An Act to consolidate the enactments which make permanent provision for the redistribution of seats at parliamentary elections and the provisions of the Representation of the People Act, 1948, interpreting statutory references to constituencies.
Under the act, each commission was to make its first periodic report within seven years of the passing of the Representation of the People Act 1948 (11 & 12 Geo. 6. c. 65). Subsequent reports were to be issued not less than three and not more than seven years after the first periodic report. Reports were to be made to the Home Secretary, and were to contain the proposed constituency boundaries. The Home Secretary could then issue a draft Order in Council, to be approved by both houses of parliament. Once approved, the draft order would be presented to the Privy Council, and enacted via a statutory instrument. Any changes in seats would not take place until the next dissolution of parliament and calling of a general election.[citation needed]
No county district was to be included partly in one constituency and partly in another.
Electorate
The electorate of any constituency was to be as close as possible to a country-specific electoral quota to reduce malapportionment; where rigid adherence to the "as far as practicable" guidelines would mean a large disparity between electorates, the commissions were expressly empowered to form seats which combine parts of two (and where major disparity still remains, more) local government areas.
The electoral quota was obtained by dividing the total electorate for either Great Britain or Northern Ireland by the number of allocated seats.
Special geographical considerations
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, commencement and extent
Section 9(1) of the act provided that the act may be cited as the "House of Commons (Redistribution of Seats) Act 1949" and may be cited as a Representation of the People Act.
Section 9(2) of the act provided that the act provided that the act would come into force on a day not earlier than section 1(1) of the appointed by the home secretary by statutory instrument.
House of Commons (Redistribution of Seats) Act 1949 (Date of Commencement) Order 1950
The House of Commons (Redistribution of Seats) Act 1949 (Date of Commencement) Order 1950 (SI 1950/371) provided that the act would come into force on 1 April 1950.
Amendment and repeal
House of Commons (Redistribution of Seats) Act 1958[b]
An Act to increase the number of constituencies in Northern Ireland required by rule 1 in Schedule 2 to the House of Commons (Redistribution of Seats) Act 1949.
Following successful legal action the act was amended by the House of Commons (Redistribution of Seats) Act 1958 (6 & 7 Eliz. 2. c. 26). This removed the Director General of the Ordnance Survey from each commission,[2] and in each case appointed a judge to be deputy chairman.[2] It also modified the definition of "electoral quota" so that it – in England, Scotland and Wales – would mean respective quotas for each country, based on the prior number of constituencies. A new procedure was established, forcing a local inquiry to be held if many objections arose to changes.[2]
The House of Commons (Redistribution of Seats) Act 1979 (c. 15) amended the 1949 act in respect to Northern Ireland, increasing the number of constituencies in the province to 17 in number. Northern Ireland had been under-represented in the Commons to compensate for the existence of a devolved parliament. However, this had been abolished in 1973. The number of seats could be decreased to 16 or increased to 18 in the future.
The 1949, 1958 and 1979 acts were repealed by the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986, which remains the current primary legislation governing allocation of constituencies.
↑ The Boundary Commissions: redrawing the UK's map of Parliamentary constituencies; D J Rossiter, R J Johnston, C J Pattie; Manchester University Press, 1999.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
