Part of Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill – in the House of Lords at 11:30 pm on 24 January 2011.
When the Bill says "may take into account", is it not either disingenuous or simply confused? In reality, the 5 per cent limit in tolerance around 76,000 voters means that in practical terms it will be impossible for the Boundary Commission to take these other factors of geography and local government alignments and so forth into account, should it wish to do so. It can perhaps take them into account but there is nothing it can do about them.