Estimating the Partisan Impact of Redistricting in Great Britain

Redistricting has a substantial influence on parties' electoral fortunes, so the process receives extremely close attention from those potentially affected by changes to the pattern of constituency boundaries. In the United Kingdom, redistricting recommendations are made by independent Boundary Commissions, but the political parties can influence the nature of those recommendations through the representations that they make during the consultative process. When a Commission has made provisional recommendations for a county (in England and Wales), region (in Scotland) or London borough, individuals and organizations have one month in which to make written representations, either favourable or unfavourable, regarding all or part of the recommendations, and they can suggest alternative sets of constituencies for the area concerned. The Commission may then hold a public inquiry, at which the interested parties can promote their views and contest those put forward by others. The assistant commissioner who conducts the inquiry reports to the commission, which may publish alterations to the provisional recommendations as a result of his/her advice. If their suggestions are adopted by the Commission for its final recommendations, then those promoting them at the public inquiry will have influenced the redistricting outcome. For detailed discussions of the work of the Boundary Commissions, see D. Butler, ‘The Redrawing of Parliamentary Boundaries in Britain’, Journal of Behavioural and Social Sciences, 37 (1992), 5–12; I. McLean and R. Mortimore, lsquo;Apportionment and the Boundary Commission for England’, Electoral Studies, 11 (1992), 293–309.