Wednesday 11 November 2020

UPDATE ON PARLIAMENTARY CONSTITUENCIES BILL


As we have previously reported, Mebyon Kernow was extremely disappointed that Cornish MPs chose not to move an amendment to the Parliamentary Constituencies Bill to ensure that no cross-Tamar “Devonwall” constituencies could be created in the future.

Such an amendment was moved in the House of Lords by Lord Tyler with the support of Lord Teverson and Lord Bourne, but we were equally disappointed that the peers chose not to push the amendment to a vote.

The Lords did however agree an amendment that the electorate for individual constituencies would need to be within 7.5% of the average seat size – up from the figure of 5% in the Bill as originally drafted.

Lord’s amendments to the Bill were considered in the House of Commons yesterday and I wrote to Cornish MPs to request that they support the amendment on constituency size. It would not rule out a Devonwall seat, but it might, to a degree, limit the likelihood of a cross-Tamar constituency.

It was made clear to MPs that if the Parliamentary Constituencies Bill only allows a 5% divergence from the average constituency size, it was likely that it would be statistically impossible to deliver seats that meet this criteria and fall wholly within the historic boundaries of Cornwall (and the Isles of Scilly) by the time of the review expected around 2030. 

It is disappointing to report that all six Cornish MPs voted down the Lord’s amendment yesterday.

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