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The final consultation into plans to redraw Wales’ political map has now closed – with a record number of responses having been submitted since the beginning of the review.
As part of a UK-wide change to parliamentary constituency boundaries, Wales will see its seats in Westminster reduced from 40 to 32.
Why are these changes happening?
Why are these changes happening?
The changes are happening as part of a UK-wide shake-up of parliamentary constituency boundaries.
Earlier proposals would have seen the number of MPs reduced from 650 to 600 across the UK, but this reduction was shelved due to the increased workload faced by MPs in the aftermath of Brexit.
Under rules set out in the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986, each constituency proposed by the Boundary Commission must contain a roughly similar size electorate – somewhere between 69,724 and 77,062 electors.
The shake-up is happening due to the fact populations change over time, so therefore boundaries need to be redrawn to ensure communities are fairly represented in Parliament.
However, the Boundary Commission for Wales had no power in setting the number of constituencies in Wales – that was decided by the UK Government.
These boundary changes are happening across the UK to ensure parliamentary constituencies contain roughly similar size electorates. Due to population changes over the years, these boundaries have been redrawn numerous times in the past.
But while Wales loses seats, England’s number of seats will rise by ten to 543.
The number of seats in Scotland will drop by two to 57, while the number of seats in Northern Ireland (18) will stay the same. However, these boundary changes will not affect Senedd constituency boundaries, which will remain as they are for the time being.
The commission says it takes factors such as population, lakes, mountains and rivers into consideration when putting forward proposals, as well as local authority boundaries.
Visit the Boundary Commission for Wales’s website to view the proposals in full.
The changes would come into force before the next UK General Election, which will take place before January 2025. The boundary changes will not affect Senedd or council elections.
In total, around 2,000 responses were submitted to the Boundary Commission for Wales – which was tasked with drawing up the new boundaries in Wales.
All representations made during the most recent four-week consultation period will be published alongside the final recommendations, which will be published in July next year.
It is expected that the final recommendations will be similar to the most recent proposals, which were released last month and saw huge changes to previous plans.
Initially, the Caerphilly constituency was to be divided, with Caerphilly town, Aber Valley, Bedwas and Trethomas, and Machen and Rudry merged with Newport West to create the ‘Newport West and Caerphilly’ constituency.
These plans proved controversial and were scrapped after views were submitted to the commission. Caerphilly’s Labour MP Wayne David, who is stepping down at the next election, submitted counter-proposals to the commission, which were by and large adopted.
Instead, the Islwyn constituency will be merged with Newport West, if the most recent proposals go ahead.
Read more about the recent proposals here.
Following the closure of the final consultation period, Shereen Williams MBE OStJ, who is the secretary to the Boundary Commission for Wales, said she was grateful to the Welsh public “for playing such an active part in this review”.
She continued: “Throughout this review process, we’ve asked the public to share their expertise on their local areas to strengthen our proposals and the commission is delighted with the level of public engagement we have received throughout this review.
“The commission has already made significant changes to its proposals based on representations received during the first two consultations.”
She also said the “hundreds” of representations received over the last four weeks will be considered before the final proposals are unveiled.
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