Boundary Commissions (United Kingdom)
The Boundary Commissions are permanent public bodies responsible for setting constituency boundaries for elections to the UK Parliament , the Scottish Parliament, and the Welsh Parliament and Northern Ireland Assembly . In total there are four independent commissions:
- Boundary Commission for England
- Boundary Commission for Scotland
- Boundary Commission for Wales ( Comisiwn Ffiniau i Gymru )
- Boundary Commission for Northern Ireland
composition
Each commission consists of four members, but only three of them actively participate in the decisions. The Speaker of the UK Parliament is an ex officio member and chair of each of the commissions. However, he does not take part in the regular meetings, but is represented by a deputy.
Legal basis
The legislative basis for the work of the commissions is the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986 , as last amended by the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011 . The commissions were created by the House of Commons (Redistribution of Seats) Act 1944 . This was changed in 1947 and replaced two years later by the House of Commons (Redistribution of Seats) Act 1949 . This law in turn was amended in 1958 and 1978, before the current legal basis came into force in 1986. Under the Blair administration it was planned to transfer the tasks of the commissions to the Electoral Commission , but this could not be enforced in the end.
UK Parliament constituencies
Each commission is obliged to carry out a recurring review of the constituencies in its respective area of responsibility at least every five years. The last such review began on March 4, 2011. The aim of this review was to reduce the constituencies from 650 to 600. The number of constituencies in each of the four Home Nations depends on the number of eligible voters. On this basis, the review produced 502 constituencies for England, 16 constituencies for Northern Ireland, 52 constituencies for Scotland and 30 constituencies for Wales. In January 2013, however, resistance to the changes identified by the commissions in their review became so great that there was no majority in parliament for implementing the proposals.
Procedure
When determining constituencies, the commissions have to take various points into account:
In each constituency determined by the commissions
- the number of registered voters must be at least 5% of the UK electoral quotient. The electoral quotient is calculated by dividing the total number of voters living on the mainland by the number of constituencies on the mainland. The constituencies of Na h-Eileanan an Iar , Orkney and Shetland and the two constituencies on the Isle of Wight are not taken into account in the calculation .
- the geographical area must not exceed 13,000 square kilometers.
However, there are three exceptions to these requirements:
- For the four constituencies located on the islands, the numerical requirement regarding the number of registered voters does not apply
- Constituencies with a geographical extension of more than 12,000 square kilometers may fall below the numerical limit for the number of registered voters
- Northern Ireland constituencies are subject to different restrictions under certain conditions
In addition to the above-mentioned mandatory requirements that every constituency must meet, the commissions can also include further considerations in their deliberations. So can about
- "special geographical conditions" such as the size, the layout or the development status of an electoral district,
- Local government boundaries,
- Boundaries of existing constituencies or
- Disadvantages for voters that result from the change in the layout of electoral districts
be taken into account. Since the factors mentioned can also contradict each other, each commission is entitled to a discretion in weighting the individual factors. Even if changes in the demarcation of electoral districts can have a significant impact on the election result, voting behavior within existing electoral districts is not taken into account by the commissions. If a commission has drawn up proposals for changes, these must be made public and put up for discussion. The exact procedure for this public hearing is required by law. The publication of the proposals is followed by a consultation period of 12 weeks, during which the public is given the opportunity to express their views on the proposals in a series of public hearings. This is followed by a four-week second round of hearings, in which the arguments made during the first hearings are examined in more detail. After the proposals have been revised, there is another eight-week consultation phase.
Changes in the United Kingdom's general electoral constituencies due to previous committee reviews
In fact, every commission in its area of responsibility carried out a review of the layout of the constituencies every eight to 12 years. Between these reviews, interim reviews were carried out, each of which covered only part of the area of responsibility. While the interim reviews regularly did not result in any noteworthy changes, the full reviews regularly led to significant shifts in the layout of the constituencies. Before the last reviews, the principle was that the number of constituencies in the UK should be around 613, with at least 35 constituencies in Wales. The City of London could not be divided and always sent its own MP to Parliament. The islands of Orkney and Shetland could not be combined with other regions to form an electoral district. Northern Ireland had to be divided into 16 to 18 constituencies. There was also no upper limit for the total number of constituencies. Rather, it was up to each commission to determine the maximum number of constituencies in their area of responsibility. There was also no area restriction on the size of an electoral district. The public hearing on the proposals that had been worked out was considerably shorter, with a total of four weeks.
In the general election in 2015 , there were in the United Kingdom a total of 650 constituencies.
Boundary Commissions work in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland
The Boundary Commissions are also responsible for the areas subject to devolution . As such, they have to review the constituencies for the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh National Assembly and the National Assembly of Northern Ireland.
Scottish Parliament
The Scotland Act 1998 lays down how the Boundary Commissions proceed in relation to the constituencies and regions for the Scottish Parliament and which requirements they have to observe . It stipulates that there must be 73 constituencies for the Scottish Parliament, with the constituencies for the Orkney Islands and the Shetland Islands being fixed in advance. The law also stipulates that the constituencies are to be grouped into eight regions. The Boundary Commission for Scotland carried out the last electoral district review between 2007 and 2010. Their review proposals were implemented in the 2011 Scottish general election . Since the legislation for the British general election and for the elections to the Scottish Parliament makes different provisions with regard to the electoral districts, the respective electoral districts are not congruent.
Welsh National Assembly
The Government of Wales Act 2006 serves as the legal basis for the work of the Boundary Commissions in Wales . The law stipulated that the constituencies for the Welsh National Assembly must be congruent with the general constituencies for the British general election. It also obliges the Boundary Commissions, the Welsh constituencies in regions. The connection between constituencies for the election of the National Assembly and those for the election of the British Parliament was abolished by the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011 .
National Assembly of Northern Ireland
Section 33 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 states that the constituencies for electing the National Assembly of Northern Ireland must be congruent with the general constituencies for the UK general election.
Implementation of recommendations
Once one of the commissions has completed its review, a report is drawn up for the Minister of the Interior. The latter is then responsible for implementing the proposals into law and forwarding them to the UK Parliament. It is true that the Minister of the Interior has always been granted the right to amend the proposals. However, this was never used. Parliament has the right to accept or reject the proposals. An amendment by Parliament is not possible. If Parliament approves the proposals, the British monarch draws up a decree that will make the changes effective. They are then used for the following choice. For any by-elections , those electoral districts apply that were also decisive for the respective main election.
See also
- List of constituencies in the United Kingdom in 2010 (also applied to the 2015 general election)
Individual evidence
- ↑ News of the Boundary Commission for England ( Memento from January 28, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ Sixth Review Boundary Commission for Scotland
- ^ Sixth Review of the Boundary Commission for Wales ( Memento of July 21, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ Sixth Review of the Boundary Commission for Northern Ireland
- ^ First Periodic Review of Scottish Parliament Boundaries . bcomm-scotland.independent.gov.uk. May 26, 2010. Accessed December 31, 2011.
- ↑ FAQs . Boundary Commission for Northern Ireland. Archived from the original on April 1, 2014. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved April 10, 2014.
