Over the thirteen years of the past Labour government, the cost of politics doubled. We did not see a doubling in the quality of that government.  So just as we try to achieve more with less in every other walk of life, so we must in Parliament.

 At 650 there are too many MPs.  The House of Commons is the largest lower house of any major Western democracy.  Even the world's largest democracy, India, makes do with 545 MPs.  They have twenty times our population.

This is why Conservatives introduced legislation, with cross party support, to instruct the Boundary Commission to reduce the number of MPs by fifty in time for the next General Election. This work has the potential to save over £12 million a year and helps to demonstrate that we really are all in this together.

At the same time as bringing down costs the Boundary Commission’s work will help reduce the inequities in the electoral system.  Among other things the number of voters per seat has become unbalanced.  Some seats have fewer than 22,000 voters and some over 100,000.  Thus some votes carry nearly 5 times the influence of others.

These are of course extremes but none the less, at the moment, the electoral maths is skewed.  In 2005, Labour polled seventy thousand fewer votes in England than the Conservatives, yet won ninety-two more seats.  In 2010, despite Conservatives attaining both a higher share of the vote and a substantially larger popular vote lead than Labour did in 2005, the Conservatives still won fewer seats in 2010 than Labour in the preceding election.  On average at the 2010 elections it took 35k votes to win a Conservative seat and just 33k to win a Labour seat.

The work of the Boundary Commission will redress this balance by insisting that voters per seat be within 5% of the average.  In this way every vote carries equal influence and every MP is equally representative.  A basic requirement of democracy.

The initial proposals of the Boundary Commission have been released and their paper on the London changes is attached below.  It is important to note that these are proposals and may not be the final outcome.

The effects on the Twickenham seat, if the proposals are adopted unchanged would be significant.  In a nutshell the town of Twickenham (the four wards of Twickenham Riverside, West Twickenham, South Twickenham and St Margarets and North Twickenham) would become part of the neighbouring seat in our borough, renamed Richmond and Twickenham.  The remainder of the current Twickenham seat would be joined by three wards to the north (Hanworth, Hanworth Park and Hounslow Heath) to form a newly (and provisionally) named Teddington and Hanworth seat.

Is this as it should be?  We would be delighted to receive your views.  What are your thoughts on the boundary changes themselves?  Is there a better solution within the rules the Commission works to (included in their document)?  If the changes go ahead, what should the new seat be called?

Let us know by email to chair@twickenhamconservatives.com