Number of MPs to be cut from 650 to 600

[muriel_volestrangler]

The government has confirmed that it will cut the number of MPs in the House of Commons from 650 to 600, rejecting a report by a cross-party committee of MPs that described the move as unjustified.

Responding to a report by the Commons political and constitutional committee published last March, the government said it saw “no merit in reopening the issue”, and it would press ahead with plans to reduce the number of MPs in parliament and to ensure that no constituency contained more than 5% above or below the national average number of voters.

The size of Westminster constituencies varies wildly, ranging from 21,769 voters in Na h-Eileanan an Iar (the Western Isles) to 108,804 in the Isle of Wight. The Conservative party manifesto contained a pledge to equalise the size of constituencies in order to “cut the cost of politics and make votes of more equal value”.
...
The political and constitutional committee’s report argued that numbers of MPs should be whittled down gradually, rather than abolishing 50 constituencies in one go, and that ministers should allow a 10% deviation from the mean number of constituents.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/feb/12/number-of-mps-to-cut-from-650-to-600

While the government quote says the 5% rule overrides physical geographical features, that's not true in the case of islands; the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011, which is what they're going to implement, explicitly gives the Isle of Wight 2 constituencies, the Western Isles one of its own, and Orkney and Shetland one on their own. There's also a rule about area (constituencies can't be more than 13,000 sq. km) which may leave one or 2 Highland constituencies with electorates below 95% of average.

It's all based on the electoral register now, which is likely to give the Tories an advantage with individual registration - many students are though no to have registered when their university used to do it for them, so university city constituencies are likely to grow in size more than average.

[LeftishBrit]

1. Sigh; too much scope for gerrymandering

Also, I used to think there were too many MPs, but given the amount of constituency work that's needed nowadays, combined with the legislative work, I think cutting them may do more harm than good.

Probably won't massively affect my area - university town AND next door to Cameron's constituency - but likely to lead to gerrymandering in many parts of the country.

The number of MPs has been over 600 for a very long time. In 1945 it was 640, reduced to 625 in 1950. Given that in 1950, the population of the UK was about 50 million, and is now about 64 million, it seems odd that we should need fewer MPs now than then.

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. The English proposed boundaries in 2013 can be found here

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20140404084345/http://boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/

Oxfordshire does look very little changed from 2015 - still 6 constituencies, and just the odd ward moving here and there. Hampshire would go back from the current 18 to 17 (which it had in 2005), and the result of the 2013 report, before it was halted, was to move my town from the Winchester constituency back to with Romsey, as it had been in 2005.

In theory, the Boundary Commissions are non-partisan - they just take submissions from parties and the public - and since it'll just be an updated register since the 2013 effort, you'd think the results should be close to 2013.

We do have more MPs for our population than most comparable countries - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_legislatures_by_country (UK 96,000 per MP, Germany 128,000, Italy 95,000, France 113,000, Spain 132,000). Putting it up to about 105,000 wouldn't be out of line.

[LeftishBrit]

4. I may be wrong on this, but it's my impression that MPs in other countries do not have as many

constituency duties as ours.

Of course there is no reason why this role should be necessarily so strong for MPs- indeed, I think it was less strong in the past- ; but if it is, I think we may need somewhat more MPs than countries where their main duties are legislative. Alternatively, the duties could be transferred to local authorities, social services, or other organizations or staff (expansion of Citizens Advice Bureaus might be one way to go); but I suspect that this will be just another small step in the general cutting of services. Not the biggest step, and certainly not my top issue; but I am a little suspicious as to why the Tories are so keen to do this.

[Bad Dog]

6. Agreed the devil's in the detail.

I never bother with my MP anyway. She's a Tory. I always ask Alan Whitehead, Labour MP from a neighbouring constituency. He gets stuff done.

[Ghost Dog]

3. Islands

are special unto themselves

Tories see an advantage, natch.

What about the Manx vote?

[non sociopath skin]

5. ... but meanwhile, the Tories ADD to the numbers in the Lords ...

... who have NO constituency responsibilities.

The Skin