Section 4: Publicity and consultation
Section 4 makes amendments to section 5 of the 1986 Act concerning publicity and consultation as part of the boundary reviews under section 3 of the 1986 Act.
	Subsection (2) amends section 5(1)(a)(iii) of the 1986 Act to provide that the length of the initial consultation period (the first of three consultation periods undertaken in a boundary review) is reduced from 12 weeks to eight weeks.
	The amendments made by subsections (3), (4), (6) and (7) require the Boundary Commissions to hold public hearings during the secondary consultation period instead of during the initial consultation period. New section 5(4B) of the 1986 Act (which is inserted by subsection (7) of section 4 of this Act) requires the Boundary Commissions, after the end of the secondary consultation period, to-
publish records of the public hearings that have been held, and
take steps to inform people in the proposed constituencies that written representations regarding the public hearing records may be made to the Commission during a further specified period of eight weeks ("the third consultation period").
	Subsection (5) amends section 5(4)(b) of the 1986 Act to increase the length of the secondary consultation period from four weeks to eight weeks.
	Subsection (8) amends section 5(5) of the 1986 Act to provide that if a Boundary Commission produces revised proposals following the secondary consultation period, written representations may also be made on the revised proposals during the third consultation period.
	Subsection (12) modifies section 5 of the 1986 Act for the next boundary review (in respect of which the Boundary Commissions are required to submit their reports before 1 July 2023) so that the secondary consultation period will be six weeks (instead of eight weeks) and the third consultation period will be four weeks (instead of eight weeks). These provisions allow the 2023 review to take place within a slightly shortened time frame of 2 years and 7 months (rather than the current 2 years and 10 months) and to report before 1 July 2023.