I beg to move, That the Draft Parliamentary Constituencies (Sussex) Order, 1954, a copy of which was laid before this House on 18th November, 1954, in the last Session of Parliament, be approved. The Order refers to the creation of a new constituency in Sussex, which will be called Rye and will consist of parts of the Hastings Division, part of the Eastbourne Division and parts of the Lewes and East Grinstead Divisions. It will consist of the Borough of Bexhill, now in the Eastbourne Division, of Rye, now in the Hastings Division, and of the rural district of Battle and part of the rural district of Hailsham, now in the Eastbourne and Lewes constituencies. In consequence, part of the Hailsham rural district will be transferred from Lewes to Eastbourne.

In addition to the creation of a new constituency, there will be slight alterations in the Brighton constituencies to bring them into line with the recently-altered local government boundaries. The Order also slightly alters the boundaries of East Grinstead, Lewes and Harsham to bring them into line with the recently-altered county boundary between East and West Sussex.

I will not weary the House by going through each individual figure to show the effect of the Order on the electorate, but I will give the averages. The electorate of East Sussex increased by about 13,000 between 1946 and 1953. The new basis, resulting from the creation of the additional seats last time, entitles them to another seat, because the total electorate in 1953 was 457,000 and the existing seats gave an average electorate of 65,000. The creation of the new seat, now proposed, will reduce the average electorate to 56,700.

The existing constituencies in this part of England have rather high electorates for county constituencies, particularly Eastbourne, and have fairly large areas.