2023 Review

• Electorate breakdown for revised proposed constituencies;
• Each revised proposed constituency with its region and sub-region;
• SHP geospatial data;
• GPKG geospatial data.

• Electorate breakdown for initial proposed constituencies;
• Each initial proposed constituency with its region and sub-region;
• SHP geospatial data;
• GPKG geospatial data.

Following the passing of the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 2020 in December 2020, and the publication of the relevant Parliamentary electorate data in January 2021, we began a new review of all Parliamentary constituencies in England. We refer to this as the ‘2023 Review’, as we were required to report with our final recommendations by 1 July 2023.

Applying the statutory formula to the electorate figures meant the total 650 constituencies were to be distributed during the review to the four parts of the UK as follows:

• England = 543 (includes two ‘protected’ constituencies on the Isle of Wight);
• Scotland = 57 (includes two ‘protected’ constituencies for specified Scottish islands);
• Wales = 32 (includes one ‘protected’ constituency on the Isle of Anglesey); and
• Northern Ireland = 18

This Commission applied the same distribution formula to the English allocation, which resulted in the following redistribution of constituencies among the nine English regions for the 2023 Review:

• East Midlands = 47 (increase of one)
• Eastern = 61 (increase of three)
• London = 75 (increase of two)
• North East = 27 (decrease of two)
• North West = 73 (decrease of two)
• South East = 91 (increase of seven)
• South West = 58 (increase of three)
• West Midlands = 57 (decrease of two)
• Yorkshire and the Humber = 54 (no change)

Application of further statutory rules to the published electorate also meant that all recommended constituencies had to have no less than 69,724 Parliamentary electors and no more than 77,062 (except those ‘protected’ constituencies mentioned above). By law, these electorate figures had to be the electorates as they were on 2 March 2020.

What happens next?

Submission of our final report and recommendations to the Speaker of the House of Commons concludes our involvement in the 2023 Boundary Review. Once the reports of all four Parliamentary Boundary Commissons have been laid before Parliament fby the Speaker, the Government must prepare a draft Order to implement the new constituencies for the whole UK. This should be provided to the Privy Council for approval within four months of the last report of the four Parliamentary Boundary Commissions for the UK being laid in Parliament. Once the Privy Council approves the Order, the new constituencies will be used at the next General election following that date (any by-election in the meantime will continue to use the existing constituency).

What ward-level electorate data did you use?

Mostly the data published by the Office for National Statistics in January 2021. That ONS publication reflected wards as they were at the time of the data collection, but December 2020 legislation introduced the concept of our work taking account of ‘prospective’ local government boundaries, i.e. wards that had – at the operative date of 1 December 2020 – been ‘made’ by legal instrument, but not yet implemented at a subsequent local election. Nearly 10% of local authorities in England (mostly in London) had such ‘prospective’ ward boundaries, specifically:  1) Barnet; 2) Basingstoke and Deane; 3) Brent; 4) Buckinghamshire; 5) Cambridge; 6) Camden; 7) Chorley; 8) Cornwall; 9) Ealing; 10) Enfield; 11) Halton; 12) Hammersmith and Fulham; 13) Haringey; 14) Harrow; 15) Hartlepool; 16) Hillingdon; 17) Hounslow; 18) Isle of Wight; 19) Islington; 20) Lewisham; 21) Merton; 22) North Northamptonshire; 23) Oxford; 24) Pendle; 25) Richmond upon Thames; 26) Rotherham; 27) Salford; 28) Sutton; 29) West Northamptonshire; 30) Westminster; 31) Wiltshire.

We therefore worked with the Electoral Registration Officers for all these local authorities, to recast the ONS data according to the prospective wards: you can download the complete ward-level dataset used for the review from the 2023 Review section of our Data and Resources page.

What were your process and policies for the 2023 Review?

The review progressed as follows:

• 5 Jan 2021: Publication of headline electorate figures by ONS, BCE begin development of initial proposals;
• 24 March 2021: Publish complete ward-level electorate figures (i.e. including ‘prospective’ wards);
• 10 May 2021: Publish ‘Guide to the 2023 Review’;
• 8 June 2021: Publish initial proposals and conduct eight-week written consultation;
• 22 February 2022: Publish responses to initial proposals and conduct six-week ‘secondary consultation’, including between two and five public hearings in each region;
• 8 November 2022: Publish revised proposals and conduct four-week written consultation;
• 27 June 2023: Submit and publish final report and recommendations.

You can read more about the process, law and policies in our Guide to the 2023 Review.

To assist with promoting awareness and engagement with the review, we created and supplied a partner pack, which included our press release, blog, copy and graphics that could be used on websites or social media channels, an FAQ and more. Download our partner pack here.

All information about the review was published via this section of our website, with key updates and notifications also issued via our Twitter account @BCEReviews.