On September 13 we are due to see the deliberations on the proposed boundary review, which will reduce the number of seats at Westminster from 650 to 600. The number of parliamentary constituencies has varied over time; since the split of Ireland in 1922, it has ranged between 615 and 659, but it has not been below that range since the 18th century.
In 1921, the UK’s population stood at 44.027 million, so, in 1922, there were 71,589 people (not electors), per constituency. Under these propsals, with the UK population, based on the 2011 census, at 63.182 million, there will be 105,303 per constituency. If this change in ratio was replicated in terms of doctors or teachers, there would quite rightly be an uproar. Due to the low public esteem in which politicians are held, it is quite easy for the government to get away with it, on the basis of cost saving. Nevertheless, if a member of the public feels themselves aggrieved, they will often ‘write to their MP’, with the expectation that their problem will be resolved, or at least addressed, in a speedy manner. With a larger population to deal with, this will become harder for MPs to achieve. The cost savings, in terms of salary, and accompanying expenses, are negligible in the context of total public expenditure.
A further objection is that, in a post-Brexit world, when, theoretically, we have ‘taken back control’ of our country, we are potentially going to have more legislation dealt with at Westminster, and thus need more scrutiny, not to have this impoverished via reduced representation.
The other excuses for making this change are to make the number of electors per constituency more equal, and to address the demographic drift from urban areas to rural/suburban ones. However, both of these issues could be dealt with by the boundary commission as part of their normal periodic reviews, without reducing the overall number of seats.
What is the motivation then? Partly, it is a way of permanently eliminating some traditional Labour seats, making a Conservative majority in England and Wales more likely, and partly it is convenient for a government to reduce the numbers, since the proportion of MPs who are in, or have jobs dependent upon the executive, is increased, so reducing the numbers of troublesome or rebellious backbenchers who may ask awkward questions.
I hope that there will be sufficient awareness of the potential problems caused by this democratic deficit, that this proposal can be blocked. Do we really want to go back to having less representation than in the days of William Pitt the Younger?
* John Bicknell is a town councillor in Stratford upon Avon
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24 Comments
I agree with your broad arguments, John.
I am afraid I have felt all along that this has, as well as an attack on disadvantaged and depopulating communities (who are unlikely to be greatly Tory-voting), an attack on Wales, which has for many years, traditionally had smaller electorates per constituency – partly to compensate for the scattered remote and difficult terrain of many areas.
“Officially” (largely as a result of Tory banging on) we have become obsessed by ever more exact ratios of electorate to representatives, and progressively ignoring other factors when setting boundaries (keeping communities together, effectiveness of governance, and pure geographical size and remoteness of areas). As an aside, I don’t believe Tories were whinging about population ratios in the run up to the Great Reform Act – they wanted to restrict voting to a small electorate they felt they had a better chance of controlling.
Boundary Commissions – both local government and national need to be watched like hawks especially on population / electorate / unregistered people.
Generally agreed, although we need to keep up on how distorting First Past the Post is – with fewer MPs it’s even less representative of what we vote for, or of the splits in party support.
It’s really just supporting the big old parties, the Conservatives now, and Labour whenever they get their act together, and making it harder for anyone else to break through.
Are they certain to be approved? Is there any non-Tory party who are unlikely to vote against – possibly the DUP? Otherwise it’ll likely be a tight vote in the Commons, and possible for the Lords to derail entirely.
I think you will find that not only was Nick Clegg one of the flag wavers for cutting the number of MPs, (The Lib Dems said in their 2010 manifesto they wanted to cut the number of MPs – from 650 to 500) Clegg also claimed to have stopped it.
Clearly we have no one at the top of the party capable of putting the case for all votes being of equal value via electoral reform.
While I agree, there are broader questions that are related and would ought to be mentioned.
The support for MPs is a ridiculous system, there is insufficient support and it is too dominated by party people. If there was a greater number of staff and a mix of those selected by the MP and some seconded in from other areas (civil servants in Westminster for legislative/policy research issues, council staff for case work in constituencies) to help give more (and perhaps more effective) support.
The other is the ministerial roles being filled by MPs or Lords, this is a ridiculous position, ther e should be Ministers who are outside of parliament with a limit of the legislature who are able to be part of the executive, to avois the issue you raise above.
Talented people of goodwill must now know that partisan politics is not a route to effective beneficial social action.
Caractacus – the 500 MPs reduction was at the same time as instituting an elected upper chamber and significant local devolution, remember.
The reduction in the number of MPs will, among other things, preferentially affect (i.e. reduce) urban Labour constituencies. We should be alive to the prospect of gerrymandering as well as the underlying democratic shortcomings outline in John’s article.
The law that is allowing the Tories to do this was passed by the Coalition. A major blunder.
Tony Greaves
While many in the party are outraged at the proposed cut in number of MPs, those with even short memories will remember that on 5 July 2010, Nick Clegg unveiled plans in a bill to have fewer MPs.
The bill would have reduced the number of MP’s in the House of Commons from 650 to 600 – something which the Labour party at the time attacked as gerrymandering.
I find this debate somewhat simplistic. Comparing MPs to doctors or teachers in terms of workloads in the manner of this article in terms of their workloads, is just daft.
My understanding is that the UK Parliament in terms of its membership is large in terms of comparisons with many countries.
The figures about the historical membership of the Commons also seem a tad misleading in failing to recognise long overdue devolution of power from Westminster – establishment of the National Assembly for Wales, Scottish Parliament etc.
Some of the comments I have read in this and other recent articles seem to almost oppose boundary changes per se – failing to recognise significant changes in UK’s population and its rapidly changing distribution.
I personally think that the size of the executive at Westminster (the number of Government ministers of all types) is excessive and I would like to see this reduced. That should be the number one change.
I also strongly support electoral reform for Westminster elections, and greater devolution across the UK.
I also strongly believe that everyone should have the chance to vote and I am concerned about the Tory’s plans to exclude people from even being on the electoral register – or at the very least hope less people join the electoral register.
However, I just can’t quite get excited about defending the current number of MPs (don’t get me onto the size of the House of Lords), or even worse the suggestion that the smaller the size of every House of Commons seat the better the representation must obviously be for everyone.
The logic of some of the arguments I have read would even suggest increasing the number of MPs in the House of Commons . Who seriously advocates a House of Commons with 700, 800 or 900 MPs? If that is considered a daft proposal why is a modest reduction of just 50 MPs (about 8 per cent of seats) seen as such an extreme and regressive proposal?
There might be an argument for more MPs if the Lower House hadn’t sold or handed out to cronies, so many peerages in the Upper.
If our politicians showed more respect for the people they represent they might receive more in return.
The problem is not the number of MPs. Even if reduced to 600, that is still well above the 427 seating places – a deliberate decision when the Commons was rebuilt after WW2. The problem is that the limits on the number of electors in each constituency were made too tight, within 5% above or below the quota. With wards in London typically above 10% of the quota, it means that the only way to get constituencies within quota is by swopping multiple wards between constituencies. As a result the link between the MP and his/her constituents is weakened.
The biggest problem with the Boundary review from the Lib Dems’ viewpoint will not be an increasing electorate for MPs, but the probable annihilation of the party’s parliamentary representation. If it all goes through as expected, only Orkney and Shetland will be unaffected, due to a quirk in the existing statute. For all of the others, with the possible exception of Westmorland and Lonsdale, every Lib Dem MP will end up with a constituency which will increase in size by substantially more than his majority, many of whom will not have any experience of voting for Lib Dem. This of course is based on the extremely optimistic assumption that each of our MPs’ constituencies are added to rather than split where the Lib Dem vote would be much diluted.
As Tony Greaves says this was a blunder, and it was made by our leadership when we were in coalition. The expression “like lambs to the slaughter” comes to mind.
The process of boundary re-organisation is deeply flawed. I had the lead letter in the Guardian about it today:
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/aug/29/boundary-changes-are-not-a-democratic-reform?CMP=share_btn_tw
@ Baron Rennard of Wavertree.
Following up what Tony said ( that it was passed by the Coalition) how did you and the Lib Dem Peers vote when it got to the Lords (if it did ?).
@Tony Greaves “The law that is allowing the Tories to do this was passed by the Coalition. A major blunder.”
More than that, I recall it being promoted and defended by Lib Dems in that Coalition, Nick Clegg in particular.
Clegg’s support (and the party’s if it was a democratic decision) for a reduction in the number of MPs was based on a deplorable populist ‘bash politicians’ response to the expenses scandal. The vast majority of politicians of all parties are motivated by a desire to serve their electors and improve the society in which we all live, and anyone who feeds the cynicism of the public is not serving the cause of democracy.
“The vast majority of politicians of all parties are motivated by a desire to serve their electors and improve the society in which we all live, and anyone who feeds the cynicism of the public is not serving the cause of democracy.”
That may be true, although since the coalition I have found it very hard to accept. But I still think there are better ways for talented people of goodwill to improve society than by becoming MPs.
@ David Raw I worked very hard, but unsuccessfully, to try and change the Bill, but it was agreed by Nick Clegg in return for getting the referendum on AV. When I argued with the Tory Minister working with him about its obvious deficiencies, he said that we were getting House of Lords reform with Proportional Represenation (and our preferred STV system). But the Tories failed to deliver on Lords reform and I then acted to get a majority in both Houses to block the new process coming into effect before the last General Election: https://www.theyworkforyou.com/lords/?id=2013-01-14a.496.1
The best argument for not shrinking the number of MPs is to look at the quality of ministers and shadow ministers. Many of them you wouldnt really trust with a bucket and sponge, let alone a Government department.
The worst part of this bill is the bit that seems obviously fair namely that all seats have to be within 5% of average. It makes it very hard to draw boundaries that coincide with natural communities or local government boundaries and it means that each election will now be fought on radically different boundaries. That will severely reduce the connection between MPs and constituencies and make it harder for us to get elected through long term campaigning in one seat.
Mathematically, this is even worse if we have 650 MPs. Areas like mine where wards are all about 10,000 electors cannot make up a number between 71031 and 78507 out of whole wards so they will probably make several seats across borough boundaries with a mix of ward sizes. If the difference between minimum and maximum sizes were reduced by about 8% this would leave many more areas in the same position (though ours would be OK).
If we could get an increase of the limit to say 7.5%, that would make it massively easier for the Boundary Commission to produce seats to which people felt a genuine connection.
Laurence Cox and Peter Davies have got this right. Re-distribution (which has to happen from time to time) may start from equal constituency sizes, but also needs to have a vital element of regard for established communities and communication links, which should sometimes override the equality criterion. The last major change in our Borough put part of central Hornchurch into Romford constituency, rather than Hornchurch & Upminster. The aborted proposals c. 2011 would have put part of central Romford in the Dagenham constituency, which is not in a different borough, but one separated from Romford by Green Belt.
‘which is not only in a different borough,’
@Peter Davies. Yes indeed. My letter in yesterday’s Guardian (see link above) drew attention to how the Political & Constitutional Reform Select Committee in the Commons suggested many ways of improving the process. One of the main points was increasing flexibility over the quota for electors in each seat to allow a slightly greater variation. This would have helped to create more natural and sustainable constituencies than those likely to be proposed next month. I also agree with comments made about reducing the number of MPs from 650 to 650. When acting to block the boundary review in 2013 I argued that this was wrong in the absence of Lords reform because the size of the pay roll vote would make it harder for Parliament to hold Government to account.
Sadly as someone who was arguing against this previously this all seems a bit hypocritical. I believe a trawl through the archives will find Lords Tyler and Rennard standing up for these changes in spite of the arguments they now make against them. The trade off was the AV referendum and the supposed Lords Reform. Even if both had happened it wouldn’t have changed the fact that people would be, at times, very geographically distant from their MP’s and that some changes (the infamous Devonwall option in my area being an example) would create unnatural constituencies.