| Short Title: | House of Commons (Redistribution of Seats) Act 1944 |
| Type: | Act |
| Parliament: | Parliament of the United Kingdom |
| Long Title: | An Act to make temporary provision for the division of abnormally large constituencies together in certain cases with adjoining constituencies, and permanent provision for the redistribution of seats at parliamentary elections. |
| Year: | 1944 |
| Citation: | 7 & 8 Geo. 6. c. 41 |
| Royal Assent: | 26 October 1944 |
The House of Commons (Redistribution of Seats) Act 1944 (7 & 8 Geo. 6. c. 41) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that established permanent boundary commissions for each of the constituent countries of the United Kingdom, and provided for the periodic review of the number and boundaries of parliamentary constituencies.
The Act established the membership of each commission, the procedures to be followed by the commissions, and the rules for the redistribution of seats for the commissions to observe. The commissions' initial reviews of constituencies under the Act were implemented by the Representation of the People Act 1948.[1]
The rules continuing into the 21st century for the redistributions of seats in the House Commons evolved from the Speaker's Conference in 1944.
The conference recommended an electoral quota for Great Britain calculated from the electorate and a 25 per cent tolerance on either side and that the total number of Members of the House of Commons should remain substantially the same with the Northern Ireland seats fixed at 12; the number of Scottish seats should be not less than 71 and the number of Welsh seats not less than 35. This was swiftly enacted in the House of Commons (Redistribution of Seats) Act 1944. In the period 1944 to 1958, the primacy of equality rule was diluted in five ways by further legislation:[2]
Thereafter, the rules were only subject to minor change by statute, mainly to take account of changes in local authority structures.[2]
The Speaker of the House of Commons was to be the chairman of each of the four commissions. The remaining members were as follows:
(For the purposes of the Act Wales included Monmouthshire)
No member of the Commons, or of either house of the Parliament of Northern Ireland was qualified to be a commissioner, and any serving commissioner would be disqualified on becoming a member of any of these bodies.
The Act contained a number of rules to guide the work of the commissions.
"As far as practicable" in England and Wales:
In Scotland:
In Northern Ireland:
The electorate of any constituency should not differ from the "electoral quota" by more than 25%.
The electoral quota was obtained by dividing the total electorate for either Great Britain or Northern Ireland by the number of allocated seats.
Each commission were allowed to depart from the rules on areas or electorate in special cases "including in particular the size, shape and accessibility of a constituency" in order to form constituencies.
| Short Title: | House of Commons (Redistribution of Seats) Act 1947 |
| Type: | Act |
| Parliament: | Parliament of the United Kingdom |
| Long Title: | An Act to relax the rules set out in the Third Schedule to the House of Commons (Redistribution of Seats) Act, 1944, so far as they relate to the application of the electoral quota and, in consequence thereof, to postpone the enumeration date for the purposes of the initial report under section three of that Act. |
| Year: | 1947 |
| Citation: | 10 & 11 Geo. 6. c. 10 |
| Royal Assent: | 18 February 1947 |
| Collapsed: | yes |
The 1944 Act was amended by the House of Commons (Redistribution of Seats) Act 1947 (10 & 11 Geo. 6. c. 10), and succeeded by the House of Commons (Redistribution of Seats) Act 1949 which amended the rules for the redistribution of seats, but did not change the membership or procedures of the commissions.