hartlepool either has to be part of Cleveland, or it has to be part of Durham. You can't say that either is fine, or it's special pleading. And this is additionally complicated because, whilst some old boundaries resonate, not all of them do (and many of them only resonate with traditional counties bores - nobody sensible thinks dividing Greater Manchester between Cheshire and Lancashire would be a reasonable solution).

[Foggy]

Mar 19, 2017 20:58:36 GMT East Anglian Lefty said:

But I think Hartlepool either has to be part of Cleveland, or it has to be part of Durham. 

Then opt for the latter every time!

And this is additionally complicated because, whilst some old boundaries resonate, not all of them do (and many of them only resonate with traditional counties bores - nobody sensible thinks dividing Greater Manchester between Cheshire and Lancashire would be a reasonable solution).

Ahem. 

[East Anglian Lefty]

Mar 19, 2017 21:09:49 GMT Foggy said:

Mar 19, 2017 20:58:36 GMT East Anglian Lefty said:

But I think Hartlepool either has to be part of Cleveland, or it has to be part of Durham. 

Then opt for the latter every time!

And this is additionally complicated because, whilst some old boundaries resonate, not all of them do (and many of them only resonate with traditional counties bores - nobody sensible thinks dividing Greater Manchester between Cheshire and Lancashire would be a reasonable solution).

Ahem. 

You missed the emphasis. You are perfectly welcome to your mad views, but I see no reason to treat them as remotely credible. It isn't 1844 any more.

[Foggy]

Mar 19, 2017 22:08:02 GMT East Anglian Lefty said:

Mar 19, 2017 21:09:49 GMT Foggy said:

Then opt for the latter every time!

Ahem. 

You missed the emphasis. You are perfectly welcome to your mad views, but I see no reason to treat them as remotely credible. It isn't 1844 any more.

I'm not asking to go back to 1844. I want to see the borders back more or less as they were in 1971, or perhaps 1962 in the case of London and the Home Counties.

Nor am I pretending that uniformity and tradition are a panacea for all the current problems in local government, but I do think they'd be a good starting point. I see nothing "mad" about basing primary authorities on strong, historic identities.

[jamie]

Good idea and most of the seats are well drawn. A few points:
Agree about Cramlington and Hexham, and would extend that to Ponteland and Cramlington. Wansbeck and Blyth really have little to do with Hexham and Ponteland, which have always looked to Newcastle/Gateshead more.
Haven't checked the numbers, but North Tyneside looks a bit dodgy 😬 I would try and get all the coast from Tynemouth to Whitley Bay in one seat, same with Killingworth to Wideopen. On your current boundaries, I'd go for "North Shields and Wallsend" and "Whitley Bay".
Definitely Tyne Bridge over Blaydon + Newcastle West, excluding geography there's probably more links between Newcastle Central and Blaydon than Newcastle West.
I'd bite the bullet and go Middlesborough East + Eston, move Guisborough along with the Nunthorpe ward into Redcar, and adjust accordingly further west.

[Foggy]

Mar 19, 2017 23:08:06 GMT jamie said:

Definitely Tyne Bridge over Blaydon + Newcastle West, excluding geography there's probably more links between Newcastle Central and Blaydon than Newcastle West.

Either of those is still a cross-county seat, which contradicts the thread title. The constituencies along the Tees appear to follow the course of the river, though.

Even if we entertain the premise, it looks like EAL's system ends up being quite harsh on the North East as a fair few seats have more electors than would be allowed under the present system, with only 4 constituencies on Tyneside going the other way (and 3 of those only narrowly). It'll be interesting to find out which other regions benefit in this exercise, at least.

[greenhert]

NB: It is easier to avoid 'cross-county constituencies' if you use the traditional counties dating from before 1974 rather than the current administrative ones; many of them made no sense in reality (Merseyside and Humberside spring to mind).

Treating the Wirral with Cheshire (since it really is in Cheshire) is correct, as is treating the rest of Merseyside as Lancashire (which it really is). You can also go further by recreating (as much as possible) the old seats of Widnes, Runcorn, Warrington, and Newton in the process.

[Foggy]

Mar 19, 2017 23:22:08 GMT greenhert said:

Treating the Wirral with Cheshire (since it really is in Cheshire) is correct, as is treating the rest of Merseyside as Lancashire (which it really is). You can also go further by recreating (as much as possible) the old seats of Widnes, Runcorn, Warrington, and Newton in the process.

I appreciate the sentiment, but you'd really have to stretch the rules to resurrect Widnes and Runcorn as separate constituencies without making the seats in the surrounding areas atrocious.

[greenhert]

Mar 19, 2017 23:27:49 GMT Foggy said:

Mar 19, 2017 23:22:08 GMT greenhert said:

Treating the Wirral with Cheshire (since it really is in Cheshire) is correct, as is treating the rest of Merseyside as Lancashire (which it really is). You can also go further by recreating (as much as possible) the old seats of Widnes, Runcorn, Warrington, and Newton in the process.

I appreciate the sentiment, but you'd really have to stretch the rules to resurrect Widnes and Runcorn as separate constituencies without making the seats in the surrounding areas atrocious.

The way the Cheshire West & Chester UA and Chester East UA wards are drawn is a bigger problem. You can at least create the pre-1983 Wirral seat and stop Cheshire constituencies from taking in any Greater Manchester parts.

Compromises have to be made somewhere, I am afraid, due to the rules that we have to work under when suggesting new constituencies.

[jamie]

Mar 19, 2017 23:14:54 GMT Foggy said:

Mar 19, 2017 23:08:06 GMT jamie said:

Definitely Tyne Bridge over Blaydon + Newcastle West, excluding geography there's probably more links between Newcastle Central and Blaydon than Newcastle West.

Either of those is still a cross-county seat, which contradicts the thread title. The constituencies along the Tees appear to follow the course of the river, though.

Depends on your definition. If we use EALs boundaries, he doesn't cross the Derwent River which to many acts as a boundary between Northumberland and Durham. On anything but tradition (and even that's arguably shaky), the Blaydon area is more Northumberland than Durham. 

[islington]

Interesting point re a Haxham & Blaydon seat by Jamie Clark as our man on the spot. I proposed such a seat, originally suggested by EAL I believe, as the best way of not reviving Tyne Bridge. It qualifies as one of my six category (b) two-county seats because it comprises parts of two counties on boundaries both pre-1974 (Northumberland / Durham) and post-1974 (Northumberland / Tyne & Wear). I imagine it would have been a controversial seat, had the BCE proposed it, but - picking up Jamie's point - I suspect its cross-county nature would have been the least of the objections to it.

It really underlines my point, which is that cross-county seats, however you define them, aren't really a problem unless they're a problem. And in case that sounds pleonastic, what I mean is my issue with putting forward 'cross-county seats' as a problem that needs to be solved is that any definition of a 'cross-county seat' is likely to capture a number of proposed seats to which there would otherwise not have been any objection (or, at least, to which any objection would have been on grounds having nothing to do with counties).

So, getting down to specifics, seats in my category (a) (parts of two two-tier counties) are always likely to be objected to. But there needn't be all that many. The BCE clearly has more than it should have done; my plans ended up with only four (Kent / E Sussex; Staffs / Warwks; Leics / Notts; Cambs / Norfolk). The first two of these could easily have been got rid of, albeit at the price of some knock-on consequences that would have been awkward but not completely outrageous. I can't off-hand see how to get rid of Leics / Notts without creating a similar such seat crossing Leics and Nhants; while Cambs (entitlement 7.42) seems unavoidable.

In category (b), I ended up with only six. Of these, Hexham & Blaydon and Staines (Spelthorne district plus one ward of Slough) are quite unlikely to be objected to on cross-county grounds (there might be other objections, of course), and I'd have thought that the cross-county nature of Leominster & Ludlow would not be too much of an issue. Of the others, Rutland & Higham Ferrers would obviously have been controversial but can be defended on the grounds that (as the BCE proposal shows) it's the only way of avoiding a category (a) Leics / Nhants seat; while Shaftesbury & Westbury reflects the fact that Dorset (7.43) obviously has to be paired. And that leaves the biggie, Launceston & Bideford, which is inevitably going to be the most controversial of the lot.

So, of the six in category (b), there are two, arguably three, that are unlikely to be an issue unless we define 'cross-county seat' is a way that makes them into a problem that would not otherwise exist. So that leaves us with the other three (b) seats, plus the four (a) seats, where this is a substantial issue - seven seats in all, of which at least two could be got rid of if that were a priority.

So the question is whether some mechanism for waiving the 5% rule is a price worth paying for allowing us to treat counties like Dorset and Nhants separately, with seats that would inevitably be respectively much larger and much smaller than elsewhere in the country.

[carlton43]

A lot of good sense in the above Islington post as in all his posts. I prefer the 1970s county borders for the Foggy reasons and think they are important to people more than to politicians and bureaucrats. But I have no problem at all with the occasional cross border constituency where it makes sense and avoids a horrid 'Mid' constituency like the awful proposed Tonbridge in Kent. If the long-standing Bassetlaw can bear with an ancient name and contain two towns that hate each others guts, then a bit of cross border is no problem especially on those odd borders in the Midlands and East Anglia.

[jamie]

islington I've certainly warmed to Hexham and Blaydon recently, particularly if it's instead of the monstrosity that is Blaydon and Newcastle South West. Imo the perfect constituency for the Blaydon area (Blaydon, Rowlands Gill, Crawcrook etc), would be if they were combined with Whickham (and by extension Dunston) and Prudhoe + Wylam. The Blaydon area's main links are with Gateshead, Newcastle city centre and to some extent South Northumberland around Hexham. The area really doesn't have any links with the areas that come under Durham council or West Newcastle (at best an area you drive through and a few major shops). This leaves 3 options, take in some of west Gateshead, take in Prudhoe + Wylam, or take in all of South Northumberland. Therefore, sticking to traditional counties really doesn't seem to create a good seat in this sort of area.

[East Anglian Lefty]

Mar 19, 2017 23:02:55 GMT Foggy said:

Mar 19, 2017 22:08:02 GMT East Anglian Lefty said:

You missed the emphasis. You are perfectly welcome to your mad views, but I see no reason to treat them as remotely credible. It isn't 1844 any more.

I'm not asking to go back to 1844. I want to see the borders back more or less as they were in 1971, or perhaps 1962 in the case of London and the Home Counties.

Nor am I pretending that uniformity and tradition are a panacea for all the current problems in local government, but I do think they'd be a good starting point. I see nothing "mad" about basing primary authorities on strong, historic identities.

That is to say, you're calling for the division of Greater Manchester in two. I'm sorry, but if you think Stockport has more in common with Nantwich than with Manchester, you're a nutter.

[Deleted]

Foggy I really, honestly, truly don't want to make it look across multiple threads like I'm hating you or owt....But....turning back the clock even to the 1970s seems completely weird.

By now, what is "Manchester", however managed, is not "Lancashire": it's not even "Wigan". Manchester itself, Greater Manchester more widely, is completely separated from whatever traditional county you wish to recreate.

Every town and city I can think of here in the North has moved on from whatever year you have freeze-framed from over 40 years ago.

[Foggy]

Mar 20, 2017 21:53:18 GMT doktorb🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ said:

Foggy I really, honestly, truly don't want to make it look across multiple threads like I'm hating you or owt.

I do not get that impression at all, my dear fellow. We merely have a profound disagreement on this topic and I have noted that I'm the minority on this. That doesn't mean I'm about to change my opinion, but it doesn't need to come across as if we are "hating" each other either.