Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill — Clause 9 — Number of MPs — 20 Oct 2010 at 21:00

Stewart Jackson MP, Peterborough voted to reduce the number of MPs from 650 to 600

The majority of MPs voted to reduce the number of MPs from 650 to 600.

Clause 9 of the The Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill[1][2] contained the "Rules for distribution of seats"; the first rule in the Bill as introduced was:

  • Number of constituencies
  • The number of constituencies in the United Kingdom shall be 600.

The amendment voted on in this division would have replaced that with:

  • UK Electoral quota
  • The UK Electoral Quota shall be defined as the total electorate of the United Kingdom on the designated enumeration day divided by 650.'

During the debate Labour MP Chris Bryant[3] said:

  • The Liberal Democrats mentioned 500 MPs in their manifesto, while the Conservatives had a manifesto commitment to reduce the number of seats by 10%, which would have taken the number down to 585.

Mr Bryant explained his, and his party's, opposition to the proposed figure of 600 saying:

  • I suspect that bringing the number of seats down to 600 will disproportionately attack Labour seats, while going down to 585 would disproportionately attack Liberal Democrat seats. I therefore suspect that the number of 600 has been arrived at specifically for partisan purposes-to rig the Parliament of this country. That is why we will not support the clause.

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Debate in Parliament | Source |

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Party Summary

Votes by party, red entries are votes against the majority for that party.

What is Tell? '+1 tell' means that in addition one member of that party was a teller for that division lobby.

What are Boths? An MP can vote both aye and no in the same division. The boths page explains this.

What is Turnout? This is measured against the total membership of the party at the time of the vote.

PartyMajority (No)Minority (Aye)BothTurnout
Alliance1 00100.0%
Con274 (+1 tell) 3090.8%
DUP0 5062.5%
Green0 10100.0%
Lab0 198 (+2 tell)077.5%
LDem49 (+1 tell) 0087.7%
PC0 1033.3%
SDLP1 0033.3%
SNP0 3050.0%
Total:325 211084.0%

Rebel Voters - sorted by party

MPs for which their vote in this division differed from the majority vote of their party. You can see all votes in this division, or every eligible MP who could have voted in this division

Sort by: Name | Constituency | Party | Vote

NameConstituencyPartyVote
Peter BoneWellingboroughCon (front bench)aye
Mark FieldCities of London and WestminsterCon (front bench)aye
Philip HolloboneKetteringCon (front bench)aye

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