2018 Review of UK Parliament Constituencies
2018 Review index | Resources | Electorate | Initial Proposals | Public Hearings
We commenced our 2018 Review of UK Parliament Constituencies in February 2016.
On 20 October 2016 we published our initial proposals for a 12 week consultation period, until 11 January 2017. We conducted a secondary consultation on our Initial Proposals for constituencies from 28 February until 27 March 2017.
We expect to publish our Revised Proposals for consultation in Autumn 2017.
The Review is being carried out simultaneously for the whole of the United Kingdom by the 4 parliamentary Boundary Commissions, and will result in the number of constituencies for the United Kingdom being 600. We expect to submit our recommendations for constituencies in Scotland in September 2018 and for the resulting constituencies to be used in the General Election in May 2020.
Rules allocate Scotland 53 constituencies out of 600 across the UK, 6 fewer than at present.
The electoral quota for the review, which is the average electorate per constituency across the UK, is 74,769.2, with the electorate of each constituency having to be within 5% of that, that is between 71,031 and 78,507.
The legislation governing our reviews of UK Parliament constituencies is the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986 (as amended). The current text of the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986 is available on the Legislation page of our website.
We will publish further information as the review progresses.
Statement on the General Election
On 19 April 2017 Parliament agreed to hold a General Election on 8 June 2017. This election will be held on the current UK Parliament boundaries, and will elect 650 MPs across the UK.
The work of the Boundary Commission for Scotland (and of the Commissions for the three other parts of the UK) is set out in the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986 and is not affected directly by the holding of a General Election during a review. If we decide to revise our proposals for the 2018 Review of UK Parliament Constituencies, we will publish revised constituencies for consultation in Autumn 2017. The Parliamentary Constituencies Act requires us to report our recommendations to the Secretary of State in September 2018.
Should the Secretary of State agree to implement our recommendations, the new boundaries we will be in place at the next General Election after that time. In accordance with the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, that election is due to be held in May 2022.