I understand the Commons is going from 650 members to 600 for the next election.
Why? Why did the Government decide it was time to reduce it?
It’s part of a plan that also makes them represent constituencies within ±5% of the average constituency size. The Conservative government pushed it on both aspects - reducing size and equalizing representation. They wanted to “cut the cost of politics and make votes of more equal value”. Whether fewer MP races really would have a cost saving effect for the parties isn’t something I’ve seen any estimates on. Labour doesn’t like it because the equalizing part is seen as likely getting rid of what is currently a defacto structural gerrymander that benefits them. That probably highlights one reason why Conservatives are pushing it.
A less than 10% reduction in the number of MPs probably isn’t a huge effect. Equalizing the representation between constituencies seems like a bigger deal IMO.
If not now, when ?
All cabinets, committees and delegatory bodies * will grow to the size of their fish tanks unless cursorily cut down every now and then. In other cultures that was one of the jobs for the Censors.
- Including professional, scholastic, promotional conferences; medical manufacturers’ advertising junkets and sci-fi conventions. The meanest of which has more value than the self-serving reflections of any representative.
The commitment goes back to about 2010, and came shortly after a major parliamentary expenses scandal, when politicians in general were not in high esteem. “Reducing the cost of politics” was intended to be seen not, I think, about reducing the costs to political parties of participating in elections, but reducing the costs to the taxpayer of maintaining a fleet of 650 fully-rigged MPs with the their staff, their constituency offices and, yes, their expenses and allowances. As already pointed out, by combining the reduction in numbers with a re-balancing of representation to equalize the value of the vote, the change could be made in such a way that most of the pain was born by opposition parties.
The fact is that the UK’s parliamentary assembly is strikingly large large; 822 members in the upper house, and (currently) 650 in the lower house. Only such paragons of democracy as the People’s Republic of China and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea have larger assemblies, and there has been a long held view that the UK is above the optimal size range for a functioning democratic legislature. You need an assembly large enough to have the pool of talents required, but small enough that the members can establish networks with one another that enable them to function effectively.
Interesting - so what’s the current +/- range from the average? Much more than +/- 5%, I would assume?
The smallest constituency is Na h-Eileanan an Iar in Scotland, with an electorate of 21,769. The largest is the Isle of Wight, with 108.804.
They’re both outliers, of course, and they are both island constituencies. The distortion in these cases is largely due to the fact that the boundary commisions are tolerant of deviations in order to avoid breaching major geographical and socio-geographical boundaries.
Other distortions are less dramatic, but much more numerous. The largest single cause is that, while the allocation of seats within each constituent country is decided by the boundary commission, the number of seats allocated to each constituent country is fixed politically. Scotland and Wales are allocated more seats than would be strictly justified by their population, England slightly fewer, and the allocation for Northern Ireland is supposed to be based on the average allocation for the UK as a whole (or was, then the NI allocation was fixed).
The result is that, of the 10 electorates with the smallest population, of the 20 electorates with the smallest population, just 1 is in England. Of the 20 electorates with the largest population, all 20 are in England.
Is that still the case? I know Scotland’s representation of MP’s were reduced at the time of devolution. I thought they were reduced to a roughly proportional number of seats to it’s population.
The governments case for it is that it will save money, even though it will save pittance.
Of greater concern is the harm it will do to the independence of the House. The government refused to correspondingly reduce the ‘payroll vote’ (the limit to the number of MPs who can have government positions that bind them to support the government in every vote).
Scotland has a particular problem of geography/demography. On strict equalisation, there’d probably be only one MP to cover more or less everywhere north and west of Loch Ness, which is hardly practicable.
Likewise, the English constituencies aren’t updated often enough to take account of population mobility as between city centres, suburbs and rural commuting.
Of course, it might be possible to make this easier and more responsive to change if we went to STV with multi-member constituencies, at least in the major population centres: then it would simply be a matter of adding or subtracting the number of MPs to be elected in larger constituencies.
There’s still a disparity, though it may be less than in the past. In round figures, population per member of parliament:
Scotland: 90,000
England: 100,000
Wales: 77,000
Northern Ireland: 101,000
UK: 97,000
Let me know when they cut the size to zero so I can arrange a suitable celebration.
Will the Queen be able to handle the new workload?
As her new workload would ideally consist of keeping her little house in some Canadian province clean and shopping for groceries I’m sure she’d be able to cope.
Tell that to the members for Durack (1,630,000 sq km) and Lingiari (1,348,000 sq km) in the Australian House of Representatives. They have electorates which could each contain the whole of the U.K. many times.
What’s your plan for the body that replaces the Commons? I’m pretty sure you’re not an anarchist.
I’m neither an anarchist nor serious, or at least not wholly so. I am however a republican and in favour of a complete reform of Parliament. The reduction to zero members of the present Commons would be a prelude to that reform of the system. Exactly what would replace it and how it would be structured would be for a plebiscite to decide.
That happens every time a GE is called, I suppose.
[del]You’re one of those “no government at all” types? I will take this into consideration next time I see your name.[/del]
Oh, you just want to see the kingdom burn. Well, same thing I suppose.
Indeed, the House is reduced to zero members but there’s no reform of the syste.
How on earth are you getting that from what I posted? Aspiring to see the UK change to a republic isn’t ‘burning the kingdom’ unless you mean by that abolishing the monarchy. Neither does root and branch reform involve burning down anything.
My advice, and it’s offered in the spirit of friendship, is to work a little on your comprehension skills.