§ Mr. Deakinsasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what was the standard deviation from the mean for individual constituency electorates at the time of the last Boundary Commission recommendations for
standard deviation* of electorates Recommendations of second periodical reports (1968 electorates) Electorates of present constituencies (1982) Recommendations of third periodical reports (1982 electorates) England 8,767 16,228 6,755 Scotland 13,342 †15,821 †7,907 Wales 11,160 14,711 7,234 * The standard deviation is a measure of the spread of a set of figures about their mean value. A standard deviation is calculated as the square root of the average of the squared differences between each figure and the mean value. † Published in table 4 of the third periodical report of the Boundary Commission for Scotland. Volume 1, Cmnd. 8794.