It could be much harder for Sir Robert Buckland to defend his seat at the next general election thanks to proposed changes to his constituency.

The Boundary Commission has been instructed by parliament to draw up new boundaries for MPs' patches.

Barring a few specific examples, none of them can be bigger than 77,000 voters, but the number of 650 constituencies overall will remain the same.

The immediate effect is on Justin Tomlinson’s North Swindon constituency, which at the last election in December 2019 had 82,000 voters.

The commission has not tried to move any of the northern parts of the constituency into North Wiltshire, or into any of the Gloucestershire or Oxfordshire constituencies on its borders.

Instead, they have proposed moving some of the southern parts of the patch into Sir Robert’s South Swindon constituency - specifically, Covingham and Even Swindon.

Respectively this means the council wards of Covingham & Dorcan and Mannington & Western will not be entirely within South Swindon.

It leaves North Swindon with an acceptable 72,000 voters.

But that in turn would mean that South Swindon is too big.

So, to compensate for gains in the north of the constituency, Sir Robert could lose the entire wards of Ridgeway and Wroughton & Wichelstowe - where he lives - and the southern portion of Chiseldon & Lawn.

In the latter ward, Lawn and Badbury Wick and everything north of the M4 will stay in South Swindon, but Chiseldon itself and the rest of the ward would join Ridgeway and Wroughton and Wichelstowe in the new East Wiltshire patch, mostly made up of Danny Kruger’s Devizes constituency.

That will leave South Swindon with 72,000 voters.

And that could have an effect at the next election, if these changes are approved.

Ridgeway, Chiseldon & Lawn and Wroughton & Wichelstowe are Conservative-voting wards in local elections, making it a blow for the Tories to lose these.

But the picture is more mixed in the areas South Swindon gains: it picks up Covingham and last year Covingham & Dorcan went to the Conservatives with 61.2 per cent of the vote.

But it also picks up the Even Swindon area of Mannington & Western, which returned a Labour councillor last year with 62.5 per cent of the vote.

Sir Robert’s only comment was to say we should wait and see the actual changes, given these are only proposals.

A map of the proposed changes and comments can be made up until December 5 at www.bcereviews.org.uk/