Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill — Clause 11 — number and distribution of seats — 1 Nov 2010 at 19:15

In this vote the majority of MPs voted not to specifically exempt Anglesey, The Isle of Wight and Cornwall and Isles of Scilly from the proposal to equalise the number of electors in each parliamentary constituency and voted against guaranteeing those areas a whole number of MPs. Those MPs voting with the majority were also voting against widening the band within which the population of all constituencies must remain, and allowing the Boundary Commission to define constituencies with 5-10% more or less electors than the quota in exceptional cases.

The defeated amendment[1] would have required the relevant Boundary Commission to agree to any constituency having an electorate more than 5 per cent above or below the electoral quota for that part of the UK, and would have capped the maximum permitted variation from the quota at 10 per cent.

The detail of the proposed change that was the subject of the vote was to delete the section of the Bill which stated:

  • Electorate per constituency
  • 2 (1) The electorate of any constituency shall be—
  • (a) no less than 95% of the United Kingdom electoral quota, and
  • (b) no more than 105% of that quota.
  • (2) This rule is subject to rules 4(2), 6(2) and 7.
  • (3) In this Schedule the “United Kingdom electoral quota” means—:
  • U/598
  • where U is the electorate of the United Kingdom minus the electorate of the constituencies mentioned in rule 6.

(Rule 6 states: There shall continue to be a constituency named Orkney and Shetland, comprising the areas of the Orkney Islands Council and the Shetland Islands Council; and a constituency named Na h-Eileanan an Iar, comprising the area of Comhairle nan Eilean Siar.[The Outer Hebrides])

The proposal was to replace the above with:

  • 1A
  • (1) No constituency shall have an electorate more than 5 per cent. above or below the electoral quota for that part of the United Kingdom unless the Boundary Commission concerned believes there to be overriding reasons under the terms of these rules why it should.
  • (2) No constituency shall have an electorate more than 10 per cent. above or below the electoral quota for that part of the United Kingdom.
  • (3) In this Schedule "the electoral quota for that part of the United Kingdom" means-
  • U / Y
  • where U is the electorate of that part of the United Kingdom minus the electorate of the areas mentioned in rule 5A and Y is the number of constituencies in that part minus the number of constituencies allocated within that part as a result of the operation of rule 5A.'.

Amendment 13 would have introduced a rule 5A as follows[2]:

  • 5A Specified areas
  • (1) The following shall be allocated whole numbers of constituencies by whichever Boundary Commission is responsible for them:
  • (a) Orkney Islands and Shetland Islands council areas;
  • (b) Comhairle nan Eilean Siar council area;
  • (c) The Isle of Anglesey county area;
  • (d) The Isle of Wight county area;
  • (e) The County of Cornwall and Isles of Scilly council areas.'.

The above amendments were being made to the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill[3][4].

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
Con278 (+1 tell) 2091.8%
DUP0 2025.0%
Lab0 227 (+2 tell)088.8%
LDem49 (+1 tell) 4094.7%
PC0 30100.0%
SDLP0 1033.3%
SNP0 60100.0%
Total:327 245089.9%

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
Philip DaviesShipleyCon (front bench)aye
Andrew TurnerIsle of WightCon (front bench)aye
Andrew GeorgeSt IvesLDem (front bench)aye
Charles KennedyRoss, Skye and LochaberLDemaye
Dan RogersonNorth CornwallLDem (front bench)aye
Adrian SandersTorbayLDemaye

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