Scott Martin:

I certainly think that work could be done on changing the variance, which is effectively half the gains I talked about as a permissible departure in relation to the Venice Commission “Code of Good Practice in Electoral Matters”. The question of wards is rather different in Scotland than in England. Parliamentary constituencies in Scotland are based on wards, with no ward splitting. Of course, before the 2007 Scottish Parliament and local government elections in Scotland, we moved to three or four-member wards. The consequence is that you cannot get sensible constituencies without splitting wards, particularly with the hard limit put in place as a result of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011. It is a rather different situation in Scotland, for practical reasons, as a consequence of the size of wards we have.