The Conservatives’ hopes to remove a bias in the electoral system in favour of Labour have received a boost after it emerged that the Democratic Unionist Party might support them after all.

The Tories are committed to cutting the number of MPs from 650 to 600 in an overall of the constituency boundary system ahead of the next election and equalising the size of mainland seats.

The changes would remove a bias in favour of Labour in the distribution of constituency seats and hugely boost the Conservatives' chance of winning the next general election, expected in 2022.

The DUP has so far said it was implacably opposed to the plans originally proposed by the Boundary Commission for Northern Ireland which would see the Province lose an MP and cut its total number from 18 to 17 MPs. As part of this the number of DUP MPs is likely to be cut from 10 to seven.

However, an apparent leak of the Commission's revised plans suggest suggests DUP might lose no MPs afterall. Final plans are published on January 30.

The DUP declined to comment. But Tory sources said the party was now "cautiously optimistic" about winning the DUP's backing for the revised reforms which appear to have been completely rethought.