Skip to main content

Local Government Boundary Committee for England

Volume 495: debated on Tuesday 7 July 2009

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what methodology is used by the (a) Boundary Committee for England and (b) Boundary Commission to estimate the size of the electorate for the purposes of boundary reviews. (284087)

Questions relating to the Boundary Committee for England are the responsibility of the Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission.

Under the current rules governing reviews by the Boundary Commission, the electorate of any constituency in each part of the United Kingdom must be as near as is practicable to the electoral quota (which, broadly, is the average number of electors in each constituency). Differences in the size of the electorate in each constituency may occur since the Boundary Commission may depart from strict application of the rules in specified circumstances, for example, where special geographical considerations apply or to take account of any local ties which would be broken by boundary changes. The rules require the Boundary Commission when carrying out a review to use the number of electors whose names appear on the register of parliamentary electors in force on the date on which the notice of the start of the review is published.