‘Somewhat more disruptive than we had in mind’1: The Boundary Commission for England's 2011 Proposed Redistribution of Parliamentary Constituencies |
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| Authors: | RON JOHNSTON CHARLES PATTIE DAVID ROSSITER |
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| Institution: | 1. Professor in the School of Geographical Sciences at the University of Bristol who has been researching the work of the UK Boundary Commissions since the late 1970s.;2. Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Sheffield who has written widely on British elections.;3. Independent researcher who was formerly associated with the universities of Bristol, Leeds and Sheffield. |
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| Abstract: | In February 2011 the UK Parliament passed an Act that both reduced the number of MPs to be elected to the House of Commons and significantly altered the rules for the definition of Parliamentary constituencies. After six redistributions in which organic criteria—MPs representing places with a community of interest—dominated the redrawing of constituency boundaries, the new rules gave precedence to an arithmetic criterion: all constituencies must have electorates within 5 per cent of the national quota (average). Seven months later the Boundary Commission published its initial proposals for a new set of 502 constituencies implementing these new rules. This paper evaluates the amount of change to the country's electoral map that this involves, identifies the main features of the new constituency configurations, and assesses their likely impact on UK political life. |
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| Keywords: | redistribution new constituencies England 2011 proposals |
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