By Mark Smulian | 13 September 2011
Controversial planned changes to the parliamentary constituency maps of England and Northern Ireland would not increase the costs of running elections, according to election expert John Turner.
Turner, chief executive of the Association of Electoral Administrators, told Public Finance that the changes would ‘not really have any impact on administration cost except at the margins, because while some seats will be larger and more complex, there will be fewer overall’.
The proposals, published today for England and NorthernIreland, are part of a planned reduction of the House of Commons from 650 to 600 MPs included in the Coalition agreement. Proposals for Scotland are due to be published next month and for Wales in January.
The changed boundaries also seek to make constituency populations more even. Each constituency is designed to be within 5% above or below a quota of 76,641 voters. Only 77 seats have been left unchanged. In many cases, new constituencies will cross both local authority and county boundaries.
Conservatives have claimed that the present boundaries favour Labour because it had a large number of urban seats with small electorates.
Boundary Commission for England secretary Simon James said: ‘Parliament has set clear rules on what we can and can’t do when it comes to developing our initial proposals. [We were] given clear principles and from that starting point we have found a solution that we think best meets Parliament’s rules and now we want to know what people think of our initial proposals.’
Proposals from the Boundary Commission for Northern Ireland show two seats would be lost, one in Belfast and one in the province’s west, taking its total down to 16.
This would also mean a reduction in 12 in the number of Northern Ireland Assembly members, since Westminster boundaries are also used for Stormont seats, with each constituency returning 12 members.
The consultation in England runs until December 5 and Northern Ireland until December 2.
