City to lose MP in boundary plan
BIRMINGHAM is to lose one MP as part of plans to cut numbers in the House of Commons.
It means the number of MPs representing the city will go down from ten to nine.
One city MP, representing the seat of Birmingham Northfield, will have to represent residents from Bromsgrove as well as their Birmingham constituents.
At the same time, thousands of Birmingham residents will be represented by Black Country MPs.
The 17,000 residents of Birmingham’s Handsworth Wood ward will be represented by the MP for West Bromwich while those in Birmingham’s Oscott ward will be represented by the MP for the new constitu- ency of Walsall and Oscott, which will also include 55,000 people in Walsall. Solihull will continue to have two MPs.
The new constituencies have been drawn up by the Boundary Commission for England, which has been told by the government to find a way of reducing the number of MPs to 600 from 650, and to ensure the number of electors in each constituency is roughly equal. It says the only way to achieve this is to create constituencies which cross local authority boundaries. In the past, constituencies have tended to coincide with the area covered by councils.
Residents who find themselves in a new constituency will not change their address or postcode.
Sutton Coldfield MP Andrew Mitchell had requested that the name of his constituency be changed to “Royal Sutton Coldfield” but the Boundary Commission rejected this idea. An initial 12-week consultation on earlier plans was held in autumn last year, followed by a second consultation in the spring of this year. Over 25,000 public responses were received during those consultations. A third and final consultation has now begun, but the new plans are likely to be put into practice. Sam Hartley, Secretary to the Boundary Commission for England, said: “The new map of the country we publish today is, we think, close to the best set of Parliamentary constituencies we can achieve, based on the rules to which we work and the evidence given to us by local citizens.”