1. Summary

1.1. The Boundary Commission for England are required by the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986, as amended by the Boundary Commissions Act 1992, to conduct a general review of all the constituencies in England every eight to twelve years. The Commission completed their previous general review on 12 April 1995 and must, therefore, complete the current review after 11 April 2003 and before 12 April 2007. The general review started formally on 17 February 2000. The Commission's recommendations throughout the review must, by law, be based on the numbers of electors on the electoral registers from that date.

1.2. In recommending new constituencies, the Commission are required to give effect to the Rules for Redistribution of Seats which are contained in Schedule 2 to the 1986 Act and are attached as an appendix.

1.3. The Boundary Commission for England published provisional recommendations on 14 February 2002 for changes to the seventeen existing parliamentary constituencies in the area covered by the County Council, Portsmouth and Southampton. Representations about the provisional recommendations must be made by 14 March 2002.

1.4. The large scale map showing existing and proposed parliamentary constituency boundaries will be on display at the meeting.

2. The Provisional Recommendations

2.1. Details of the provisional recommendations of the Boundary Commission have been circulated to all Members of the County Council. They have also been published formally in local newspapers by the Commission. Local authorities, MPs and the Political Parties' Headquarters among others have been sent copies. The recommendations have also been published on the Commission's website.

2.2. In brief, the recommendations provide for the combined area of the County Council and Southampton City Council to be allocated an extra 16^th seat. The Commission indicate that the allocation of the extra seat will require major changes to be made to some of the existing constituency boundaries. Portsmouth is allocated two seats. In deciding the number of seats to be allocated, the Commission noted that the three administrative areas would be theoretically entitled to 18 seats whether they were reviewed individually or as one unit. However, if they were reviewed individually, the average electorate of the two seats in Southampton would be high at 11,807 above the electoral quota. The Commission, therefore, decided to pair Hampshire with Southampton which, together, in 2000, had an electorate of 1,108,878 (entitlement to 15.86 seats) and to allocate the combined area 16 seats. The average electorate of seats in the paired area is 69,305, which is only 629 below the electoral quota. The two seats in Portsmouth have an average electorate of 71,323 producing seats on average only 1,389 above the electoral quota.

2.3. The allocation of an additional seat and the realignment of constituency boundaries where wards are divided will mean that there will have to be major changes to some of the existing seats. However, the Commission have tried to keep these changes to a minimum and have endeavoured to follow existing constituency boundaries where possible when forming constituencies. The changes will ensure that where high seat electorates currently exist, these will be reduced to a level nearer to the electoral quota.

2.4. The only changes to local authority boundaries in Hampshire and Southampton since the last general review have been to ward boundaries following the Periodic Electoral Reviews by the Local Government Commission. 11 of the new wards in 6 of the 11 districts in Hampshire are divided between constituencies.

2.5. The Commission propose no change to the seats of Fareham and Gosport. Both existing seats have electorates that are quite close to the electoral quota, being respectively only 1,489 above and 226 below the quota.

2.6. The Commission propose to make only the minimum change in respect of the Havant seat in order to place the whole of the Waterlooville ward (which is divided between the East Hampshire and Havant seats) in a new Meon Valley seat, thereby transferring 485 electors. The electorate of the Havant seat would be 70,138, only 204 above the electoral quota.

2.7. In relation to the existing Aldershot seat, the Commission considered that, at 79,219, the electorate was too high. The Commission propose that the three Hart district wards to the north west that comprise Yateley be transferred from the seat. This change, plus the realignment of wards which are divided between seats, produces an electorate for the Aldershot seat of 66,499, which is 3,435 below the electoral quota. It would also be redesignated as a borough constituency.

2.8. The Commission also considered that the electorate of the existing Basingstoke constituency, at 78,401, was too high. The Commission noted that although the Basingstoke and Deane Borough was currently divided between only 2 seats, the creation of an extra seat in Hampshire would mean that this situation would be difficult to maintain. The Commission is proposing that the borough should be divided between 3 seats by creating a Basingstoke seat which contains all the wards of the town of Basingstoke, with an electorate of 69,987, only 53 above the electoral quota. This too would be redesignated as a borough constituency.

2.9. The proposed seat of North East Hampshire contains all the wards of the district of Hart apart from two wards which are included in the Aldershot seat and four wards of the Borough of Basingstoke and Deane. The electorate of the seat would be 67,417, which is 2,517 below the electoral quota.

2.10. The proposed seat of North West Hampshire contains the remaining 10 wards of the Borough of Basingstoke and Deane, together with 10 wards of the Borough of Test Valley. The seat would have an electorate of 73,840, which is 3,906 above the electoral quota.

2.11. The proposed East Hampshire seat contains only wards of the District of East Hampshire so placing Alton, Bordon and Petersfield in the same seat. The seat would have an electorate of 67,452, which is 2,482 below the electoral quota.

2.12. The proposed Meon Valley seat contains the 7 wards of the District of East Hampshire which are not in the East Hampshire seat, the 3 wards of the Borough of Havant not in the Havant seat and 11 wards of the City of Winchester. The seat would have an electorate of 65,952, which is 3,982 below the electoral quota. The Commission considered that the Meon Valley was an appropriate name to describe this mainly rural constituency given that there was no individual town whose name could be used to define it.

2.13. The proposed Romsey seat would no longer include wards of the Borough of Eastleigh, but would include the Bassett and Swaythling wards of the City of Southampton. The remainder of the existing constituency boundary would be maintained. The seat would have an electorate of 65,461, which is 4,473 below the electorate quota.

2.14. The proposed Eastleigh seat would contain 16 of the 19 wards of the Borough of Eastleigh, the wards of Bishopstoke East, Bishopstoke West and Fair Oak and Horton Heath being included in the Winchester seat. The proposed Eastleigh seat would have an electorate of 74,063, which is 4,129 above the electoral quota.

2.15. The existing Winchester seat, which is formed of the entire City of Winchester District, had the highest electorate in Hampshire at 82,083. The Commission concluded that the District should be divided between 2 seats. The proposed Winchester seat includes all the City of Winchester wards other than the 11 included in the Meon Valley mentioned above. It also includes the 3 Eastleigh wards mentioned in the previous paragraph. The seat would have an electorate of 68,863, which is only 1,071 below the electoral quota.

2.16. In relation to the New Forest, the Commission proposes that this should continue to be divided between 2 whole seats. The whole of the Boldre and Sway ward would be included in the New Forest West seat giving an electorate of 69,577 which is 357 below the electoral quota, whilst New Forest East would have an electorate of 65,338 which is 4,596 below the electoral quota.

2.17. The overall effect of these changes would be to reduce the disparity between the constituencies with the highest and lowest electorates in Hampshire and Southampton from 15,202 for 15 existing seats to 8,725 for the 16 proposed seats.

RECOMMENDATION

That, having regard to the Rules governing the recommendations which the Boundary Commission for England may make, the Cabinet consider whether or not representations should be made in relation to the Commission's provisional recommendations for Parliamentary Constituencies.

Section 100 D - Local Government Act 1972 - background papers

The following documents disclose facts or matters on which this report, or an important part of it, is based and has been relied upon to a material extent in the preparation of this report.

NB the list excludes:

1 Published works.

2 Documents which disclose exempt or confidential information as defined in the Act.

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APPENDIX

PARLIAMENTARY CONSTITUENCY BOUNDARIES

RULES FOR REDISTRIBUTION OF SEATS

PARLIAMENTARY CONSTITUENCIES ACT 1986 - SCHEDULE 2

· Rule 1 places a limit on the total number of constituencies;

· Rule 2 requires single member constituencies;

· Rule 3 relates to the City of London;

· Rule 4 states that County and London Borough boundaries are to be followed so far as is practicable;

· Rule 5 states that the electorates of constituencies are to be as nearly equal as practicable;

· Rule 6 allows the Commission to depart from Rules 4 and 5 if special geographical considerations make a departure desirable;

· Rule 7 allows the Commission to depart from other Rules and requires them to take account of inconveniences caused or local ties broken by changes to constituencies;

· Rule 8 defines the electoral quota as the total number of parliamentary electors in England (i.e. 36,995,157) divided by the existing number of seats (529), and requires the Commission to use the electorates as at the start of the review.

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