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Plans to reduce the number of constituencies from 650 to 600 will increase the chance of existing communities being split among different seats, MPs have heard.
Appearing before the Commons political and constitutional reform committee this morning, representatives of the Boundary Commission said that all current parliamentary seats would be affected by the proposals.
Hugh Buchanan, secretary to the Boundary Commission for Scotland, told MPs that the commission's latitude for deciding how to draw the map would be curtailed by the requirement that all seats are roughly the same size.
Under measures included in the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill each constituency would be required to contain 76,000 voters, with a flexibility of 5 per cent each way.
Buchanan told MPs that while the commission already strives to keep constituencies similar in size, the new law would elevate population to be the primary consideration when re-drawing boundaries, overriding all other concerns.
Traditionally the commission has weighed constituency size alongside pre-existing borders such as community affinity or physical boundaries such as hill ranges or rivers.
This has irritated many who do not want to see traditional boundaries crossed or communities separated, including some in the largest constituency, the Isle of Wight, who want to see the island's natural sea border remain its constituency border.
Although Graham Allen, the chair of the committee, acknowledged the commission was unlikely to be overly sympathetic towards MPs who would be "fighting each other to the death" to secure one of the new seats.
Much like a game of musical chairs, if the number of seats is reduced from 650 to 600 in one go there will be more sitting MPs than constituencies to share between them.
Questioned on the process by which Britain's electoral map would be withdrawn, Bob Farrance, secretary to the Boundary Commission for England said it should be done in one "big bang" rather than incrementally, in order to avoid dragging out the changes.
"People do not like change," he warned. "They object to change".
The government has argued that the wide variation in constituency sizes is unfair, giving voters who live in smaller seats more of a say than those who live in the largest seats.
Speaking in the Commons on Monday. Nick Clegg, who is driving the reforms through Parliament, said: "The broken scales of our democracy mean ten votes in Glasgow North have the same weight as one vote in Manchester Central," he told MPs.
He added: "The will of the voters is not weighted equally".
But Labour has warned that the coalition is attempting to "gerrymander" constituency boundaries in order to see more Conservative and Liberal Democrat MPs elected.
Speaking during business questions in the Commons this afternoon the shadow leader of the House of Commons said Clegg had been taking advice on his legislation from Tory adviser "Sir Gerry Mander".
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