Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill — Clause 11 — Special Case of the Isle of Wight — 15 Feb 2011 at 19:46

The majority of MPs agreed to create two Parliamentary constituencies wholly on the Isle of Wight. This would result in an exception to the general rule set out in the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill for determining the number of electors per constituency.

The alternative, Lords Amendment 17-20 would have resulted in one constituency for the whole island. Splitting the island into two constituencies gives a number of electors closer to the quota designed to ensure an equal number of electors per constituency than would be achieved by having just one constituency for the island.

Following the rejection of the Lords amendment 17 (which would have protected the Isle of Wight's not sharing constituencies with the UK mainland) the majority of MPs voted to accept Government amendments (a) to (e)^[1] to the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill.

During the debate, Mark Harper MP said that under the agreed amendments (a) - (e) made in lieu of the Lords amendment:

• '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.'

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• [1] Amendment sheet containing the agreed amendments (a) to (e) in lieu of Lords Amendment No. 20

Debate in Parliament | Source |