Parliamentary Constituencies (Northern Ireland) Order 2008

On the latter point, before I receive any advice, we are talking about complete wards, so whatever the boundaries are, Audley’s Acre is a complete ward. It is what it says. The wards have boundaries. The order says, "““the following wards of Down local government district””," and mentions the names of the wards. Audley’s Acre is therefore a complete ward. Whatever it is, it is already an electoral building block, as it were. There are no divided-up wards. I hope that I can answer all the questions that I have been asked. I should add that we will have taken a number of these questions in the elected place. The commission was required to adjust the boundaries of between 16 and 18 constituencies, and it has chosen 18. The electoral quota is not being considered at present. The quota used in this review for Northern Ireland was 61,000—or 60,999, to be precise. The quota for England and Scotland is about 70,000, and the quota for Wales is 56,000. The boundaries are looked at every eight to 12 years. They are more or less within the quota—less than minus 10 per cent and no greater than plus 15 per cent. There will be big and small—that is unavoidable—but there must be a range. There is nothing way out. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, made a slip of the tongue. Some minor changes have been made to 12 of the 18 existing constituencies, but the number of constituencies has not changed; it remains at 18. In answer to another question, the constituencies were last reviewed in 1995. There is no problem with coterminosity with the Assembly. There will be six Assembly seats per Westminster constituency, and they will be designed to fit into the arrangements there. There is therefore a degree of coterminosity. In other words, no Assembly Member will cover more than one Westminster constituency, which is quite important. The noble Lord, Lord Laird, asked about Foyle. We can produce statistics for this. The electorate for Foyle will be 60,823, and the electorate for Newry and Armagh will be 68,730. So, the figure is just over 10 per cent greater, but it is not a massive difference—certainly not like the differences that there can be in England. A local government review is underway and if ward boundaries change, there may be an interim review at some time to tweak them; but by and large, once agreed today, because the House of Commons has agreed the order, these will be the boundaries for the next general election to the Westminster Parliament. There is no equivocation whatever about that; everyone knows exactly where they stand, they know exactly what the electorates are, they know where the boundaries are and so they can go campaigning. There is always an uncertainty for Members of Parliament until the orders have been approved. I think that I have covered all the questions.