Revised proposals for new Parliamentary constituency boundaries in the North East region

3 Revised proposals for the North East

3.1 After the consultation on the initial proposals in 2021, we arranged for the appointment of two Assistant Commissioners for the North East region – Tim Foy OBE and Simon Barnes – to assist us with the analysis of the representations received during the first two consultation periods. This included chairing public hearings held in the region to collect oral evidence, as follows:

• • Newcastle: 28 – 29 March 2022
  • Middlesbrough: 31 March – 1 April 2022

3.2 We asked the Assistant Commissioners to consider all the written and oral representations, and to make recommendations to us on whether our initial
proposals should be revised, in light of evidence provided in the representations. It is important to stress that the Assistant Commissioners had no involvement in developing – and therefore no vested interest in supporting – our initial proposals. Accordingly, they came to the analysis with an independent mind, open to viable alternative proposals supported by evidence. We are very grateful for the thorough and methodical approach the Assistant Commissioners have taken to their work.

3.3 What follows in this chapter is:

• • a brief recap of our initial proposals;
  • a description of the views and counter-proposals put forward during the consultations;
  • the Assistant Commissioners’ analysis of the strength of the arguments for adoption of any of those counter-proposals; and
  • our decision on whether or not to make changes to our proposals in the given area.

3.4 A tabular summary of the revised constituencies we now propose appears in the Appendix to this report.

3.5 Throughout this chapter, where we refer to a respondent’s response, we do so by using the reference number, i.e. BCE-12345 (we only include an individual’s name if they gave permission for it to be published). This reference number corresponds with the representations that can be found on our consultation website at www.bcereviews.org.uk. All representations received in response to the first two consultations are publicly available on this website. The representations received in response to these revised proposals will be published at the end of the review.

Sub-regions

3.6 In the initial proposals the North East region was divided into four sub-regions. These were: (1) Newcastle upon Tyne, North Tyneside, and Northumberland; (2) County Durham, South Tyneside and Sunderland; (3) Gateshead; and (4) Darlington, Hartlepool, Middlesbrough, Redcar and Cleveland, and Stockton-on-Tees. The local authorities in the region are all unitary authorities.

3.7 Beginning in 2014, the unitary authorities in the region have been reorganised and are now grouped into three combined authorities; North East (County Durham, Gateshead, South Tyneside, and Sunderland), North of Tyne (Newcastle upon Tyne, North Tyneside, and Northumberland), and Tees Valley (Darlington, Hartlepool, Middlesbrough, Redcar and Cleveland, and Stockton-on-Tees). Our sub-regions in the initial proposals mirrored these, with the exception of Gateshead, which we chose to treat separately, as its mathematical entitlement allowed it to have two whole constituencies, which together were coterminous with the local authority boundary.

3.8 Neither County Durham nor Northumberland could be allocated a whole number of constituencies on their own, but combining them into a sub-region would result in a constituency that crosses not only a local authority boundary between County Durham and Northumberland, but also the boundary between the North East and North of Tyne combined authorities. Such a constituency would also have been undesirable due to the limited nature of the road links in the area and their susceptibility to closure in the winter months due to snow. It would also require a constituency crossing the River Tyne, which – although there are many links across the river – has been heavily opposed at previous reviews, due to the strong and distinct local community identities on opposite banks of the river. We therefore grouped Northumberland with Newcastle upon Tyne and North Tyneside, keeping the entire North of Tyne Combined Authority in a single sub-region.

3.9 Combining County Durham, South Tyneside and Sunderland into a sub-region allowed us to propose ten constituencies without crossing out of the North East Combined Authority and also preserve Sunderland Central wholly unchanged, avoiding unnecessary disruption as its electorate is within range.

3.10 The Tees Valley Combined Authority sub-region was allocated seven constituencies without having to cross the combined authority boundary. Due to the particular distribution of electorates in certain parts of the sub‑region, the majority of the constituencies have to be reconfigured to bring them within the permitted electorate range, but we were able to propose a Hartlepool constituency that would remain entirely coterminous with its local authority boundary.

3.11 While there was strong support for most of the proposed sub-regions, many respondents to the consultation from Sunderland contended that keeping
Gateshead separate forced unnecessary disruption across the rest of the North East Combined Authority sub-region. The Labour Party submitted a counter‑proposal (BCE‑79502) with a pattern of constituencies that relied upon treating the whole North East combined authority area as one sub-region. Conversely, treating the borough of Gateshead as a separate sub-region received support from Gateshead councillors. At the Newcastle public hearing, Councillor Martin Gannon (BCE‑97056) described Gateshead as a ‘distinct community with a strong sense of identity.’ Bridget Phillipson, MP for Houghton and Sunderland South (BCE‑82612), recognised the benefits of using the combined authorities in the North East, but she considered that treating Gateshead separately within that, as we did in the initial proposals, may incur, ‘a much higher and disproportionate cost in terms of the extent to which seats elsewhere can reflect real contiguous communities.’

3.12 The Assistant Commissioners recognised that, under the initial proposals, although the Sunderland Central constituency would be preserved, the City of Sunderland local authority as a whole would be split across five proposed constituencies, many of which proved contentious during public consultation.

3.13 Having considered these issues carefully and reflected on the evidence received, the Assistant Commissioners recognised the strength of the arguments to alter the sub-regional grouping, and recommended Gateshead be part of the same sub-region as the rest of the North East Combined Authority, as this would unlock a more cohesive pattern of constituencies that would better reflect local ties across the whole sub-region. While regretting that in consequence the borough of Gateshead would no longer be self-contained in two constituencies, we agree this is outweighed by the consequential improvements to the pattern of constituencies across the rest of the combined authority area and therefore accept our Assistant Commissioners’ recommendation. We have seen no convincing arguments to revise any other sub-region – resulting in a total of three sub-regions in the North East region, each of which exactly reflects a combined authority area.