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Parliamentary Constituencies (Northern Ireland) Order 2008

I am not here to second-judge the independent Boundary Commission. Its report has been accepted without modification by the Secretary of State. The commission’s report and the public inquiries are a matter of record and they explain the position, on balance. It is not the case that a Minister or anyone else can argue that this was judged on numbers, rather than communities. One has to strike a balance between them and that is what the Boundary Commission has done. It can justify its decisions. Those decisions have been accepted by the Secretary of State and, I hope, by Parliament, so the electorate knows that it was not the politicians who fixed the boundaries—it was the independent parliamentary Boundary Commission. On Question, Motion agreed to.