Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill — Clause 11 — Number and distribution of seats — 15 Feb 2011 at 19:46

Following the rejection of the Lords amendment 17 (which would have protected the Isle of Wight's not sharing constituencies with the UK mainland) he majority of MPs voted to accept Government amendments (a) to (e) to the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill.

During the debate, Mark Harper MP said that under the amendments:

• 'The Boundary Commission would be required to create two constituencies wholly on the island. They would obviously be outside the range of 5% either side of the quota-otherwise we would not be having this debate in the first place-but each would be closer to the quota than a single island constituency would be. That would ensure that electors' votes were closer in weight to those cast elsewhere in the UK, which we believe is important.

He also said:

• 'Our amendments also make consequential adjustments to the formula used to apportion seats to the constituent parts of the UK and to calculate the UK electoral quota, so as to be consistent with the approach taken to the other exceptions in the Bill.'

Debate in Parliament | Source |