Summary
Who we are and what we do – ‘The 2023 Review’ 1
1 Further details about the BCE and 2023 Review are published on our website: https://boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/
The Boundary Commission for England (BCE) is an independent and impartial non‑departmental public body, which is responsible for periodically reviewing Parliamentary constituency boundaries in England.
We are currently conducting a review on the basis of legal rules most recently updated by Parliament in 2020, which will conclude with a final report and recommendations from us by 1 July 2023. The rules require there to still be 650 constituencies across the UK, but more equally distributed across the four parts of the UK, which will see the number of constituencies in England increase to 543. Each (apart from five ‘protected’ constituencies) must also contain a number of electors that is no smaller than 69,724 and no larger than 77,062 (as at the fixed date of 2 March 2020).
We published our initial proposals for the new Parliamentary constituency boundaries in England on 8 June 2021 and there have been two rounds of statutory consultation relating to those to which we received over 45,000 responses. We have considered all of the comments received and taken them into account in developing our revised proposals, which we are now publishing for final consultation. For each region, a full report sets out a summary of the responses received to previous consultation on our initial proposals, our analysis of those, and the conclusions we have reached as to how the proposals should be revised as a result. The Appendix to each report contains details of the composition of each constituency we are now proposing, and maps to illustrate these can be viewed on our website or in hard copy at a local place of deposit. 2
Back to topWhat are the revised proposals for the West Midlands region?
We have revised the composition of 11 of the 57 constituencies we proposed in June 2021, and maintained our initial proposals for the remainder. We have revised the name of seven of our initially proposed constituencies. Our revised proposals would leave nine existing constituencies in the West Midlands region wholly unchanged, and ten unchanged except to realign constituency boundaries with local government ward boundaries. 3
As it is not always possible to allocate whole numbers of constituencies to individual counties or unitary authorities, we sometimes group these into sub-regions, meaning some constituencies cross county or unitary authority boundaries. After consideration of the responses to the sub-regions in our initial proposals, our revised proposals are based on unchanged sub-regions, as follows: Herefordshire, Shropshire, Worcestershire, and Warwickshire; a sub-region covering the city of Coventry; and two sub-regions which pair Birmingham and Solihull, and Staffordshire and the Black Country respectively.
We propose retaining our initially proposed constituency of Kingswinford and South Staffordshire, which would contain parts of both Dudley and Staffordshire. Elsewhere in the Black Country, we have significantly revised the initial proposals in Sandwell, resulting in new proposals for constituencies of Tipton and Wednesbury, West Bromwich, and Smethwick. We have proposed to split a ward in Walsall, enabling us to propose an Aldridge-Brownhills constituency that would contain all of the existing constituency of the same name. We have also proposed splitting a ward in Staffordshire, in order to better reflect community ties in the proposed Lichfield and Tamworth constituencies. We propose no other revisions elsewhere in Staffordshire.
We do not propose making any revisions to the configuration of constituencies in Shropshire, Worcestershire, Warwickshire, or Coventry, but have proposed minor
revisions to both constituencies in Herefordshire. We have retained much of our initial proposals in Birmingham and Solihull, other than minor adjustments to two constituencies in north Birmingham, which split the Stockland Green Ward in order to allow the transfer of Aston and Lozells wards to Birmingham Perry Barr, and the Kingstanding and Oscott wards to Birmingham Erdington.
How to have your say
We are consulting on our revised proposals for a four-week period, from 8 November 2022 to 5 December 2022. We encourage everyone to use this final opportunity to contribute to the design of the new constituencies – the more views we hear, the more informed our decisions will be when we make our final recommendations and report to Parliament. Our consultation portal at www.bcereviews.org.uk has more information about our revised proposals and how to give us your views. You can also follow us on Twitter @BCEReviews or at facebook.com/BCEReviews.
Back to top2 A list of places of deposit is published on our website (as above).
3 Where the Order to make such wards was made by 1 December 2020.