Gareth Knight is a former Conservative Party agent who is now an independent political consultant specialising in party conference activity and is a Director of Conservatives for International Travel.
Last summer I wrote this article on ConHome regarding the inevitable boundary review that would come about as a result of equalising constituency sizes and reducing the number of MPs. I used Lincolnshire as the example of how such changes may impact existing constituencies.
The Boundary Commission for England has now confirmed its methodology for the review and, surprisingly, there were no specific objections to grouping northern Lincolnshire with Yorkshire for the purposes of parliamentary constituencies (though one member of the public did lobby for the historic counties to be used as the basis of the review).
The Conservative Party itself supported the European Parliament regions as the basis for the review areas, meaning the people of North and North East Lincolnshire, who spent the best part of 25 years campaigning against the artificial tie to Yorkshire in favour of the link with the rest of Lincolnshire, are now considered part of Yorkshire once again.
Not all MPs remained quiet on the EU regions. Harriett Baldwin MP, Peter Luff MP and Robin Walker MP, all lobbied for their county, Worcestershire, to be linked to the South West EU region for the purposes of the review but this proposal was rejected. It is therefore certain that none of the new constituency boundaries will cross EU regional boundaries and that Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Isle of Wight will be treated completely separately.
So bringing this back into the real world and applying it to Lincolnshire once again (which I do purely because I used it last time and because I’m originally from that area - the analysis can be applied to anywhere else), we now need to look at two EU regions, not just one.
The East Midlands part of Lincolnshire is the easy bit. The region as a whole has 46 existing seats and 44 on the new boundaries. We know that the average electorate for a seat in the East Midlands will be 76,388. Northamptonshire and Nottinghamshire (with Nottingham) are causing mathematical headaches that will impact on Leicestershire but conveniently for my purposes, Lincolnshire has a nice round seven new constituencies with an average electorate of 76,418 with the English minimum being 72,810 and the maximum 80,473.
Although there are seven existing constituencies in the Lincolnshire County Council area, they vary in size to such a degree that equalising them will have a ripple effect leading to fairly significant boundary changes in some areas. No single district council has a population within the 5% margin so all will have to be paired up with another. It will be a big relief for all the current MPs to know that the best mathematical divide is to make fairly simple changes to existing boundaries, and here is an example of how this could work:
Lincoln would swap the North Kesteven ward of Bracebride Heath and Waggington East for the five North Hykeham wards (from the current Sleaford and North Hykeham constituency) creating a "Lincoln and North Hykeham" constituency of 76,734 electors (and giving a small boost to Karl McCartney MP's chances of keeping Lincoln Conservative in 2015).
Sleaford and North Hykeham would lose the five North Hykeham wards to Lincoln but gain Bracebride Heath and Waddington East. It would also lose the South Kesteven wards of Barrowby, Peascliffe and Witham Valley. This would create a "Sleaford" constituency with an electorate of 76,150 and Stephen Phillips MP's seat would remain firmly Conservative.
Edward Leigh MP's Gainsborough seat would need to expand to take the East Lindsey wards of Binbrook and Ludford, creating a "Gainsborough and Binbrook" constituency of 76,984 electors, with little likely electoral impact.
Sir Peter Tapsell's Louth and Horncastle, having lost the East Lindsey wards of Binbrook and Ludford needs to gain the East Lindsey wards of Frithville and Stickney, giving it an electorate of 76,382 with little likely electoral impact.
Mark Simmonds MP's Boston and Skegness loses the East Lindsey wards of Frithville and Stickney and gains the South Holland ward of Donington, Quadring and Gosberton and the South Kestevan ward of Toller, giving it an electorate of 75,009, again with little likely electoral impact.
John Hayes MP's South Holland and the Deepings loses the one ward to Boston and Skegness and swaps the South Kesteven wards of Aveland, Ringstone, Bourne East and Bourne West for Deeping St James and Market West Deeping (necessitated by geography), giving it an electorate of 75,797 with little likely electoral impact but a likely name change to "Bourne and South Holland".
That leaves us with Nick Boles MP's Grantham and Stamford which has lost the four wards to "Bourne and South Holland" but gained two others and has three wards from Sleaford and North Hykeham. The new "Grantham, Stamford and the Deepings" has an electorate of 79,918 with little likely electoral impact.
The part of Lincolnshire in the ‘Yorkshire and the Humber’ region is more complicated. The region as a whole currently has 54 parliamentary constituencies but the review will reduce this to 50. The target electoral quota is therefore 76,979, but the minimum of 72,810 and maximum of 80,473 remain.
As we know that local authority boundaries will be respected wherever possible, we can quickly work out that North Yorkshire will have six parliamentary constituencies, York will have 2, the unitary authorities which make up the old Humberside will have nine, South Yorkshire will have 12 and West Yorkshire will have 20. There will be a single constituency that crosses the West and South Yorkshire areas.
In effect this means North Yorkshire and York will see virtually no change as all existing constituencies are within the minimum and maximum. South Yorkshire currently has 14 constituencies, so this area will effectively lose one and a half. West Yorkshire has 22 seats now so this area will also lose one and a half. The remaining seat will come from the old Humberside - currently boasting 10 constituencies but losing one.
All the local authorities which make up the old Humberside will have to be paired with another council as the East Riding is entitled to 3.47 seats, Hull 2.39, NE Lincs 1.51 and North Lincs 1.63.
This brings us back to the Lincolnshire seats discussed last time and the geography of the area. You cannot have a constituency crossing the Humber Estuary so the only place where Lincolnshire and Yorkshire can be paired is around Goole.
If you combine North and North East Lincolnshire into one sub-area for the review, you will have three constituencies with an average 80,139 electors - dangerously close to the top end of the range. Linking the North Lincolnshire ward of Axholme North (pop 6,448) with the East Riding (the only ward where this is realistic), the average for three constituencies in the remainder of North Lincs and the whole of NE Lincs is now 77,989 (and for the six in the East Riding, Hull and Axholme North is 75,792).
Now we have our review area, geography pretty much dictates everything else.
Few would be able to argue in favour of splitting the two large towns of Scunthorpe and Grimsby but they are nowhere near large enough to exist in their own right as constituencies. As we know that the Commission will be valuing local authority boundaries above towns, the starting point for the three northern Lincolnshire constituencies has to be the wards that will make up the constituency that will straddle the two local authority areas.
In North Lincolnshire geography dictates that the wards to be separated have to be Barton, Ferry, Brigg and Wolds, Broughton and Appleby and Burton upon Stather and Winterton leaving the rest of North Lincs with an electorate of 77,852. For the sake of argument, we'll call this "Scunthorpe and Axholme".
Even at this point we're still stuck for what to do with what we've just taken away from North Lincs and the whole of NE Lincs because of the location of Grimsby.
Grimsby itself has a population of 61,929 - way below the electoral quota and the town is very well defined locally, so splitting the town into two would not be a preferred option and would likely face significant local opposition. Combining Cleethorpes and Grimsby is the only option left as the combined North and NE Lincs constituency necessitate the NE Lincs wards of Immingham, Wolds, Waltham and Humberston and New Waltham being in the combined constituency. It is extremely unlikely that the Commission would opt to split both Grimsby and Cleethorpes, therefore the result is inevitably the division of Cleethorpes with the ward of Haverstoe being in the combined constituency (let's call this "Brigg and Waltham") and Sidney Sussex and Croft Baker being in the expanded Grimsby (let's call this "Grimsby and Cleethorpes").
It is hard to see any fair argument that could defy these boundaries but this would not stop a major political row brewing.
The new "Scunthorpe and Axholme" seat would be extremely marginal but would be notionally Conservative - just. The new "Brigg and Waltham" seat would be as blue as they come - a very safe Conservative constituency. The new "Grimsby and Cleethorpes" seat would be marginal in favour of Labour (though not as marginal as Great Grimsby is at present) as the parts of Cleethorpes entering Grimsby would be more Labour supporting.
This is a good result for the Conservatives, but for the politicians in this area it presents a major problem. Andrew Percy MP (Brigg and Goole) has a very strong claim to three new constituencies - the one which includes Goole and Axholme North and would be likely to include a substantial part of David Davis's Haltemprice and Howden (where Percy currently represents 29,079 electors), "Scunthorpe and Axholme" (where he currently represents 14,363 electors) and "Brigg and Waltham" (where he represents 23,292 electors). Martin Vickers MP (Cleethorpes) has a strong claim to "Brigg and Waltham" (where he currently represents 53,904 electors) and to "Grimsby and Cleethorpes" (where he currently represents 16,991 electors). Unless David Davis retires, one of Percy or Vickers will have to fight a marginal constituency in 2015, and the other will get the safe seat. Assuming both targeted "Brigg and Waltham" - the plush Tory seat which would have stayed Tory even through the Blair years, it makes matters very interesting, even without open primaries.
Labour’s Nic Dakin MP (Scunthorpe) is extremely vulnerable, though Austin Mitchell MP (Great Grimsby) will be quite happy.
(As an aside, this will all be spookily familiar to Michael Brown, now of The Independent. In 1983 he faced an extremely similar boundary change when his Brigg and Scunthorpe seat was carved up along with Michael Brotherton's Louth. Despite representing a far smaller proportion of the population, in the head-to-head selection Brown beat Brotherton to the new Brigg and Cleethorpes constituency and remained an MP until 1997.)
Overall the criteria set by the Commission are very much to the Conservative Party's advantage in Lincolnshire. The current six safe Tory seats, three Tory held marginals and two Labour held marginals are replaced by seven safe Tory seats, two Tory held marginals and one Labour held marginal. Due to the way Lincolnshire is laid out, this is about as good as it gets for Labour as their vote is highly concentrated in the three large towns. The Conservatives are also likely to be pleased on a national scale even if not locally, and the only way things could improve for them would be if they had the nerve to propose the division of Scunthorpe, Grimsby and Lincoln, cracking Labour's vote - a proposal that would get the local papers up in arms but would lead to the entire ceremonial county being Conservative territory.
As I said last time, this is just one area that I chose at random, but the analysis applies to everywhere in the UK as everywhere will be affected and while Lincolnshire looks good for the Conservatives, other areas will contrast starkly.
Once again the boundary changes raise the question of how the party should select candidates when almost every constituency boundary will change, especially where two sitting MPs are contesting the same seat (as is inevitable). Should sitting MPs be guaranteed a place in the final round of any constituency partially represented by them? Should there always be at least one place in a final round for someone who is not an MP? Should all sitting MPs with any boundary change face the same form of selection process as a constituency with no sitting MP? No doubt questions that will be debated frequently over the coming months and years...
