Tories will gain ‘five to 10 extra seats’ with boundary changes, says expert

Defence secretary Ben Wallace among MPs who ‘face a problem’ from proposed changes

Boris Johnson visiting holiday park in Cornwall (PA)

The Conservatives will gain five to 10 seats under a planned shake-up of Westminster constituencies, according to a leading election expert.

The Boundary Commission proposals will see England gain seats, with the bulk of those in the south of the country – where Boris Johnson’s party is expected to benefit most.

“My thought is that the Tories’ net gain will be five to 10 seats,” said Tory peer and election expert Lord Hayward.

He said the gains would be partly due to the reduction of seats in Wales and Scotland and partly due to extra constituencies being created in Conservative heartlands in the south-east.

Lord Hayward said: “There’s much more change than I expected. Obviously you’ve got to do a fair amount of change because what you’re working on is electorates that are over 20 years old now … there will be constituencies where people face a problem.”

Some cabinet ministers are set to be affected by the planned changes aimed at making sure seats across the country have broadly similar numbers of voters.

The upheaval could cause major problems for defence secretary Ben Wallace, whose Wyre and Preston North seat is set to be entirely absorbed.

Health secretary Matt Hancock faces the prospect of having parts of his West Suffolk constituency merged with fellow Tory MP Jo Churchill’s Bury St Edmunds seat.

Other changes could see Sir Keir Starmer’s north London constituency annex part of Jeremy Corbyn’s seat. The plans would see the Labour leader’s constituency of Holborn and St Pancras “eat” the Tufnell Park ward in Mr Corbyn’s Islington North patch.

Meanwhile, Tory MP Michael Fabricant has complained bitterly at the proposals for his Lichfield in Staffordshire constituency – comparing the changes to those drawn up by British colonial mapmakers.

“It bears all the hallmarks of boundaries drawn in the 19th and 20th centuries by Whitehall mapmakers in days of empire without any knowledge or care of the regions and people concerned.”

Of the 533 existing English constituencies, fewer than 10 per cent remain unchanged under the proposals. Separate reviews will propose the constituencies in Wales, which is due to lose eight seats, and Scotland, which will be down two.

Martin Baxter, founder of Electoral Calculus, said the changes could help the Tories overall, but “not as much as it might have done since they now hold some red wall seats themselves which might disappear”.

The Boundary Commission is not due to make its final recommendations to parliament until July 2023 and its proposals are the subject of an eight-week consultation.

“We want to hear the views of the public to ensure that we get the new boundaries for parliamentary constituencies right,” said Boundary Commission secretary Tim Bowden.