How MPs navigated changing constituency boundaries
The Boundary Commissions for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland submitted their 2023 Boundary Reviews in June, presenting their recommendations to the Speaker of the House of Commons on the reorganisation of UK parliamentary constituencies. Out of 650 existing constituencies in the UK, only 65 will remain unchanged. Dr Emmeline Ledgerwood, our Oral History Project Manager, reflects on the impact boundary changes have had on MPs in the past.
Constituency boundaries for seats in the UK Parliament are changing across the UK for the first time since 2010, following the recent submission of the 2023 reviews by the Boundary Commissions for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. With the passage of the Parliamentary Constituencies Act in 2020, work on these reviews began in 2021, progressing from the publication of initial proposals through various public consultation exercises to revisions of the proposed changes.
Boundary reviews are an important element in our first-past-the-post electoral system. They seek to keep up with the country’s changing demographics so that the number of seats gained by any political party in a general election is a fair reflection of where the electorate’s support lies. However a boundary review throws politicians’ future parliamentary prospects up in the air, with the very real potential to close down or open up political careers. Our collection of interviews with former MPs include many memories associated with boundary reviews that took place during the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. They reveal the uncertainty, political manoeuvring and emotions that today’s and tomorrow’s MPs might be going through as a result of the redrawing of the constituency map.
For sitting MPs, their first response is to attend meetings discussing how their party will respond to the commissions’ initial set of proposals. The consultation stage in the review process offers the opportunity for parties, individual MPs and others to influence the outcome of the review, yet there is no guarantee that their suggestions will be accepted, as this clip from the interview with Vivian Bendall [Conservative MP for Ilford North, 1978-1997] shows.
Dennis Canavan [Labour MP for West Stirlingshire 1974-1983, Falkirk West 1983-2000] had very little faith in the processes informing the 1983 boundary review which split his constituency into seven, as he explains here:
Dennis Canavan by Alison Chand. (c) The History of Parliament Trust.
Canavan’s attitude was shared by a number of Labour MPs who then embarked on legal proceedings against the Boundary Commission in a protracted but unsuccessful effort to obstruct the implementation of the new boundaries before the 1983 election. An alternative strategy employed by the Labour Government in 1969 was to delay implementing the recommendations of the 1969 review before the 1970 election, yet this opened up an unexpected opportunity for an ambitious young Conservative called Janet Fookes [Conservative MP for Merton and Morden 1970-1974, Plymouth Drake 1974-1997]:
Janet Fookes by Barbara Luckhurst. (c) The History of Parliament Trust.
Once the commissions’ final proposals have been approved, sitting MPs whose constituencies have been re-drawn, split or even disappeared have to make a tactical decision over whether to seek selection in the same area or try their chances elsewhere, as John Bowis [Conservative MP for Battersea, 1987-1997] remembered from the 1974 election:
Nobody quite knows what happens when you split a seat, it’s a bit like what happened when Bromley and Chislehurst split, and Pat Hornsby-Smith got what she thought was the less good half and went off to fight Aldridge Brownhills which she failed to win, meanwhile her old half of the seat romped home with Roger Sims. You can’t always get it right.
Often MPs have to stand against their allies in selection for a reduced number of seats, as Giles Radice [Labour MP for Chester-le-Street 1973-1983, North Durham 1983-2001] said: “We all challenged each other, in fact I beat one of my friends which was rather awful, and … that was him … gone.” Michael Brotherton [Conservative MP for Louth 1974 -1983] was another one who had to go: “So there were four seats and three men and I was piggy in the middle, I drew the short straw and … very sad to leave.”
Personal political ambition was not always the driving force behind the decisions taken in these circumstances, as revealed in this account from Dr Thomas Stuttaford [Conservative MP for Norwich South, 1970-74] about Norfolk boundary changes in the 1974 election:
It’s really smoked filled rooms on both sides. […] Ian Gilmour received North Norfolk instead of Central Norfolk through the redistribution. And extraordinarily in a very kindly way spoke to Ralph Howell and said to Ralph: ‘Let’s be honest about this, I may have more Conservative voters in my part of the new constituency than you have in your part but I am quite well known nationally and you are very well known in Norfolk. When it came to choosing someone, you would probably find that the party leaders might well choose me rather than you, you see, and I don’t want you to leave Parliament and I think that I can go off now and find another safe seat somewhere else so I am going to resign my opportunity for North Norfolk and leave that open for you.’ Very few people have been as selfless as that. He got a safe seat finally but there were one or two miscarriages en route. A tricky gestation period for him and he brought it on himself entirely. [Track 1, 00:54:41 -00:56:32]
Another story that reveals the close relationships between neighbouring MPs comes from Bill Rodgers [Labour/SDP MP for Stockton-on-Tees, 1962-1983] about the 1983 review.
There were two seats, one was now Stockton North and Stockton South. The other was Ian Wrigglesworth who was SDP as well. It was clearly seen that Stockton South was the most winnable seat than Stockton North and Ian Wrigglesworth said to me ‘Bill, if you want to fight Stockton South I would be quite content for you to do it.’ And I said ‘no’ … first Ian was a friend and a good candidate, young and newer, I said no, and I felt Stockton North was where I had been … the likelihood of … losing was real.
Hilary Armstrong [Labour MP for North West Durham, 1987-2010] reflected that for her father, Ernest Armstrong [Labour MP for North West Durham 1964-1987], it was his sense of belonging to the constituency that determined where he sought reselection:
Hilary Armstrong by Barbara Luckhurst. (c) The History of Parliament Trust.
When Sir Anthony Grant’s [Conservative MP for Harrow Central 1964-1983, South West Cambridgeshire 1983-1997] constituency was abolished in 1983, he experienced both the loss and opportunity that a boundary review throws up:
I was suddenly out on a limb, you know like a spaceman who’d got out of his spaceship and never get back to Earth again, that’s the end of my political career. […] then surprisingly, extraordinary, something happened in Cambridge, the Boundary Commission reorganised seats and in the process a very safe comfortable seat appeared in Cambridgeshire. […] I was duly chosen. From having been an oik of the suburbs I became a knight of the shire, and a much safer seat, entirely different, much bigger, huge, 57 villages to get around.
Sir Anthony Grant by Godfrey Argent, 23 October 1969. (c) NPG
For David Sumberg [Conservative MP for Bury South, 1983–1997] the 1983 review heralded the creation of a number of new seats in the north-west, creating “a wide open field amongst those who were not or who had never been MPs.” The creation of a new seat persuaded Sylvia Heal [Labour MP for Mid Staffordshire 1990-92, Halesowen and Rowley Regis 1997-2010] to stand a second time in 1997: “I then thought I’m not going to upset or offend too much any friends in the Staffordshire area.” Just as she was invited by the members of the Labour party in Rowley Regis to stand, so was Edwina Currie [Conservative MP for South Derbyshire, 1983-1997] alerted by a local agent to new selection opportunities in 1983 in the Midlands.
Edwina Currie by Henry Irving. (c) The History of Parliament Trust.
Many of these extracts allude to the effect that boundary change has on local party activity and organisation, with Sylvia Heal referring to the formation of a ‘shadow’ constituency party in advance of the new boundaries. Michael Morris [Conservative MP for Northampton South 1974-1997] spoke of the difficulties in the 1997 election campaign since “a lot of the workers lived in the villages and they were now in another seat”.
Our interviewees show that while boundary changes will expose political ambition, they also reveal a consideration for the fate of parliamentary colleagues and strong attachments to the geography and inhabitants of their constituencies. Dennis Canavan admitted, “I still have a kind of nostalgia for West Stirlingshire constituency because it was so huge and so varied — it was like a microcosm of Scotland”, while Anthony Grant declared at his reselection meeting:
I can be a useful MP, I’ve always wanted to be looking after my people and that has always been to me the most interesting thing. That’s my area, those are my people, I fight for them.
