Foreword from the Deputy Chair
The 2021/22 year has seen significant delivery of parts of the 2023 Review of Parliamentary constituencies. During the course of the year we held two of the statutory public consultations. The first was the consultation on the initial proposals, to which we received over 34,000 written responses. I was delighted that of these over 90% were received via the online consultation platform. In February 2022 we published all these comments and consulted on them for six weeks. We also held 32 in-person public hearings across England during the consultation. This was a significant achievement given the Covid-19 pandemic. It was very gratifying that over 1,000 people provided oral representations at the hearings. I’m most grateful to the Secretariat for ensuring the hearings were successful and went smoothly. We also received over 10,000 written consultation responses during this period, which again is a superb response.
While recognising the challenge of delivering the Review during the course of the pandemic, we also experienced some internal change as the sponsor of the Commission transferred from the Cabinet Office to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities as part of a Machinery of Government change. I’m grateful to the efforts from all parties to ensure a smooth transition of the Secretariat.
We have been working hard with our Assistant Commissioners to consider all 45,000 consultation responses received, interrogate the evidence and decide whether we should revise our initial proposals in light of the comments. We will consult on any revisions later this year, likely in the autumn, which means we remain on track to submit our final recommendations to the Speaker of the House of Commons by July 2023, as required by the legislation.
Sir Peter Lane
Deputy Chair
7 October 2022
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