MPS have spoken of their surprise at the “radical” changes being proposed for constituency boundaries in York and North Yorkshire.

The Press reported yesterday how The Boundary Commission for England was planning a major shake-up of boundaries across the country, to reduce the number of MPs and also ensure all constituencies have roughly similar numbers of voters.

In this area, a new Selby and Castleford seat is being proposed, there will also be a new Malton constituency, Thirsk will become part of a new Thirsk and Richmond seat, and York Outer will include Tadcaster for the first time. The only change in York Central will be the addition of the Heworth Without ward.

Julian Sturdy and Nigel Adams, the Tory MPs for York Outer and Selby and Ainsty respectively, both said they were supportive of the general principle of cutting the number of MPs, which would save money, and of ensuring constituencies were of broadly similar size.

However, Mr Sturdy said the changes in this area were much more radical than he had expected, although he respected the right of the commission, a completely independent body, to make such proposals.

Mr Adams said he was “surprised” the commission had decided to make significant changes to the boundaries of seven out of eight seats in North Yorkshire, considering there was no need to reduce the number of constituencies. He said Selby and Ainsty was being broken up to go into several other constituencies.

Patrick Kelly, chairman of York Labour party, said it was looking at the proposals with an open mind.

He said the Labour Party had been opposed to the Government’s insistence on cutting people’s representation in Parliament, not least because it could mean some peculiar changes to constituency boundaries.

He said when the party had examined the proposed changes in detail, it would make its representations to the Boundary Commission.