Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Wednesday 20th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Relevant documents: The Third Report from the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill, HC 437, and the oral evidence taken before the Committee on Thursday 15 July on the Coalition Government’s programme of political and constitutional reform, HC 358-i.]

[4th Allocated Day]

Further considered in Committee

[Dawn Primarolo in the Chair]

Clause 8

Reports of the Boundary Commissions

Amendment proposed (19 October): 127, page 6, leave out line 35 and insert—

‘(a) within twelve months of Part 2 of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2010 coming into force in accordance with section 16(2) thereof’.—(Chris Bryant.)

15:13

Question again proposed, That the amendment be made.

[The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Dawn Primarolo)]

I remind the Committee that with this we are taking the following:

Amendment 341, page 6, line 35, leave out ‘2013’ and insert ‘2018’.

Amendment 342, page 6, line 36, leave out ‘fifth’ and insert ‘tenth’.

Amendment 38, page 6, line 36, at end insert—

‘(3A) After subsection (2) there is inserted—

“(2AA) The boundary review due to be completed by the date set out in subsection (2)(a) above shall not begin until both Houses of Parliament have approved a report from the Electoral Commission certifying that in its opinion sufficient measures have been taken to provide for the registration of eligible voters.”.’.

Amendment 70, in clause 9, page 7, line 32, at end insert—

‘(1A) This rule is subject to an independent assessment of the Boundary Commission as to the potential electorate within any area where the Commission, having consulted—

(a) the Electoral Commission,

(b) the Registration Officer of the local authority or authorities in that area,

(c) such other organisations and individuals whom the Boundary Commission may choose to consult,

determine that the difference between the registered electorate and the assessed numbers eligible to be registered is so significant as to give rise to concern about the number of people to be served within such constituencies as would otherwise be created by rule 2(1) above.’.

Amendment 125, page 10, line 2, leave out from ‘persons’ to end of line 6 and insert

‘who are estimated by the Office of National Statistics to be eligible to vote in United Kingdom parliamentary elections, whether or not they are so registered to vote.’.

Amendment 135, in clause 16, page 13, line 5, at end insert

‘with the exception of Part 2, which will not come into force until—

(a) after the referendum on the determination of powers devolved to the National Assembly for Wales under the terms of the Government of Wales Act 2006; and

(b) the Electoral Commission has reported to the House of Commons, that over 95% of eligible voters in each local authority area are estimated to be on the electoral register.’.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)]

I welcome you back to the Chair, Ms Primarolo, and to the consideration of clause 8. I am delighted that we can continue debating amendment 127. Of course, we would not have been able to do this if the Opposition’s attempt to prevent us from doing so, when we dealt with the timetable motion yesterday, had succeeded. When I was last speaking to this group of amendments, we were having a brief exchange on the matter of Wales. I do not want to continue that exchange, because we need the opportunity to discuss the much more important issues relating to Wales and the other parts of the United Kingdom under clause 9, which I hope we will reach shortly.

I was also considering the amendments proposed by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant). One of the great advantages of having an overnight break is that we can look back at the Official Report and read what the protagonists have said. I looked back through the report of the 50 minutes that the hon. Gentleman took in proposing his amendments and found that he did not, as I had suspected, mention them once during those 50 minutes. We know not from him what the content of the amendments is. So I propose to move on from the hon. Gentleman to the right hon. and hon. Members who contributed something positive to the debate.

Much of what we heard was about registration and the fact—it is a fact—that many people do not appear on the electoral register. The hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer)—I am glad to see him in his place—made clear his view on that, and said, I think, that we were moving to a system whereby 3.5 million people are not on the register. I disagree with him about that. We are not moving to a system whereby 3.5 million people are not on the register; we are already at that stage, and have been for a very long time. The disgrace is that we have been so unsuccessful in dealing with the parts of the country where registration is insufficient.

My hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Andrew George) set out some of the reasons why we will never achieve 100% registration, given the difficulties involved. He is absolutely right, and I do not disagree with his analysis in any way. That is why the Government are introducing proposals at least to help the process and get as many people as possible on to the register.

The difficulties that we have with the amendments fall into two groups. They would change the basis on which boundary reviews are effected, moving away from the number of registered electors to some other basis, whether an estimate of eligible electors or an estimate of population. Alternatively, they suggest that we delay the process and make it longer, by a variety of mechanisms. I do not believe that that is the right way forward. The proper course of action is to ensure that the register is as accurate as possible. As I have said, the Government are taking action to improve the registration system.

Amendment 125 would require the boundary commissions to use an estimate of eligible electors, to be provided by the Office for National Statistics. The ONS does not at present make any estimate of eligible electors. Census data are available, but a census is carried out only once a decade, does not cover eligibility to vote and may contain inaccuracies. Indeed, in evidence to the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, the secretary of the Boundary Commission for Scotland said that there would be “significant practical problems” with using population rather than registered electorate for the purposes of the boundary review. It was mentioned that the electoral register is published annually, whereas the census, which does not record whether a person is eligible to vote, is published every 10 years.

Delaying the boundary reviews would simply make the information on which they are based more inaccurate. The general election held last May was based on electoral registration data 10 years out of date. That cannot be right, and that is my difficulty with amendments 341 and 342, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland). Those amendments would not only delay the initial review, but halve the frequency of such reviews, by requiring the boundary commissions to report before 1 October 2018, instead of 2013, and every 10th year after that, instead of every fifth year. That would simply make an unacceptable situation worse.

The Government’s proposals build on the existing arrangements for boundary reviews, which have been based on the electoral register for decades. It is right that we take action in support of complete and accurate registers, and the Government are taking that action. On that basis, I urge right hon. and hon. Members not to press their amendments.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

We have had 51 speakers—or rather, 52, counting the Deputy Leader of the House, who has just spoken. Despite his rather petulant and “ad hominate” speech last night, we have none the less had a good debate. He did, however, correctly excoriate me for not fully adumbrating the amendments that we tabled. That was partly because I took 31 interventions, more than half of which were from Government Members, but perhaps it would be of assistance if I were now to explain precisely why our two amendments are important.

The Deputy Leader of the House was quite right last night to say that our two amendments, 127 and 135, which refer to different parts of the Bill, are not necessarily readily comprehensible at first sight—partly because one refers to clause 8 and the other to clause 16. Both appear at different points in the amendment paper. Consequently, Members will have to turn to pages 429 and 445 to find them.

Amendment 127 would include in clause 8 the words

“within twelve months of part 2 of the…Act…coming into force in accordance with section 16(2) thereof’.”

In other words, the Boundary Commission would produce its report within 12 months of an addition to clause 16(2), which we would insert through amendment 135, stating,

“after the referendum on the determination of powers devolved to the National Assembly for Wales under the terms of the Government of Wales Act 2006”.

The Deputy Leader of the House rightly told me off last night for not explaining precisely why we believe that that is important. As I tried to say in yesterday’s debate, historically, we have constructed Parliament in this country by determination according to the four different constituent parts of the Union. That has included the representation that each part requires in order for the Union to be solid and hold together, which is precisely what happened in the 1536 Act of Union, the 1707 Act of Union and the 1801 Act of Union. With all three, the first thing determined was how much representation there should be from Wales, Scotland and Ireland. Obviously, that was subsequently changed with the creation of the Irish Free State.

The further change to Scottish representation occurred when we introduced devolution, so, following the Scotland Act 1998, it was agreed that because a variety of powers would be given to the Scottish Parliament, it was right and proper for the number of seats that Scotland accounted for in the Westminster Parliament to be reduced.

The first referendum in Wales on devolution brought about the creation of the National Assembly for Wales, which does not have law-making powers or enjoy any powers over crime, justice or policing, so it is a somewhat different body from the Scottish Parliament. However, there is a proposition that follows on from the Wales Act 2006, and it will be tested in a referendum, which the Government have said will take place in the first quarter of next year, but for which as yet no date has been set. The Welsh Assembly Government have requested that it should be on 3 March, but the Secretary of State for Wales has not yet assented to that. We do not know whether a date has been agreed or whether the referendum will proceed. The date of 3 March may well be problematic, as—how can I put it?—it sometimes rains in Wales in March. Sometimes we have fairly excessive conditions in large parts of Wales at the beginning of March, so the date may well end up being inappropriate.

However, be that as it may, we need to be assured of what powers the Welsh Assembly will have if we are then to have a coherent Union-based understanding of how much representation there should be from Wales in the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. That is why we have tabled the two amendments, and I shall press them to a Division, because I have not heard anything from the Deputy Leader of the House to alter my opinion that we should proceed on a Union-based understanding of how we create this House, not on a purely mathematically based assumption.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

Further to that point, does my hon. Friend recognise that because of the arithmetical formula, the Bill will ensure not just that boundaries will change every five years, but that the number of seats allocated to each Boundary Commission could change? The number of seats in Northern Ireland could go up in one review and down in another, and that in turn would affect the seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly, because the constituencies of the Assembly and of Parliament are absolutely coterminous. The proposal will create havoc.

[Chris Bryant]

The seats in the Welsh Assembly are coterminous with those for this Parliament at the moment, although there is a provision later in the Bill to change that through decoupling. That is something that we must analyse. My hon. Friend is right that there may be a change in the number of seats between each segment. If there is a boundary review every five years, there might well be a change in the number of seats, and in the end I am not sure whether that is likely to lead to a more stable constitutional settlement between the four constituent parts of the Union.

There are those who like to think that there is just the Union, not any constituent parts, and there are those who want to think that there are just the constituent parts—which should not be constituent parts but independent. However, I believe that they are constituent parts of the whole, and I say gently to Ministers that the way in which they are proceeding in relation to some parts of the Union is not likely to aid the Unionist cause. It will be detrimental.

We do not say that the provision in our amendments should be introduced solely if the referendum is successful in granting further powers to the Assembly.

[Mr Robert Syms (Poole) (Con)]

To be entirely clear, is it Labour party policy that England be under-represented in this House?

[Chris Bryant]

No, it is not Labour party policy that anywhere be under-represented. We believe, as I said yesterday evening, that it is important to achieve greater equalisation of the number of voters in each electorate, but that should not be a purely mathematical exercise. Where there are overriding concerns, those should be brought into play. Indeed, the Government agree to some degree, because they have created a degree of exception for Northern Ireland and a completely different set of exemptions for two seats in Scotland, which, according to the Government’s interpretation of the situation—and, I presume therefore, the hon. Gentleman’s—will effectively create two rotten boroughs in Scotland. We think that if we are going to make exemptions, we should make a broader set of exemptions, rather than just those two.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

To correct not only my hon. Friend but myself, I should say that I am reliably informed that three seats are involved. There is another seat; there is a rule that applies only to that seat on geographical grounds. That does not apply in Wales, where, as I am sure my hon. Friend will agree, a seat could well stretch from one side to the other if the population density was low.

15:30

[Chris Bryant]

My hon. Friend is right to correct me. I accept the admonition that three seats are being created in this way. I do not think it inappropriate for those seats to exist. But the logic of the Government’s argument—that there should be complete mathematical purity—leads one to suppose that they can only think that they are creating three rotten boroughs.

[Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

I detected a form of back-pedalling in the hon. Gentleman’s answer to the hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami). I assume that he is not saying that Labour’s policy is that the islands of Scotland are rotten in some way.

[Chris Bryant]

No. The hon. Gentleman knows that personally I have a great affection for the islands; indeed, many of my ancestors came from Lewis. But that is not the point. I am not trying to say that Scotland is in any shape rotten; I am merely trying to say that there is an illogicality in the argument that the Government are presenting. They are trying to say that we should have mathematical purity everywhere—except where we should not have it. I am trying to say that we should strive towards broad equality of representation in each of the seats. However, other considerations need to be brought to mind, and that should apply not only to the seats that I mentioned, but to some others as well.

[Mr MacNeil]

I want some clarification. Does the hon. Gentleman agree with the sensible exceptions that have been made for Na h-Eileanan an Iar and Orkney and Shetland? Yes or no?

[Chris Bryant]

Yes, I do. As the hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well, we have tabled amendments that would include his seat, but also include others. He is a sage man and I know that he would want to pursue the logic of the creation of his own seat so as to make exactly the same exemptions in some other cases where there are overriding concerns—in the Isle of Wight, for instance. That is the nature of the amendment that we have tabled elsewhere.

[Naomi Long (Belfast East) (Alliance)]

Could we put it this way? Given that the Government have already conceded that there are exceptions to the numerical rule, would it not be better to give the judgment to the Boundary Commission, which could not be perceived to have any vested interest? It could make the judgment on where exceptions should and should not apply, rather than the Government laying that out in the Bill.

[Chris Bryant]

The hon. Lady speaks with almost as much sagacity as the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil). I agree with her that there is no logic to how the exceptions have been laid out. The Boundary Commissions should be given a certain latitude while striving towards a greater equalisation of the number of electors in each constituency.

[Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend find it surprising that the Bill comes from a party that is meant to be committed to the Union and that that party’s parliamentary colleagues will be involving themselves in the destruction of the historic Duchy of Cornwall along the same lines?

[Chris Bryant]

My hon. and historical Friend is absolutely right. That adds to my argument, and to arguments that I shall hope to adduce later. As I said, there need to be some exemptions where there are overriding geographical, political or cultural issues that need to be resolved.

One of the overriding political issues is the bonding together of the Union, which historically has taken into consideration the existing political structures in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. That is why we have tabled amendments 127 and 135, which would mean that the Boundary Commission would not be able to proceed until the referendum had happened in Wales. In that way, we would know that there was a settled view about what powers the National Assembly for Wales would have.

There are other amendments in this group. In particular, the hon. Member for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland) has tabled amendments 341 and 342, either of which I would be happy to support; I very much hope that he will press one of them to a Division.

The hon. Gentleman made an important point in his contribution to the debate when he said that we have only just had a boundary review and we are to have another by 2013, which seems rather a fruitless exercise. He is absolutely right; it would be better if we did things on a longer time scale, and towards 2018. That point relates to his amendment 341. His amendment 342 would mean that instead of having reviews every five years, we should have them every 10 years. I say to hon. Members who are hard and fast in their view that we should have a full boundary review, every five years, on the basis of purely mathematical, arithmetical equations, that that would put every single parliamentary seat in doubt every single time. It may not be that every single one is changed every time, but a large number probably would be. The danger is that that gives rise to a conflict when an hon. Member knows the seat that they will be fighting at the next general election and they want to get in touch with the voters in that seat not as an MP but as a candidate. That is likely to lead to a considerable number of unfortunate circumstances in the way that Parliament behaves. It was difficult enough in the last general election, when the Speaker and the courts had to intervene in two cases in London where boundaries had been redrawn and MPs wished to be able to correspond not as an MP but as a candidate, and the sitting MP objected to that intervention.

[Phil Wilson (Sedgefield) (Lab)]

Does the shadow Minister agree that over, say, a 20-year period of four Parliaments one community could find itself in four different constituencies and have four different MPs, not because an MP is deposed but because the constituency boundaries are being changed to ensure that all the arithmetical figures stack up? That breaks the strong and important link between the constituency MP and the local electorate.

[Chris Bryant]

Absolutely. Particularly in many rural areas where the difference between reaching the mathematical perfect number and not reaching it might be 1,500 or 3,000 votes, a medium-sized village or small town might have to be divided in half, or a river might run across the constituency and new polling districts might have to be created. A whole series of different issues might mean that the individual voter ultimately ends up being less confident about knowing who their political representative is.

The hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing), who knows that I have a great respect for her—I waited until she took her seat before referring to her—made several points, one of which related to the fact that we should not be redrawing the seats for our own convenience. She is absolutely right. We should, however, ensure that the political boundaries for constituencies are for the convenience of our electors. Our electors do not think in terms of lines on a map but in terms of political communities, cultural connections and social connections, and where the roads go and do not go. If one is to bind together little bits of geography just because they sort out a perfect map according to mathematical excellence, one might assist the convenience of the Boundary Commission, but one will not necessarily assist the convenience of voters, who want to know and understand who their Member of Parliament is—and it is better that they do. I know that there are split wards, but it would be better if there were not.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend suggested that there would be changes every five years but that that might not affect every constituency. Does he agree that, for example, a constituency in the south that grew because of population changes and migration would necessarily have a nudging effect on contiguous boundaries and a domino effect all the way up the country, and that because it is likely that virtually every seat will change every five years during the 20-year period that my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Phil Wilson) mentioned, one’s constituency might move around the country? [Interruption.]

[Chris Bryant]

Members on both sides are laughing because my hon. Friend has of course moved around the country himself, so I will assist by saying that I know that the people of Wales welcome him back to his home town.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that where there are significant changes in the population there will not only be effects for one constituency but potentially nudge-on effects for many others, which may move from one county council or one borough to another. In part, we have to accept this. Rhondda used to have two parliamentary seats, Rhondda East and Rhondda West, and then we moved down to one parliamentary seat because the population fell dramatically. I do not believe that the boundaries of parliamentary constituencies in Wales or anywhere else should be written in stone—of course we have to move with the population flows. However, if we move forward precisely like this, without any kind of exemption, one constituency in Wales will represent at least a third of the geographical area of Wales. That would be unacceptable. It would cover several counties, which are unitary authorities in Wales, and would include areas that are, and feel themselves to be, virtually in England, and a large part of Wales that is fiercely proud of its Welsh language heritage. That would be an inappropriate direction in which to move.

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree with what the women’s institute has written? As I am sure all hon. Members know, anyone who dares to suggest that the women’s institute is party political will have their come-uppance, but it has expressed great concern about the effect that the changes will have on rural communities, because natural geographical boundaries will be cut up.

[Chris Bryant]

Tony Blair learned that one should not really mess with the women’s institute, and I have no intention of doing so, but my hon. Friend is absolutely right. Large parts of her constituency are very rural, and chunks of mine are semi-rural—everybody in the Rhondda lives within about 200 metres of a farm. Surely the point is that overriding concerns must be able to trump mathematical perfection, not entirely but to a degree. The Government have already accepted that in relation to three constituencies, but it should apply more widely.

My hon. Friend the Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer) has tabled amendment 38, which refers to registration. A lot of Members talked about under-registration yesterday afternoon, and the Deputy Leader of the House has just mentioned it. I am glad he accepts that some 3.5 million people are not on the register and should be. I make no pretence that we got it right when we were in government. Indeed, some of us—particularly one of my hon. Friends, who is probably about to intervene on me—quite rightly argued aggressively in the last Parliament that many people are under-represented on the register. The danger is that they will therefore be under-represented in Parliament and their concerns will not be taken on board.

[Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Chris Bryant]

As I was talking of my hon. Friend, I shall give way to him.

[Chris Ruane]

My hon. Friend says that we did not do as much as we could have done, and I agree, but we did do some things in the past 13 years. In the Electoral Administration Act 2006, we examined what electoral registration officers were doing and measured them in 26 fields. That process was long and slow, but now we are beginning to examine what they achieved so that we can fine-tune the process. However, the current proposals are being rushed through.

We also listened to the then Opposition. When they wanted individual registration, we opposed it at first but then said that because of political balance we would introduce it. We said that it would happen in 2015 and that we would put measures in place to increase registration over the five years until then. All that bipartisanship has been shattered by the governing parties for party political gain and to pursue a little English coup.

[The Temporary Chair (Mr Jim Hood)]

Order. I think that intervention was a bit long.

[Chris Bryant]

But it was very good, Mr Hood, and spot on. I hope that some coalition Members accept that when we were in government, we tried to co-operate on electoral registration. When the hon. Member for Epping Forest spoke for her party on the matter, she did so very effectively and we tried to co-operate and reach agreement when we could. We agreed that we would move towards individual registration, but I am concerned that the new Government’s message about registration is, “Yes, we want everybody to register, but it doesn’t really matter if you don’t. We’re going to get rid of the fine for somebody who does not send in their form, and registering is almost entirely optional.” That is a shame, because as I tried to say in a debate that the hon. Lady secured in Westminster Hall earlier today, we sometimes take our democracy for granted all too easily.

[Tristram Hunt]

My hon. Friend is right to point to the Bill’s partisan nature. Did he hear anything from the Chancellor about allocating extra resources to increasing electoral registration in December, or perhaps for the wonderful democracy festival that the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) talked about?

15:45

[Chris Bryant]

No—I heard exactly the opposite. I think that there was a reference to a 7% cut in local authority funding every year for the next four years. My concern is that, because all too often we take democracy for granted, when local councillors have to decide whether to spend £100,000 on keeping a swimming pool open or on a really good door-to-door canvas to ensure that everybody is registered, they tend to keep the swimming pool open. Although I fully understand such decisions, which will be difficult for many councillors in the next four years, unless one values democracy and spends money on it, one does not get a proper representative democracy. That is why Labour Members believe that amendment 38 is important. Unless the Electoral Commission is satisfied that there is proper registration and that proper measures are being taken to ensure full registration of all eligible voters in this country—and for dealing with those who are on the register but should not be—the Boundary Commission should not be able to produce its report.

My hon. Friend the Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) tabled amendment 125, which refers to the census. Earlier, the Deputy Leader of the House said that he did not agree with the amendment because the census happened every 10 years, which might have led one to believe that there would not be one for 10 years, but of course, one will be held next year. The information may not be available immediately, but surely it would be bizarre if we found that the number of those eligible to vote in individual areas of the country was dramatically higher than those registered to vote, and that those areas were significantly unfairly under-represented in the House because the Government chose to proceed on only one element.

[Geraint Davies]

My amendment would provide for the Office for National Statistics to conduct an assessment of the number of eligible voters. It would use the register of voters alongside the census and other data sources to get the best estimate. It might not be perfect, but it would be better than the current suggestion.

[Chris Bryant]

Precisely. That is one of the things that the Boundary Commission should consider.

One other issue was mentioned in yesterday’s debate. I am sorry to refer to the hon. Member for Epping Forest for a third time, but she got rather cross with me in yesterday evening’s debate, so I merely wish to respond to one of her comments. She said that the point about the number of Members of Parliament in a particular area and the casework that they took on was not a matter of substance. Various hon. Friends suggested that some of those who are not eligible to vote often provide much of the casework in a constituency. Consequently, there is an argument about the role of the Member of Parliament, which should be considered before reaching the precise matter of how the boundaries are drawn. The hon. Lady said that it would be good if we reduced the number of Members of Parliament and achieved equalisation of the electorate in each constituency, and that if a problem remained with casework, we could give Members of Parliament more staff. [Interruption.] I think that the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Roger Williams) says, “Hear, hear” because he wants more staff to work for him.

I am concerned about the hon. Lady’s view because the role of a Member of Parliament has completely changed since the days of Stafford Cripps, and casework is an essential part of the job. Simply hiving it off to a member of staff, without the Member of Parliament’s being directly involved, distances Members of Parliament from the real life that goes on around them. Simply replacing Members of Parliament with paid staff is not the right route.

I am keen to press our amendments to a Division. I hope that hon. Members will agree that mathematical excellence is not the only way in which one should proceed towards creating new boundaries for the House of Commons, and that other considerations need to be borne in mind. I hope that I can rely on the Committee’s good sense.

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Hood. I should like to press amendment 38 to a Division. What is the appropriate time to move it, if I am allowed so to do?

[The Temporary Chair (Mr Jim Hood)]

Now that the hon. Gentleman has given notice that he wishes to press his amendment to a Division, I will invite him formerly to move it when the Division on amendment 127 is over.

[Chris Bryant]

Further to that point of order, Mr Hood. Does that also apply to amendment 341 or 342?

[The Temporary Chair]

Yes, certainly.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

15:50

Division 86

Ayes: 232

---

Labour: 222
Democratic Unionist Party: 7
Social Democratic & Labour Party: 3
Independent: 1
Green Party: 1

Noes: 326

---

Conservative: 270
Liberal Democrat: 49
Scottish National Party: 4
Alliance: 1
Plaid Cymru: 1

Amendment proposed: 342, page 6, line 36, leave out “fifth” and insert “tenth”.—(Greg Mulholland.)

Question put, That the amendment be made.

16:05

Division 87

Ayes: 237

---

Labour: 220
Democratic Unionist Party: 5
Social Democratic & Labour Party: 3
Liberal Democrat: 3
Scottish National Party: 3
Conservative: 1
Independent: 1
Alliance: 1
Green Party: 1
Plaid Cymru: 1

Noes: 319

---

Conservative: 272
Liberal Democrat: 47

Amendment proposed: 38, page 6, line 36, at end insert—

‘(3A) After subsection (2) there is inserted—

(2AA) The boundary review due to be completed by the date set out in subsection (2)(a) above shall not begin until both Houses of Parliament have approved a report from the Electoral Commission certifying that in its opinion sufficient measures have been taken to provide for the registration of eligible voters.”.’.—(Graham Stringer.)

Question put, That the amendment be made.

16:20

Division 88

Ayes: 231

---

Labour: 222
Democratic Unionist Party: 6
Social Democratic & Labour Party: 2
Plaid Cymru: 1
Green Party: 1

Noes: 328

---

Conservative: 274
Liberal Democrat: 48
Scottish National Party: 4
Alliance: 1
Plaid Cymru: 1

[Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)]

I beg to move amendment 234, page 7, line 17, at end insert—

‘(5AA) The draft of an Order in Council laid under subsection (5A) above may only give effect to the recommendations contained in all four reports under subsection (1) above with modifications, where those modifications have been made with the agreement of the Boundary Commissions.’.

This amendment has been tabled in the names of members of the Select Committee on Political and Constitutional Reform. The Chairman of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), is sadly unable to be in here this afternoon and so I have undertaken to move the amendment on behalf of his Committee.

The Select Committee, as the Committee well knows, carried out a necessarily brief and swift but in-depth consideration of the Bill. In order to try to be helpful to the House and the Minister, we tabled several amendments that we believed ought to be considered and that we hope will improve the Bill. The purpose of amendment 234 is to reflect paragraph 139 of the Select Committee’s recently published report, which states that

“the power of the Executive to depart from the recommendations of an independent statutory body should have clear statutory limits to prevent abuse for partisan advantage.”

I am sure the Committee will agree that that is a matter that ought to be drawn to the attention of the Minister and of hon. Members.

I ask the Minister where the justification lies for the Government’s retaining such a wide-ranging power to depart from the Boundary Commissions’ recommendations. Although I would assert that I have every confidence—as does the Select Committee—that the current Government would always act in this matter in an honourable, straightforward and democratic way, may I nevertheless ask the Minister on behalf of the Select Committee what safeguards exist against any future Government’s misusing such a power to their partisan advantage. It would be helpful if the Minister would consider those questions, and I am sure that the Committee will be eager to know the answers.

[Chris Bryant]

First, let me briefly comment on the fact that before you took the Chair, Mr Hoyle, we had a former miner in the Chair and two Tellers who were also former miners, so, as the MP for the Rhondda I felt quite at home. But that has absolutely nothing to do with the amendment, I am afraid.

The amendment has been charmingly moved by the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing), who is absolutely right. This is an issue that I have tried to raise on several occasions—

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Mark Harper)]

Not so charmingly.

[Chris Bryant]

The Minister says that not so charmingly himself, so the favour goes back to him.

Under the clause, new subsection (5A) would read:

“As soon as may be after the submission of all four reports under subsection (1) above that are required by subsection (2) above to be submitted before a particular date, the Secretary of State shall lay before Parliament the draft of an Order in Council for giving effect, with or without modifications, to the recommendations contained in them.”

So the Boundary Commission will bring forth its report, there will be no public inquiry and the Minister will then bring forward the boundaries with or without modifications. It is the phrase “with or without modifications” that I have difficulty with, and clearly the Select Committee does too.

The hon. Lady mentioned that her Committee had to do its business very swiftly. Indeed, I think it had only five days in which to undertake a whole inquiry. That is one reason why I believe the Bill is being taken through with undue haste. A substantial number of amendments have been tabled and will be considered on Monday, but we already know that some of them are inaccurate and will be modified when the Government bring forward territorial statutory instruments in relation to Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. I very much hope that the Minister will enlighten us as to whether those statutory instruments will be subject to the affirmative or negative procedure. [Interruption.] That is not what will happen on Monday because the measures are not going to be debated next Monday at all, contrary to what the Deputy Leader of the House has just said from a sedentary position.

The Government believe that we should retain in present legislation the phrase “with or without modifications”. That is a pretty broad power.

[Mr Syms]

With previous boundary reviews, there have sometimes been attempts at judicial review of elements of what the Boundary Commission has done. Most of them have been rejected, but we have to consider that that is a possibility and that minor modification might be required—or does the hon. Gentleman think that will not happen?

[Chris Bryant]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point about the due process that needs to be gone through. I believe that we need a due process in relation to the Boundary Commission, because it might proceed incorrectly according to the rules that are laid down for it, it might proceed in a partisan manner or it might not consider all the factors that need to be considered. That is why we have heretofore always had a system of public inquiry, and not just written reports being sent in. That is essential for there to be utter confidence in the process that the commission goes through. He is absolutely right that there is also, sometimes, a process of judicial review. I suspect that if the Government push through the Bill in the partisan way that they are doing, without any provision for public inquiry, the likelihood of a judicial review being sought in many constituencies in the land will be very high indeed.

The hon. Gentleman might say that that is a good reason why the Minister needs even more power to draw constituency boundaries as he thinks fit. Unless the Government can be shifted from this view—whether that happens in this House or in the other House—we shall almost inexorably end up with no due process, other than the recourse that people might have to the courts.

The Minister will probably tell us that the Government need this power because apostrophes and commas are sometimes put in the wrong place and there are inadvertent errors. That is why the amendment, which was tabled by several members of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, is perfect: it simply says that the Minister, if he or she wishes to make any modification, must return to the Boundary Commission and ask, “Are you okay with this amendment?” If Ministers were in a conciliatory, cross-party mood, they would accept the amendment.

I fully understand that the precise wording they propose is that of the current legislation. That is fine when due process can go on after the boundary commissions have done their work—for example, public inquiries, where the public can have their say on the boundary commissions’ proposals. Where that does not happen—that is the intention of the Bill, although it is something that we shall return to later—it is important that there is a bind on Ministers, so that they are not entirely free to dream up any kind of modification that they might want; otherwise, strictly speaking in law, I guess that Ministers would be perfectly at liberty, if they felt that the boundary commission had got something slightly wrong and representations were made to Ministers, to make such modifications as they thought fit.

[Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)]

I do not know whether my hon. Friend is familiar with the situation in the United States, where there is no boundary commission and state legislators draw up in a partisan, political way each state’s congressional districts. Does he agree that we are starting down a slippery slope and that we will end up with a partisan political set of redistricting—to use the American phrase—if the boundary commission’s authority is not protected?

[Chris Bryant]

That will happen not just if we do not have the boundary commission’s public inquiry process, but if this element of the Bill remains without the amendment. My hon. Friend is absolutely right. In the United States of America, because there is a redrawing each time, there are many instances where the incumbents effectively draw boundaries to protect themselves. Therefore, two Hispanic communities that might be thought to vote Democrat could be linked, because boundaries must be contiguous, by a single side of a road, thus creating bizarrely shaped constituencies. That is why, as I am sure hon. Members know, one of the congressional districts in Massachusetts that was drawn up by Governor Elbridge Gerry in the 19th century was shaped like a salamander—hence the term “gerrymander”. In fact, it looked more like an eagle than a salamander.

This provision, as constructed in the Bill, will specifically allow Ministers to gerrymander. It is entirely partisan. It will allow Ministers—indeed, it encourages them—to be partisan. [Interruption.] The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), says from a sedentary position what I have already said. He says, “We aren’t changing anything.” He says, as I have said, that the provision is in the existing legislation—it is—but if he would just listen to the end of the paragraph, he would understand and learn that, in fact, the difference between the legislation that he is advancing and the existing legislation is that he will allow no due process. There will be no public inquiries. Consequently, I do not think that the electorate will have confidence in the way the commission draws up boundaries and, thereafter, in the way that Ministers are allowed by their legislation to make such modifications as they see fit.

The Minister may be able to satisfy my concerns by saying that there is legal provision to prevent a member of the Government from doing anything that the Boundary Commission disagrees with, but I do not think he will be able to, because I cannot see where the Bill or any Act makes such a provision. That is why we wholeheartedly support the amendment presented by the hon. Member for Epping Forest. We believe intrinsically that it is one of the most important amendments to the Bill, and I do not know whether she intends to press it to a Division, but if she does not we certainly shall.

16:45

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

As a member of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, I am disappointed to find that a measure with cross-party support on the Committee—we all agreed to it—has not been accepted as a good piece of advice on amending a Bill which did not have the pre-legislative scrutiny that might have incorporated such a provision in the first place. Indeed, that is why we have such bodies as Select Committees. They exist to ensure, in an atmosphere that is not adversarial, a greater depth of debate than has been possible even in our debates on the Bill over the past couple of days and today. All Select Committee members felt that, as a safeguard, the amendment was a reasonable way to progress, and, if Ministers have no intention of making unreasonable modifications, they have nothing to lose from accepting such a provision.

The hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) said that she had no concerns about her Government using such powers. We might think differently, but equally she might think differently if there were a change of Government. From the perspective of our discussions in the Committee, the measure simply represented a safeguard that accounts for the fact that the whole procedure has changed. We know that the provision in the Bill is very similar, so we are not ignoring it, but the amendment was agreed to in the wider context of a debate about how we carry out such boundary changes, and the fact that public inquiries will not take place. We wanted to ensure that things could not be altered at the last minute in an unsatisfactory way that cut across whatever public consultation there had been throughout the process.

With many aspects of the Bill, we have forgotten the underlying reason for wanting to legislate on the constitution. I remember the Deputy Prime Minister, when he introduced this constitutional programme, saying that he wanted to overcome the distrust in politics and the fact that people appeared to have lost faith in politics and politicians, and that he felt that the constitutional changes would improve the situation. Having listened to some of last night’s debate, I think it very important that we bear that test in mind when we consider the provision before us. We should ask ourselves, “Do these various detailed provisions improve that trust or detract from it?” The amendment would be a small and fairly technical provision that went some way to meeting that test. I commend it to the Minister and hope that it might be accepted.

[Mark Durkan]

The amendment would represent a very important reassurance, because the Minister would not be able to make highly arbitrary and subjective judgments on any modifications that were introduced. As my hon. Friends have pointed out, we are being asked to consider a situation in which, in every Parliament, there will be a boundary review in respect of the next Parliament. That means that in each Parliament, and in each Government, the relevant Minister will in effect have his or her hands on a boundary review. That fundamentally changes the political nature of the operation, and it might be abused. I am thinking not only of one party against another; it could be abused within a party. It could become yet another of the Whips’ weapons against recalcitrant Government Members—they could say, “Look, we can redistrict you.” That is what has happened in the United States. We find many former members of Congress who say that they were blatantly redistricted by their own parties because they did not fit or did not particularly toe the line. We have seen that happen in various states.

The arrangements provided in the Bill are pregnant with the possibility of abuse or accusations of abuse. The parliamentary process needs to be protected from that. The House has made a mistake in accepting boundary reviews every five years rather than every 10 years. That means that every Parliament will be affected and infected by the issue and the controversy around it. If Ministers want to be free from that, they should agree to the amendment.

[Mr Heath]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) for moving the amendment. I give my best wishes—and, I am sure, those of the whole Committee—to the Chairman of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, who would normally have been here to speak about its proposals.

We have had a short and helpful debate. The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) has told us about the derivation of the word “gerrymander” again; hopefully, we will hear that each day this Committee sits. It worries me when the hon. Gentleman talks about due process: the more he talks about it—and it is not the issue before us at this stage—the more I think he does not know what it means. We will come back to that later.

The hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore) assumed a position on the part of the Government without knowing what it was. I suggest to her that that is not a sensible way to go forward; that is meant to be helpful. We are grateful to her.

The hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) got the tone exactly right. There is an issue, and we understand that. The amendment would allow the Order in Council laid before Parliament to give effect to the boundary commissions’ recommendations with modifications only if the commissions were content with the changes made. As we have heard, the existing legislation does not have a restriction on modification such as that proposed by the amendment. The Bill simply preserves that power.

There is no record of that power ever having been used. There was an instance in which a Government urged Parliament to reject boundary commission proposals in toto rather than modify them, and some would suggest that that in itself was an abuse, but a Government have never urged Parliament to modify such proposals, so there is no history on the issue. However, I entirely understand the desire expressed by the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee to ensure the independence of the boundary commissions and see that their work is not modified for partisan reasons by any Government.

I say to the hon. Member for Epping Forest that the Government would like to consider the matter in more detail. There might be a situation in which, for the timely implementation of the boundary commission’s recommendations, any unintended errors in the reports would need to be corrected in the Order in Council. We would want to consider carefully how any such restriction on the power to include modifications in the Order in Council might work.

There may be a technical defect in what the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee has brought forward. That is not a criticism of its work. The amendment appears to require all four boundary commissions to agree to any modification, rather than the relevant commission or commissions for the part or parts of the United Kingdom where the modification is being made. We may have to look at how the amendment is cast.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

I did not jump into the trap that my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore) jumped into. However, I want to intervene to say that I would feel quite differently if the hon. Gentleman gave an undertaking that if he found some technical concern about the wording, he would bring back an amendment that made sure that no changes could be made to boundaries by a Minister without the consent of the boundary commission for the relevant region.

[Mr Heath]

The hon. Lady has been in government so she knows the constraints within which we work.

I am very sympathetic to the views expressed in the amendment, and we will have to look at it further. That is not an attempt to fob off the hon. Member for Epping Forest or the Select Committee. It raises an important issue. I do not want there to be any circumstances in which a Government can apply a partisan consideration to a modification for a boundary commission response. I give a clear undertaking that the Government will consider the matter in detail and come back with a response in due course. I ask the hon. Lady to withdraw the amendment on the basis that we will look at the matter further and that we are grateful to the Committee for having brought it to our attention.

[Mrs Laing]

I thank the Minister for the serious way in which he has considered the amendment.

I appreciate the position taken by the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore), but the Select Committee has not suggested that the proposals in the Bill avoid due process. I would argue personally, not necessarily on behalf of the Committee, that the proposals in the Bill do involve due process, but that that is not a matter which hon. Members should worry about. That is not the problem before us right now—the problem is simply whether the Government could, at some point in the future, take action without the agreement of the boundary commissions. I am pleased that the Minister has accepted that that is an issue. Every member of the Select Committee will be very pleased that its work has, at least in this respect, been seen to be worth while and contributing to improving the Bill, which was our purpose in submitting the amendment. Having heard the general arguments put this afternoon, including by the shadow Minister, I believe that it may have to be tightened up somewhat in its wording and technicalities.

I am delighted that the Minister has indicated that the Government will look in more detail at the matter and undertaken to come back to the House with it. Given that assurance, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

[Hon. Members]

No.

16:58

Division 89

Ayes: 231

---

Labour: 216
Democratic Unionist Party: 6
Scottish National Party: 4
Plaid Cymru: 2
Social Democratic & Labour Party: 1
Alliance: 1
Green Party: 1

Noes: 308

---

Conservative: 259
Liberal Democrat: 49

[Mr Heath]

I beg to move amendment 162, page 7, line 22, at end insert—

‘( ) In Article 3 of the Lord President of the Council Order 2010 (S.I. 2010/1837) (which makes certain functions of the Secretary of State exercisable concurrently with the Lord President) the reference in paragraph (1) to the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986 is to be read as a reference to that Act as amended by this section.’.

[The Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

With this it will be convenient to discuss Government amendments 163 to 167.

[Mr Heath]

These are minor amendments to clarify the position on ministerial responsibilities in relation to the constituencies provisions of the Bill. Responsibility for elections law, including parliamentary constituencies, is now exercisable by the Lord President and the Secretary of State, as my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister, as Lord President of the Council, now has responsibility for political and constitutional reform. That was effected by the Lord President of the Council Order 2010, which provides that functions under various Acts, including the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986, are exercisable concurrently by the Lord President and the Secretary of State. In the case of that Act, “the Secretary of State” includes the Secretaries of State for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, who retain functions relating to boundary commissions in their parts of the United Kingdom.

The order states that references to the 1986 Act include references to it as amended by any enactment already made but not yet in force. It is arguable that that implies that such a reference does not include a reference to that Act as amended by a subsequent enactment. The amendment therefore provides that the reference to the 1986 Act in the order is to be read as a reference to the Act as amended by the Bill.

Amendments 163 to 167 are to clause 11 on the relationship between the changes to parliamentary constituencies and the constituencies of the National Assembly for Wales. They make similar changes to those in the Lord President of the Council Order 2010, so that the clause refers to both the Secretary of State and the Lord President of the Council, and not just to the Secretary of State. That is done in the same way as in part 1 of the Bill, which provides that the Minister means the Lord President or the Secretary of State. I hope that that is perfectly clear to the Committee.

[Chris Bryant]

These amendments seem perfectly sensible and we have no problem with them. We hope that they will go forward immediately.

Amendment 162 agreed to.

Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 68), That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill.

17:15

Division 90

Ayes: 311

---

Conservative: 262
Liberal Democrat: 49

Noes: 225

---

Labour: 213
Democratic Unionist Party: 5
Scottish National Party: 4
Social Democratic & Labour Party: 1
Alliance: 1
Plaid Cymru: 1

Clause 8, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Hoyle. The amendments selected in this group include some that are proposing special privileges—some might say gerrymandering—for certain constituencies, and these have been ruled to be in order, while others suggesting gerrymandering, such as my own, which suggests that the traditional rotten borough of Retford should be created, as it was in 1832, have been ruled out of order. [Hon. Members: “It is not this group. It is the next group.”] Well, I am making my point now anyway. Why have some been ruled in and some ruled out, when they are all about gerrymandering the boundaries?

[The Chairman of Ways and Means]

I welcome your opinion, but you cannot discuss amendments that have not been selected.



Clause 9

Number and distribution of seats

[Chris Bryant]

I beg to move amendment 364, page 7, leave out lines 27 and 28 and insert—

‘UK Electoral quota

1 The UK Electoral Quota shall be defined as the total electorate of the United Kingdom on the designated enumeration day divided by 650.’.

[The Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 41, page 7, line 28, leave out ‘600’ and insert

‘gradually reduced to 600 in accordance with the terms of rule 1A.

1A (1) In each periodic report submitted by a Boundary Commission under section 3(2), the overall number of constituencies in each part of the United Kingdom shall be no more than in the previous report.

(2) The Boundary Commissions shall meet at the outset of each periodic review to determine the overall number of constituencies in the United Kingdom, and the number to be allocated to each of the four parts of the United Kingdom by each Commission, in accordance with rule 8.

(3) The Boundary Commissions shall ensure that the overall number of constituencies in the United Kingdom is reduced in each succeeding periodic report to no more than 600 by 2029 in their fourth/fifth periodic reports.’.

Amendment 67, page 7, line 28, leave out ‘600’ and insert ‘585’.

Amendment 74, page 7, line 28, leave out ‘600’ and insert ‘500’.

Amendment 227, page 7, line 28, leave out ‘600’ and insert—

‘no fewer than 588 and no more than 612’.

Amendment 259, page 7, line 28, leave out ‘600’ and insert ‘650’.

Amendment 42, page 7, leave out lines 35 to 37 and insert—

‘U/T where U is the electorate of the United Kingdom minus the electorate of the constituencies mentioned in rule 6 and T is the overall number of constituencies in the United Kingdom determined by the Boundary Commissions under rule 1A above.’.

Amendment 68, page 7, line 35, leave out ‘U/598’ and insert ‘U/583’.

Amendment 75, page 7, line 35, leave out ‘U/598’ and insert ‘U/498’.

Amendment 260, page 7, line 35, leave out ‘U/598’ and insert ‘U/648’.

Amendment 228, page 9, line 40, at end insert—

‘Variation in number of constituencies

8A (8) A Boundary Commission shall have power to recommend that the number of constituencies in the relevant part of the United Kingdom should be greater or smaller than the number determined in accordance with the allocation method set out in rule 8.

(9) The number so recommended must be no less than 98 per cent. and no more than 102 per cent. of the number so determined.’.

[Chris Bryant]

Amendment 364 would replace the first subsection of clause 9, which states that the number of constituencies in the United Kingdom shall be 600, with the proposal:

“The UK Electoral Quota shall be defined as the total electorate of the United Kingdom on the designated enumeration day divided by 650.”

I am sure that all hon. Members will note that 650 is the present number of Members of Parliament, as opposed to the 600 that the Bill proposes. I am opposed for a series of reasons to the Government’s proposal to change the number of seats and to fix it at 600. First, they are rigging the number of seats. The 600 seats figure did not appear in any party’s manifesto. The Liberal Democrats mentioned 500 MPs in their manifesto, while the Conservatives had a manifesto commitment to reduce the number of seats by 10%, which would have taken the number down to 585. Neither of those figures is in front of us. Why might that possibly be? If those two parties were doing a deal, it would be reasonable to assume that we would end somewhere between the 500 seats mentioned in one manifesto and the 585 mentioned in the other. In fact, they have gone for a completely new figure, which seems to have been plucked out of the air.

17:30

That said, has it really been plucked out of the air? Having looked at the numbers, I suspect that bringing the number of seats down to 600 will disproportionately attack Labour seats, while going down to 585 would disproportionately attack Liberal Democrat seats. I therefore suspect that the number of 600 has been arrived at specifically for partisan purposes—to rig the Parliament of this country. That is why we will not support the clause.

[Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept the possibility that the compromise arrived at might not have been one between us and the Liberals, but among us, the Liberals and the Labour minority that wanted 650 seats?

[Chris Bryant]

Well, I would have been absolutely delighted if any process of consultation with Labour Members had taken place on the issue of the size of Parliament. Such a process has always taken place in the past and if it had done so this time, I would have ardently supported the Bill. However, absolutely no consultation has taken place. The number has not been plucked out of the air—it is a partisan number, arrived at solely to rig the electorate so that the Government will win general elections in the future.

[Mr Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

Does the shadow Minister have any evidence whatever to back up his allegation?

[Chris Bryant]

All the hon. Gentleman need do is look at the figures produced by many bodies, which make it abundantly clear.

[Tristram Hunt]

Given that this is indeed a partisan figure plucked out of the air, which appeared in neither of the governing parties’ manifestos, does my hon. Friend think that the Salisbury convention will apply in the other place? This provision has not been mandated by the people, so, under the Salisbury principle, it should not necessarily pass through the other place.

[Chris Bryant]

I hope that the House of Lords will look at this sort of measure. Historically, it has always looked at measures coming from the House of Commons, where the Government enjoy a majority by definition. Where the Lords have thought that legislation was calculated for partisan advantage, they have sought to look at it very closely. On many occasions in the past they have sought to change such legislation and make the House of Commons think again. As to the Salisbury convention, one problem is that it is difficult for the Lords to work out what counts as having been in a manifesto, given that two of them are now relevant. However, the number of seats specified in the clause did not appear in either manifesto, so this does present a problem.

There is a further problem. In recent years, it has been unusual for the Government to enjoy a majority in both this House and the other place. By virtue of the fact that there are now two parties in government, there should ostensibly be a majority in the House of Lords. I am very confident, however, about their lordships’ capacity for independence of mind, regardless of the whipping arrangements.

The other reason why I believe the system is being rigged, which is why I am opposed to the reduction from 650 to 600 seats, is on account of the double whammy that will apply to some parts of the United Kingdom. I am sorry if hon. Members feel I talk too much about Wales—I was about to say that I make no apology for saying that, but I have already apologised. My point is that Wales faces a double whammy. If the number of parliamentary seats had to be reduced, I would have thought that no single part of the country—particularly a constituent element of the Union—should be so disproportionately affected in one fell swoop. Reducing the number of parliamentary seats in Wales by 25%, while no other part of the United Kingdom is to suffer such an immediate cut, will be detrimental to the relationship between Wales and the rest of the United Kingdom and will merely inflame the thoughts of nationalism that already exist in Wales.

[Gavin Barwell (Croydon Central) (Con)]

Did not the last Labour Government reduce the number of seats in Scotland, while making no changes anywhere else in the United Kingdom?

[Chris Bryant]

The hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that the number of seats in Scotland was reduced as a result of lengthy consultation there, not just of political parties but of the whole of society. There was a long convention that lasted for several years before the 1997 general election, which led to the Scotland Act 1998, the referendum, the creation of the Scottish Parliament—of which we are very proud—and, in exchange for that, a reduction in the number of seats in Scotland. The hon. Gentleman has just voted against a measure that would have prevented the Boundary Commission from reporting until after a referendum had been held in Wales on the powers that should be available to the Welsh Assembly. There is an inconsistency in what he is arguing.

[Ms Louise Bagshawe (Corby) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman speaks of inconsistency. Is it not ironic that he should use the word “disproportionate” to describe what would happen in Wales as a result of the Bill, given that what would actually happen is that proportionate weight would be given to Welsh votes, as to the votes of any other electors in United Kingdom?

[Chris Bryant]

As I tried to argue earlier and will argue again, that simply is not the way in which, historically, we have put together the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. I think that that is an important principle. If one is a Unionist—

[Mr Mark Field]

rose—

[Mrs Laing]

rose—

[Chris Bryant]

Just one moment.

I know that the constituency of the hon. Member for Corby (Ms Bagshawe) contains many people with Scottish ancestry, but I do not think that she is entirely versed in the dangers of nationalism that exist in Scotland and Wales. I merely say to her, in a gentle way, that if she really wants to maintain the strength of the Union, we ought to proceed differently.

[Mr Mark Field]

I agree with what the shadow Minister is trying to achieve, and, if the Committee divides on the amendment, I shall vote against the reduction. However, for two reasons, I am not sure that he is making a terribly good case.

We have discussed what happened in Scotland in 2005. There was not a great Unionist upsurge there when there was a 20% reduction in the number of seats specifically in Scotland and in no other part of the United Kingdom. Does the hon. Gentleman not recognise that his is not a terribly strong argument?

The Welsh position has been maintained since we drew up the constituencies. There were 38 protected constituencies there until 1983, and 40 thereafter. The position of Wales has been protected, and it is massively over-represented. That is the reason for the move to equalise the size of electorates, which I also fully support.

[Chris Bryant]

This is what I meant by the double- whammy element. Wales is caught both by the equalisation of the number of seats—we are not debating that now, but we will when we deal with the next set of amendments—and by the reduction in the number of seats. The net effect for Wales is that the number of seats will be cut by a quarter.

That presents some specific problems for Wales. It has already proved impossible for the present Government to ensure that the Secretary of State for Wales represents a Welsh seat—although I admit that she is Welsh—and it will become increasingly difficult to do so in the future. Because Wales, unlike Scotland, has never had a separate legal system, the Welsh Affairs Committee has to do a large amount of work, and that will continue. I think that it will be difficult to meet those needs with only 30 seats.

I am not arguing for the status quo in the number of Welsh seats. I am merely trying to present an argument, and I am sorry that it does not appeal to the hon. Gentleman. I hope that further elements of my speech will appeal to him more.

[Mrs Laing]

No one is a more ardent Unionist than I am, and I fully understand what the hon. Gentleman is saying about Wales, but he must look at the arithmetic, which is inescapable. There will be a larger reduction in the number of seats in Wales than, proportionately, in the rest of the United Kingdom because, at present, the people of Wales are over-represented in the House, as well as having a devolved Assembly, or Parliament, of their own. The hon. Gentleman cannot argue that it is right for the people of Wales to have smaller constituencies and more Members of Parliament in the House of Commons than the people of most of England and Scotland. That simply does not make sense.

[Chris Bryant]

As the hon. Lady knows, there are differences between Wales and Scotland: Scotland has a Parliament which also has powers over crime and justice, which Wales does not have; Scotland has a completely different legal system, which Wales does not have; and it raises taxes, which Wales cannot do. It is a very different system, therefore.

Let me reiterate yet again that I am not saying that we want to hold to the status quo, but I think there will be a danger for the Unionist argument in Wales if we move forward in one fell swoop from having 40 seats to there being only 29 or 30. That would create problems for the future. Let me also say that I hope that Welsh Members work sufficiently hard that they provide value for the House, even though the hon. Lady thinks there are too many of us.

[Phil Wilson]

The Deputy Prime Minister keeps going on about this being the greatest constitutional reform legislation since 1832. The 1832 Act went on to equalise the size of constituencies but left the number of constituencies at 658; it did not reduce them at all. I believe the current Government want to reduce the number of seats in order to gerrymander the whole electoral system so that we do not have a Labour Government in the future.

[Chris Bryant]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, except in one respect: the 1832 Act did not equalise the seats at all. In 1867, there was a discussion about equalising seats but that was decided against. The argument that was used then, and which has been used consistently in the past, is that it is more important for Members to represent communities than it is for there to be precisely numerically equal seats. Obviously that was, in part, because of the nature of the franchise at the time.

[Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

I am listening carefully to the case that the hon. Gentleman is making. He seems to be saying that he is quite prepared to see the number of seats reduced from 40. Will the hon. Gentleman give us some idea as to what figure he is prepared to see, therefore? It would be interesting to know exactly what figure the Opposition have in mind.

[Chris Bryant]

Several amendments in the next group refer to how one might make provision specifically for Wales, but there are other places we would like to make provision for, such as Cornwall and the Isle of Wight, rather than just the three areas the Bill covers. At present, however, I am specifically addressing the proposal to reduce the total number of seats from 650 to 600.

[Mr Mark Field]

rose—

[Chris Bryant]

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman, but I hope shortly to be able to come on to some of the arguments that he likes more than those I am addressing at present.

[Mr Field]

Given that the hon. Gentleman’s concern is that this move would lead to an increase in Welsh nationalism, will he reflect on the fact that, prior to 1997, the rationale for having a Scottish Parliament was that that would somehow snuff out Scottish nationalism? The idea was not that there should be an Administration run by Scottish nationalists within eight years of the setting up of the Scottish Parliament. Therefore, the notion that not reducing the number of seats will be in the interests of those who do not want to see an increase in nationalism has not been borne out by the facts.

[Chris Bryant]

That was never my argument in favour of devolution in Scotland or Wales. My argument in favour of devolution was simply that it is better to devolve responsibility for issues that most directly affect people to the people who are most directly affected. That is why I thought it was right to establish the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly. I very much hope we will be snuffing out nationalism in Scotland come next May however, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman agrees with me on that.

There is one other reason why I think the diminution in the number of seats from 650 to 600 is a mistake, which is to do with the number of Ministers. At present, the law allows that there should be 95 Ministers, paid or unpaid, sitting in the House of Commons, and if there are any more, they are barred from sitting in the Commons. That is an important principle. The Executive, who—unusually compared with other such systems around the world—exclusively sit in Parliament, should be limited, as should the Prime Minister’s patronage. If we reduce the number of seats from 650 to 600 and do not change the number of Ministers, the proportion of Parliament—the legislature—that represents the Executive will grow.

I hope that we will be moving in the opposite direction, although part of me is being somewhat hypocritical because I was an unpaid Minister for a while when I held the post that the Deputy Leader of the House now holds. The advent of so many unpaid Ministers is a shame and the number of Parliamentary Private Secretaries has also increased dramatically in recent years. Prime Ministers have sought to find other ways of extending patronage by making people vice-chair of a committee or by all sorts of other means. That is wrong, because we should be limiting the power of patronage within the legislature, so that the legislature can do a better job—I argued that when Labour was in government and I am arguing it now. That is why reducing the number of seats from 650 to 600 without reducing the number of Ministers is a mistake.

17:45

It is also a mistake to fix the number of seats, by which I do not mean rig that number—I have already dealt with that argument; it did not appeal to the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr Field), but we will see whether I get better. We have never fixed the number of seats in the British Parliament or in the UK Parliament. The 1832 Act determined how many seats there should be, because it created a certain number of seats and abolished some others, but it did not say that the number of seats should be fixed for ever. Indeed, several other seats were added in subsequent years, including in 1867. When further people were enfranchised in 1885 it was said that there was clearly a need for a further number of seats, and each time an element of the Celtic nations was added to the British Parliament, a number of seats were added. So it is inappropriate for us to be fixing the number of seats and then saying, “We divide it up.”

[John Mann]

Have we not now reached the crucial, salient point, which is that even in recent times Parliament has set not an absolute number, but a target—I believe that the last one was 613—for the Boundary Commission, so that an independent boundary commission, taking into account other criteria, can then set the boundaries? Is not the fundamental difference that this rather irregular Bill attempts to create an arbitrary number without building in that flexibility for an independent body to set this coherently?

[Chris Bryant]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. This approach runs against the grain of how we have always done things in this House; the proposition has always been that representation in the British Parliament should be based on the communities that exist. There has been a recognition, first, that the shires needed representation. Irrespective of whether they were large or small, the shires always had exactly the same number of seats—at first they had two, then four for a while, then two again and briefly three. It was then said that towns had to be represented and the row was then about which towns genuinely represented communities. The big change in the 1832 Act was that this House said that we could not have rotten boroughs where, to all intents and purposes, there were no electors and the seat was granted by the landlord to whomever he thought fit, and instead we had to ensure that where there were genuine communities, they should have representation, with large communities having two seats and smaller communities having one.

In addition, specifically at the moments of union, this House decided that the communities involved needed representation. So under the Act of Union in 1536, when Wales was brought in, 44 Members of Parliament were allowed for Wales—it took them six years to get here, but they were here by 1542. After the Union with England Act 1707, Scotland had 45 Members—that was increased to 53 by the 1832 Act. Following the Act of Union (Ireland) 1800, Ireland had 100 Members, a number that subsequently increased to 105, reduced to 103 and was reformed again in the 20th century with the creation of the Irish Free State.

It is also important that we do not fix the number at 600 because of the way in which the Government have crafted their Bill. It rightly allows a certain flexibility, because the electorate of any constituency may be between 95% and 105% of the aimed-at electorate across the country.

Now, let us leave aside the question of whether it is right or wrong to be precise in one’s mathematics and whether a further provision should allow the Boundary Commission to say that where there is an overriding further concern, such as a geographical, cultural or political concern, further leniency or flexibility should be allowed. What happens if the Boundary Commission, when it starts its process in the south of England and works up through the country or, in the case of Wales, starts in the south and goes north—or starts in the north and goes south—decides that the first 20 constituencies are best representing 95% of the quota? Does it then have to start filling in some 105% of that quota? The danger is that it will end up having to start all over again. Every time there is a new Boundary Commission, it will have to start all over again, because there will be knock-on effects from one constituency to another.

That is why I think it is wrong to fix the number at 600. If hon. Members think there should be a precise equation between the electorate in constituencies, it would be better to say that every constituency should be roughly 75,000 electors, give or take 5% or 10%. The Boundary Commission could then conclude how many seats there should be as a result of that to meet the two requirements—first, getting close to the 75,000 and, secondly, any other overriding concerns.

[Tristram Hunt]

Does not the figure of 600 point to the fundamental problem with the Bill, which is that it is spatchcocked with the demand for the referendum on the one hand and the reduction in the number of seats on the other? That means that no thought has been given to the role and function of a Member of Parliament, what we want from Members of Parliament and how many should fulfil that function. Instead, this has all been pooled together and pulled out of the air and that is why the Government are going to have problems.

[Chris Bryant]

I very much agree. One subject that I want to mention is precisely what the job of a Member of Parliament is in the modern era. That has obviously changed in the past 50 years and I pay tribute to the Liberal Democrats, because the kind of pavement politics that they advocated strongly—through which they won a number of seats in the ’80s and ’90s—is one thing that has changed the nature of an MP’s job today. My hon. Friend is right, and I do not think that there has been any consideration of that matter at all.

[Susan Elan Jones]

I welcome what my hon. Friend said about the balance between the Executive and the legislature. Judging from some of the nodding of heads, other Members did too. However, does he agree with the Deputy Prime Minister, who said to the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee in July:

“I think we have executive dominance; we have one of the most executive-led forms of government anywhere in the western world”?

I am not sure whether Nick agrees with Nick now, but does my hon. Friend?

[Chris Bryant]

Yes, that is true because of the structure we have in this country. Sometimes Members talk of checks and balances, which is really an import from the American system where the constitution was expressly written so as to have checks and balances. Incidentally, one of those checks and balances in the American system was that each state should have two Senators regardless of the number of people living in it. For instance, Rhode Island is tiny compared with California, which is larger economically, politically and in every other sense than a large number of countries in the world, but the two states only get two Senators in the Senate. In the British system, we do not have quite the same checks and balances—particularly if the House of Lords is dominated by a coalition in which two parties manage effectively to have control of both Houses, of the Executive and of the legislature.

I do praise some of the things that the Government have done since they took office, such as setting up the Backbench Business Committee. I hope that the whole of business could be handed over to a business committee, because I think that the role of the legislature needs to be reinforced so that the Executive is held better to account.

Various arguments have been advanced for cutting the number of MPs from 650 to 600, one of which makes international comparisons. I have heard the Deputy Prime Minister use that argument several times but it is completely fallacious. It is wrong to compare the British Parliament with the Spanish Parliament, for example, because the vast majority of Spain’s Ministers do not sit in the Spanish Parliament. The Executive are not created out of the Parliament. Similarly, in other countries—the United States being the most obvious example—the Executive do not spring from the legislature, so there are not 95 people who automatically have a second job as a Minister or a Parliamentary Private Secretary. That comparison is therefore inappropriate.

If we are to make any kind of comparison, we must bear in mind differences in the level of devolution or federalisation from one country to another. Comparing the United Kingdom with Germany, for example, is inappropriate because the Länder has far more significant powers than any local authority in England and more powers than the Welsh Assembly.

[David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that one of the checks is for the Government to allow ample time for all clauses in a Bill to be discussed? They have clearly done that on this occasion, but we will not get to relevant Welsh issues because he has spent the past half hour speaking.

[Chris Bryant]

Bearing in mind what the hon. Gentleman used to say when he was in opposition, I should have thought that he would support the scrutiny of legislation—and one has to talk to scrutinise legislation. No, we have not had enough time to scrutinise the Bill because there are four clauses and some schedules on which we have not had any debate at all. In addition, the Government have tabled 100 pages of amendments that we are going to debate on Monday, which means that we will not be able to debate issues such as the one that he is interested in—cutting the number of Ministers. I shall not take any lectures from him on how long one should speak in the House or on how much scrutiny there should be.

[Mr Harper]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Chris Bryant]

Of course I will give way to the eminently charming gentleman.

[Mr Harper]

If the hon. Gentleman thinks that the House requires more time to debate the Bill, why did he vote against the programme motion last week, which gave the House more time to debate it?

[Chris Bryant]

The Minister has clearly lost his marbles—it was because it did not give us enough time. The way in which the Government have behaved over this Bill has been an absolute shoddy mistake. They have consistently refused to provide enough time for us to debate the issues. [Interruption.] No, we did not vote against more time—we voted against the programme motion and we will continue to vote against such programme motions because we want to be able to do this job properly.

[Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, given the lack of pre-legislative scrutiny and the lack of cross-party consensus or discussions that are usual with this type of Bill, it is even more important to have the necessary debates and to spend time on the Bill at this stage? I am sure that the hon. Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies) would be arguing for that if he were in opposition.

[Chris Bryant]

There has been absolutely no pre-legislative scrutiny. This has not been adumbrated in anybody’s manifesto and it has not been available for anybody to consider in public. There has been no public consultation and no consultation between political parties. Of course, therefore, there should be provision for each clause to be considered for at least one day on the Floor of the House, as this is a major constitutional Bill. I am sorry if Government Members are arguing the exact opposite of what they used to, but my point remains—international comparisons are inappropriate.

The Deputy Prime Minister has also sought to suggest that we have far too many Members of Parliament because other countries have far fewer, but the local population per elected member at local authority level in other countries is very different: in France it is 118 and in Germany it is 350, whereas in the United Kingdom it is 2,603. We have to look at the whole set of elected officials if we are to have a real impression of whether we have too many or too few Members of Parliament. I suspect that most voters in this country quite like having a local Member of Parliament who sits in the House. Of course, if one asks the public, particularly if one does so via the Daily Express or the Daily Mail, “Are there too many Members of Parliament?” they will all answer, “Yes,” but if one asks them, “Should your town not have a Member of Parliament?” or, “Should your town be combined with another town?” they would probably answer, “No, I would prefer to have a local constituency Member of Parliament whose name I know, who is accessible and whose constituency surgery I can get to.”

18:00

[Glyn Davies]

As someone who is fairly new to the House and who is listening to the hon. Gentleman and trying to understand exactly what the Opposition want, I should like to ask him a question. He suggests that there should be a day’s debate on every clause. The last clause simply deals with the short title. Is he suggesting that there should be a day’s debate on the short title?

[Chris Bryant]

No. I think that that is a slightly facetious point, but we should have a day to debate a clause that will reduce the number of Members of Parliament from 650 to 600, and rejig the boundaries in a way completely different from anything in the past, without any public consultation, without the proposal appearing in any public manifesto, and without any consultation across the parties. None the less, the hon. Gentleman makes an absolutely fair point: some clauses do not need a whole day’s debate.

[David T. C. Davies]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way, although I do not want to extend the debate for too long. He must know perfectly well that two manifestos said that the number of MPs would be reduced and that the reduction now proposed is a much smaller one, which should be something that he could support.

[Chris Bryant]

No. I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman was present at the beginning of my comments—he was doubtless opposing the Government’s measures on S4C—but as I now apparently have to rehearse the argument for him, I can tell him that I was making the point that the number has been arrived at for entirely partisan reasons. It is not the number that was in the Liberal Democrat manifesto, nor the one that was in the Conservative manifesto.

[David T. C. Davies]

It is higher.

[Chris Bryant]

Yes, it is higher than both those figures, because it manages to reach a level that hits the number of Labour seats but not the number of Liberal Democrat seats. That is why the number has been chosen, and that is why I oppose it.

[Dr John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

I want to calm things down a bit, and take the hon. Gentleman back to the technical point that he made before. He asked what would happen if the Boundary Commission dealt with a whole pile of seats first, got to about 95% and was perfectly satisfied, and then found, because it had to stick to the number 600, that it got into real difficulty and did some very odd things later on. If that was an issue for the Boundary Commission, we might think that some advice would have been given on it. Has he asked the Boundary Commission what its advice is on that point?

[Chris Bryant]

The Boundary Commission will do what it is told to do. If the law of the land changes, the Boundary Commission’s powers and duties are determined by that legislation and it will do what it is required to do.

[Dr Pugh]

Whatever the Boundary Commission is asked to do, it can say that some tasks are more technically difficult than others. The hon. Gentleman suggests that this is a technically difficult, almost insuperable task. If that is the case, it can say so, can it not?

[Chris Bryant]

No, I am not saying that the task is insuperable. Of course it would be possible to draw up the constituencies in the way proposed, but why should one constituency then end up with 95% of the average electorate and another with 105%? [Interruption.] The Deputy Leader of the House keeps on referring to the Rhondda. He obviously has some desire either to do down the people of the Rhondda or to visit the Rhondda, but I am not extending an invitation to him.

[Mr Heath]

I wonder why the hon. Gentleman believes that the difference between 95% and 105% is a gross intrusion, yet that the difference between my constituency with its 82,000 possible voters, and his constituency with its 52,000, is perfectly all right and needs to be preserved.

[Chris Bryant]

The hon. Gentleman should not misrepresent what I have said. He knows perfectly well that I have never said that there should be a divergence between his constituency with 82,000 possible voters, and mine with 51,000. I am wholeheartedly in favour of greater equalisation. I have argued that for a long time, and the Labour party and its predecessors, going way back to the Chartists in the 1840s, argued for greater equalisation of seat sizes. But if we are to move towards equalisation do we add, on top of that, the idea of a fixed number of seats? That is what I am querying.

[Roger Williams (Brecon and Radnorshire) (LD)]

I have listened to the hon. Gentleman’s argument against 600 seats, but I do not think that I understand his argument for 650 seats, other than that it would give the Labour party an advantage. Is that a partisan argument?

[Chris Bryant]

Actually, staying at 650 gives the Conservative party more of an advantage.

I was about to argue that we should not cut the number of seats. I would prefer a situation in which we did not fix the total at any particular number: that is why we have framed our amendment as we have. In addition, it is important not to cut the number of Members.

[Tristram Hunt]

Is not the solution, as the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee has heard, to discuss what the nature of a Member is, to seek an optimum number of Members and then to introduce a rolling programme that moves towards that number, rather than an overnight slashing from 650 to 600 for nakedly partisan reasons?

[Chris Bryant]

That is wholly my view. That solution gets around the problems, to which I have referred, for the parts of the Union that are more dramatically affected than others, and it would be entirely in keeping with the tradition of this House, which is that we proceed by evolution rather than revolution.

I could understand the argument for reducing the number of seats from 650 to 600 if over the past 50 years the number of seats had dramatically increased in relation to the electorate. In actual fact, however, the number of seats has grown by 3% and the number of voters has increased by 25%, so if hon. Members were being honest they would say, “As we agree that the number of seats should go with the number of voters, we should argue for more seats, rather than fewer.”

In addition, the job has completely and utterly changed over the past few years. In a previous debate, for which not all hon. Members were present, the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) referred to casework, which is a concept in modern politics—

[Mark Tami]

“Social work”, she said.

[Chris Bryant]

Indeed. As my hon. Friend says, she referred to it as social work.

I have always believed that the job of a modern Member is very different from that of somebody 40 or even 30 years ago. For a start, the advent of 24-hour news, e-mails, which arrive at 3 o’clock in the morning, mobile telephony and all the rest of it has meant that the electorate expect us to be available far more and to return their phone calls, messages, e-mails and letters far more frequently.

The number of letters on a policy issue that a Member would have received in the 1960s in any one week would have been fewer than 10. Today, I guess that most Members receive in excess of 250 letters a week on policy issues or on an individual casework issue. If we want fewer Members, but our answer to that is to give them more members of staff, thereby increasing their expenses, we will actually deracinate Members from the communities that they serve. We will make them less accessible to voters, and that is why I believe it is wrong to cut the number of Members.

[John Mann]

If my hon. Friend is getting only 250 communications a week, he needs to enhance his communication profile.

My intervention is on a different issue, however. My hon. Friend suggested accurately that the arbitrary number of 600 is an attempt to gerrymander the boundaries against Labour. That is clearly the attempt, but does he think that the Government have done their mathematics in a sufficiently competent way? If we do an analysis throughout the country and think of the rationale that the Boundary Commission might have chosen to adopt—had it been given any under the Bill—we find that there is obviously an issue in Wales and Northern Ireland, but that in Scotland the Liberals and the Scottish Nationalists have the smaller average seats, not Labour. Throughout England, the area where it is easiest to blur boundaries—

[The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman is making an intervention, not a speech, and I think that the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) has got the gist of the point.

[Chris Bryant]

That was a very good intervention none the less, Ms Primarolo.

[The Second Deputy Chairman]

I do not need to be picked up on that. I am not commenting at all on whether interventions are good or not; I simply point out that the convention of the House is that they should be relatively brief. That is all.

[David T. C. Davies]

On a point of order, Ms Primarolo. Many Welsh MPs here are desperate to discuss clause 11, which relates to the National Assembly for Wales. The Government have kindly given us enough time to discuss the clause, yet it seems quite possible that despite the Government’s generosity we will not get to it. Will she advise me on how I, and other Welsh MPs who care about Wales, will be able to discuss it?

[The Second Deputy Chairman]

Frankly, that is not a point of order. The programme motion has been agreed by the House and Members are proceeding through the Bill, discussing what they consider to be important. As long as they remain in order, they can do so. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is grateful for having put his point on the record. Perhaps we can now return to amendment 364.

[Chris Bryant]

My hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) made a good point about how seats might be doled out in the different parts of the Union. It is interesting to analyse what might happen to Sheffield: it would be quite difficult to construct a Liberal Democrat seat for Sheffield, Hallam that would survive—so there is a silver lining somewhere in the legislation.

Some communities will end up without their own representation if we cut the number of seats from 650 to 600 and insist on mathematical perfection. That is a problem.

[Dr Pugh]

Given what the hon. Gentleman just said about Sheffield, the gerrymandering is extraordinarily bad, is it not?

[Chris Bryant]

Who knows what ambitions the Deputy Prime Minister has? Perhaps he will be looking not for a Liberal Democrat seat but for another kind of seat, come the next general election.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw excoriated me for having only 250 pieces of communication. I meant 250 letters a week; the letter, of course, is almost something from the past these days. The vast majority of the correspondence from my constituency comes in the form of a telephone call, text message, Facebook message or through some other means.

Most members of the public expect a reply from the MP, not from some flunky or somebody working in the office for free. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Bristol West (Stephen Williams) is picking me up on the word “flunky”. There are no flunkies working in my office—nor, for that matter, do I ever use staff who have offered to work for free. It is one of the shames of this Parliament that so many MPs should have to survive on the free staffing provided by interns. We ought to be moving towards having paid staff.

Another argument that I would adduce in favour of not cutting the numbers from 650 to 600 is that over the past 50 years Parliament has become more and more the place where career politicians intend to come, stay and make their livelihood. Many people have a much more diverse history than just having worked as a special adviser or for a political party before coming here. The hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) is a former GP; in fact, I think that she still serves as one. As we know, the hon. Member for Corby (Ms Bagshawe) is an author—and, of course, a former member of the Labour party. She has a diverse career behind her.

[Ms Bagshawe]

We all make mistakes.

[Chris Bryant]

I am not sure whether the hon. Lady is referring to her literature or her former party membership.

This Parliament has survived because of some of the mavericks and eccentrics, and the diversity of Members that it has managed to bring in here. If we reduce the numbers from 650 to 600, it will be the mavericks and the independents who will be disappearing and we will have more of the party political placepeople. That is a problem. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge) is saying, rather unkindly, that I am such a placeman. [Interruption.] The Minister is trying to help by asking me what I think I am. I do not think that this clause is where we go into what I think I am: the meaning of life would be a bit too complicated, and it would go a little wide of the debate, Ms Primarolo.

18:15

That is true historically, too. Some of the great people who have come through this House have never been Ministers, and have never spoken from the Dispatch Box. Samuel Plimsoll, who was much excoriated by his party Whips and much hated, acted as an independent—but probably ended up saving more lives through the legislation that he drove through the House than many of us will ever be able to.

I will just say—although I hate to get a small cheer—one final thing. [Hon. Members: “Hooray!”] You see, they are like Pavlov’s dogs—just give them the line and they will slobber. I understand why the Prime Minister went into the general election saying that he wanted to make politics cheaper and that cutting the number of Members of Parliament would somehow restore British democracy. I understand the background against which that happened; all of us who were in the previous Parliament know the scars that this House bears because of the expenses scandal, which still rumbles on in its own way. However, it is wrong always to go down the populist line in matters of constitutional decorum, particularly the number of Members of Parliament. If we have a perfect mathematical equation for delineating the boundaries, we will end up making MPs less accessible to the public and less able to influence and be involved in decisions in their local communities. It will be more difficult for ordinary members of the public to understand who their MP is and have a relationship with them. Far from improving democracy in this country, that will undermine it further.

[Roger Williams]

If an electorate of 85,000 is reduced to 75,000, how does that make it more difficult for a constituent to contact his MP? Surely every MP should be equally available to their constituents.

[Chris Bryant]

The hon. Gentleman represents an area in Wales part of which, I guess, may end up in a constituency that is very large.

[Roger Williams]

It used to be larger.

[Chris Bryant]

That did not make it better, and it was larger in an era when the expectations of a Member of Parliament to be present and available were much reduced. There was a time when MPs, when they visited their constituencies—once a year—were greeted with a brass band. That is not true today. [Interruption.] It is certainly not true for me, and I can see that it is not true for anybody else either.

[Stephen Williams (Bristol West) (LD)]

I have read the hon. Gentleman’s book, and I think that he is referring to Stafford Cripps, who was greeted by a brass band when he arrived at Bristol Temple Meads. The Member who currently represents Bristol Temple Meads is certainly not greeted in that way.

[Chris Bryant]

The hon. Gentleman is right: I am referring to Stafford Cripps. The book is not one that is available in all good bookshops, but there is a copy in the Library should any hon. Member wish to read it.

I want to end with the words of Jim Callaghan, a former Prime Minister and a Member who represented south Wales:

“Constituencies are not merely areas bounded by a line on a map; they are living communities with a unity, a history and a personality of their own.”—[Official Report, 19 June 1969; Vol. 785, c. 742.]

That has always been how we have done things in this House and in this country, and I believe that it is how we should continue to do them in future. That is why I have moved this amendment, and why I hope that we will not reduce the number of seats from 650 to a fixed number of 600.

[Mr Mark Field]

I must confess that I totally accept the need to equalise electorates, which is why I have tabled amendments in a later group, which I suspect we will not get to, suggesting that we leave out of the Bill the gerrymandering—there is no other word to use—of three Scottish seats. That has occurred through a limit of 13,000 sq km being plucked out of the sky to allow Ross, Skye and Lochaber, and probably also Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, to be seen as exceptional. If we equalise constituencies it could be regrettable for such communities, but we want electorates of a similar size.

In fairness to the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), I think that equal constituencies will mean that we divide the country up into 10 or 15 different areas, from which we can draw up the 600 seats, rather than suddenly realising when we get to the middle of Scotland that we are 10 or 15 seats short. I fully accept the need to equalise electorates, and it is greatly to be regretted that we are not doing that for all seats. It seems that a rather grubby little compromise has been put in place. In the modern, technological era, I disagree with the idea that the Western Isles and Orkney and Shetland, the two smallest seats in the UK, should be protected. Orkney and Shetland was part of the Wick Burghs constituency at one time during the last century, and the Western Isles were part of the Ross and Cromarty and Inverness-shire constituencies. It is a bogus argument that those constituencies somehow have great historical relevance.

[Mr Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman said that in his view there had been a grubby little compromise. That is quite a statement to make. Would he like to explain and elaborate on exactly what he means?

[Mr Field]

I believe that the compromise was perhaps made to keep the Scottish nationalists happy—[Interruption.] Well, the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil) represents virtually no constituents in this House. I respect that, but we are living in a technological age of e-mails and so on, and I do not agree with the notion that he should maintain the privileged position of representing just 23,000 constituents, when many of us have to represent not only our statutory 70,000 or so but a significant number of non-UK nationals. There is a perfectly good case to be made, but it should not override the idea of equalising communities.

[Mr MacNeil]

In one respect I would love to help the hon. Gentleman, of course, because I would be quite happy for there to be no MPs from Scotland in this House at all. In the meantime, while we have to have that situation, I remind him that my constituency is the length of Wales. He is very welcome to come with me to the Western Isles and explain his views to all my constituents whom he might meet on his visit.

[Mr Field]

I shall certainly take the hon. Gentleman up on that; and on the first part of what he said—he and I both.

[Mark Tami]

I listened to what the hon. Gentleman said about the three seats in Scotland. In Wales, there could be a seat in the middle of the country that, as I said earlier, could stretch from one side of Wales to the other with a very sparse population. Why is it okay for that to be taken into account of in the case of Scotland, but not Wales?

[Mr Field]

I entirely agree, and I am not defending that element of the Bill.

Neither can I see any justification for a reduction in the size of the House of Commons from 650 to 600. The somewhat bogus argument that it will save £12 million a year is certainly outweighed by the fact that the alternative vote referendum will cost some £80 million to £100 million. It is also argued that our House is one of the largest legislatures, but that argument is destroyed by the fact that this Government alone have already massively increased the size of the House of Lords, by some 56 Members since May. They are now looking to stuff a whole lot more unelected Lords in there, and the proposals to make the other House even larger are an absolute disgrace, at least before there is any reform. It is entirely regrettable that there is not to be reform of the House of Commons and the House of Lords as part of the same package.

I fear, given the comments that a number of colleagues have made, that we have not been able to scrutinise the Bill properly because we have run out of time under the programme motion. It will therefore be the House of Lords that takes up the important work of examining the constitutional impact of what is being suggested. The hon. Member for Rhondda is right that nowhere in any manifesto was there a commitment to 600 seats, and all three parties committed to move to a wholly or largely elected House of Lords at the earliest possible opportunity. That now seems a long way off. I particularly regret that because it has always been the Liberal Democrats’ position to democratise, and to make the House of Lords accountable to the electorate. They now hold the novel constitutional principle that the House of Lords should somehow reflect the voting at the last election. That suggests that 200 or so peers will be added to the House of Lords—a significant number of whom will come from the Liberal Democrat party.

I hope that, in so far as more people are to be added to the House of Lords, close scrutiny will be paid to ensure that former Members of the Commons who were caught up in the expenses scandal are not rewarded with a life peerage. As we have seen from the difficulty with the three peers who have been suspended and the two Conservative peers who face the courts in the next few months, there is no mechanism for getting rid of people from the House of Lords. Yet, as part of the constitutional reform, we are introducing some concept of giving our constituents a recall mechanism to get rid of Members of the Commons. The position is incongruous. Until the House of Lords has been sorted out—and certainly for so long as we stuff yet more unelected peers into the other place, which we have already done since May and will continue to do—it would be wrong to reduce the size of the Commons.

[Austin Mitchell (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

I rise to speak about amendments 259 and 260, which I tabled and hope to put to the vote at the end of the debate. Two features of the “General Gerrymander and Electoral Jiggery-Pokery” Bill are the most offensive. The first is the alternative vote, which is a Liberal benefit plan—Liberal Democrats hope that if we get the alternative vote, they will be everybody’s second preference. Fortunately, the alternative vote is unlikely to be carried in the referendum—I shall certainly vote against it. It is rather sad that many people with whom I have worked over the years for electoral reform seem to believe that AV is a form of electoral reform. It is not—it is the stupid person’s electoral reform. The only effective electoral reform is proportional representation.

[Stephen Williams]

If the hon. Gentleman thinks that AV is such a mistake, why did he use it to elect his own leader, and why was it in the Labour party’s election manifesto?

[Austin Mitchell]

The leader now sees the benefits of the alternative vote, but I do not. It is not a halfway house to a system of proportional representation. Only proportional representation will allow us to manage the emerging multi-party system in the confines of the electoral system. We cannot do it with the current system, but I do not want to be detoured from my main purpose.

The second unattractive feature of the Bill is clause 9, to which amendments 259 and 260 apply. It is even more offensive because it is the “Castration of the Commons” clause. It states:

“The number of constituencies in the United Kingdom shall be 600.”

It does not say “590”, “620” or “650”, but “600.” It would be interesting to know how the Government reached that figure. Did they have a séance, as they did for the scale of the cuts that were announced this afternoon: “£240 billion, £120 billion; £600 billion”? Did they split the difference, or did they, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) suggested—I think rightly—arrive at a figure that will lose Labour more seats than the Liberal Democrats?

The Liberals had a smaller figure in their manifesto, but it was proposed in the light of a transfer to STV, which the Liberal party has always supported, with three, four or five-Member constituencies, in which the Liberals have a greater chance of getting somebody elected. The smaller figure was not proposed for first past the post or AV. The Government wanted to cut 10% of the seats. Why? Was it an economy measure? Was it to capitalise on the discontent that The Daily Telegraph’s revelations about expenses produced, and to say, “We’re getting rid of these greedy so-and-sos and reducing the number of people who sponge off the public purse”? Was it that sort of populism? Is that how they arrived at the figure? We need to know before we can make a judgment.

18:30

[Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend said that the Liberal Democrats had always supported the single transferable vote. Could I remind him that he tabled an amendment recently on STV that they voted against? In fact, they should clearly change their position and say that they now oppose STV.

[Austin Mitchell]

The Liberals are in a determined rush to sign their own death warrant. I cannot judge them. I am trying to help them, because people should not sign their own death warrant while the balance of the mind is disturbed. I am trying to take power of attorney over them. The Liberal leader’s constituency—Sheffield, Hallam—will be abolished under the Bill, so a winnable seat in Sheffield will go. He might have told his party, “At this stage in the coalition, chaps, we need a futile gesture. I want you to agree to give up your seats for this Bill.” It could be that that went on, although I do not know the internal processes of the Liberals. Some of my best friends are Liberals, but I will not speak for them. I am trying to help them by tabling amendments such as the one to which my hon. Friend referred and amendment 259, which would keep the number of MPs at 650.

[Graham Stringer]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the single biggest weakness of the British constitution is that elected Members of the House of Commons do not have enough power in relation to the Executive? Clause 9 will further diminish the power of elected representatives.

[Austin Mitchell]

That is absolutely right and I agree absolutely with my hon. Friend. The real problem with the British constitution is that we do not have one. The constitution in this country is what the Government can get away with. If they can get away with clause 9, which weakens democracy and the Commons and strengthens the Executive, they can get away with more or less anything, with the willing concurrence of the supine Liberals, who are supporting a measure that will weaken them—hopefully—for their own execution.

There is no mystique to how I arrived at the figure of 650 for amendment 259. I just put it in. That is the number of MPs now and the Commons will function efficiently with it. There used to be 700 MPs in the 19th century when the Irish were here. They had to fit in a Chamber the size of this one, which seats about 420—fortunately, most of them did not come—but 650 is a good working total, which is why I chose it.

The consequence of having 600 MPs, as proposed in clause 9, is that the redistribution will be more brutal and more massive. It will be a blitzkrieg of a redistribution, but there will be no democratic controls on it. The scale of the redistribution is determined by the size of the House.

[Chris Bryant]

I just wanted to correct a fact that my hon. Friend gave. He said that there were 700 Members in the 19th century owing to the Irish, but in fact, the only time that there were more than 700 Members was from 1918 to 1922. That redistribution was brought about by the Liberals.

[Austin Mitchell]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s intervention. I took history at university, but my thesis was on the Whig party in opposition from 1812 to 1830, which was very good preparation for being in the Labour party in the 1980s and 1990s. I did not get as far as the Irish settlement of 1922, and I always regret that. I shall go to him for some tutorials. He is obviously better informed than I am.

I arrived at the figure of 650 because that seems to work well, and I do not want a reduction. As my hon. Friend the Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer) pointed out, a reduction in the number of MPs and a smaller House will make the Executive proportionately stronger. I would like to see some proposals from the Government to reduce the number of Executive appointments. There are more than 100, which means that they have a huge bought vote in the House to overrule the wishes of the Members. I want Members to be stronger and the Executive to be weaker, but this measure will have the opposite effect.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

Although I completely support the reduction in the number of Members, I have huge sympathy with the point that the hon. Gentleman makes about the Executive, because of the lack of voice. Members of the Executive do not speak on local constituency matters, and I would therefore welcome any attempts to reduce Executive numbers to increase the voice of Back Benchers proportionally.

[Austin Mitchell]

If the number of Members is reduced, the voice of the constituencies will be proportionally less in this House, and that is another argument for keeping the 650, as I propose. What will happen if the Executive are reduced in this House? Will we have more Executive appointments in the Lords? Will we appoint more of those grovelling chief executives and chairmen who wrote to The Daily Telegraph to support the Government’s plans for cuts at the expense of their customers, saying in effect, “It doesn’t matter how much damage you inflict on our customers and on demand for our businesses, we support the Government.” That is clearly a plea for knighthoods or Government jobs. Will the Government respond to that by creating posts outside Parliament for these people? How will they reconstitute the Executive to make them less strong proportionally in a reduced House? We have heard nothing on that.

Secondly, the reduction would reduce the pool of talent from which to select Ministers and to make all the other contributions that MPs make. Heaven knows, the pool is not all that big now. We do not have all that much talent, and certainly not the level that we used to have—[Interruption.] Well, we have some, especially from Humberside. Our contribution is big, but it is not enough. I would like a bigger pool of talent in the House to pick Ministers from.

Most importantly, the change would reduce the service that we provide to our constituents. I have always found constituency work exciting and interesting, and a solace for my failure to be appointed to any ministerial job—or my ability to mess up any ministerial appointment that I have been offered, which has always been very short-lived because of the joys of constituency work. I find it very satisfactory—

[Mr MacNeil]

May I take this opportunity to place it on the record that I would have loved to see the hon. Gentleman as a Fisheries Minister at one time?

[Austin Mitchell]

I was hoping that the SNP would appoint me Fisheries Minister for Scotland, but that post would have been a little difficult to handle from Grimsby. I never even achieved the rank of PPS to the Minister—[Interruption.] I apologise, Ms Primarolo. I was led astray.

There is a genuine issue about the service that we provide to our constituents. I know that we have changed over the years from senators to servants of our constituency, and I know that the amount of work has steadily increased. That is a necessary development, because our constituents want to be heard more. We no longer have the same sort of subservient, quiet and loyal electorate that would vote for parties and did not want their voice to be heard. People want to be heard and they want us to listen to them. They want to communicate with us and they want us to raise the problems that they raise with us. That is the job, and we would be less able to do that if there were fewer of us here.

[Mr Heath]

I am bemused by this concept that the figure of 600 would prevent Members of Parliament from being able to represent their constituents adequately, because the electoral quota suggested—about 76,000—already applies to a third of the House, give or take 5%. Is the hon. Gentleman saying that a third of Members are incapable of representing their constituents properly?

[Austin Mitchell]

The bigger the size of the constituency and the electorate, the harder it is to represent them adequately. It may be that evening up constituencies leads to areas being more adequately represented, because those areas will have smaller constituencies, but in my case it will mean a bigger constituency, and many of us are struggling to do the job now.

For example, the amount of mail is increasing all the time. Not so long ago, I read the biography of Hugh Gaitskell by Philip Williams, which was about Gaitskell in the 1950s. It said that Gaitskell’s papers showed that in 1958, when he was the MP for Leeds South East, he got 50 letters a month from his constituents. I get 50 letters every couple of days, and that is in addition to all the e-mails, surgery visits and stoppings in the street in Grimsby, with people asking whether I will ask this or do that, and so on, all of which I have to scribble down. That must mean that in a larger constituency it is more difficult to serve everyone in it. That is an obvious fact. Indeed, it is getting difficult to do the job adequately with 650 Members. We need more and more staff. Fortunately, we have been given more staff, but it is not enough, although it depends on the seriousness with which one does the job.

[Mrs Laing]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. Nobody could do the job more seriously than he, but right at this moment he is representing his constituents in that other way. He is once again confusing his job—the job of us all—as a social worker, providing pastoral care and advice, with the job of representing our constituents as part of the democratic process. He cannot possibly argue that a man of his calibre, or the calibre of anyone sitting in the Chamber right now, cannot cope with a few thousand more constituents to represent.

[Austin Mitchell]

I have to say that I cannot. If the work is done properly and the job is properly tackled, it is difficult. Indeed, I cannot see how people can have outside jobs and be here.

[Mr David]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the important point is not just that we take up individual cases, but that having that direct contact with our constituents influences our work as parliamentarians?

[Austin Mitchell]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. Many of the ideas that I raised, the questions that I have asked and the things that I have debated in Westminster Hall come from constituents and constituency problems. That is the nature of democracy—that is how it has to be. We have to face the fact that the state is interacting with people and imposing things on them more than ever before.

Let us look at the flood of problems that we have had with the Child Support Agency, and the fact that a special hotline has had to be created for MPs, so that they can get through to Belfast and have incomprehensible conversations. [Interruption.] I appreciate the difficulties that the constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) face doing that kind of job—if I could make it easier, I would—but it creates an enormous amount of extra work for us. The same is true of tax credits, which are extremely complex. There is all that interaction, and believe me, Ms Primarolo, there will be a lot more interaction as a result of the cuts announced today, as people come to us with problems to do with benefits, invalidity and cutting off job support. That is going to create a lot more work for us in our constituencies and a lot more work in our surgeries.

[Mark Durkan]

I just want to reinforce my hon. Friend’s point. He has to ring Belfast about CSA cases, but he is not the only Member who has to ring people in remote parts who know nothing of the situations that we are dealing with. We in Northern Ireland experience that regularly when we deal with tax credits. In fairness, the conversations that we have with Frank in Preston are comprehensible; it is the other officials who are the problem.

18:45

[Austin Mitchell]

I agree absolutely with that.

A number of Members would like to see us as some kind of intellectual elite, or as the senators that we perhaps used to be in the 19th century. The fact that we are now the street cleaners and the sewage cleaners of the constitutions—the slaves in the galley of the ship of state, albeit somewhat differently whipped—offends their dignity, but that is the job as it is.

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is unreasonable to deride one-to-one pastoral care of constituents as social work, partly because it necessarily informs our work as MPs but also because the more ordinary constituents meet their MP, whether at church, in an advice session or in the supermarket, the more they will respect us?

[Austin Mitchell]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. There has been a lot of damaging criticism and abuse of MPs as a result of the revelations in The Daily Telegraph last year, and some of that was, frankly, scandalous. It has lowered us in the public’s estimation, but people still turn to us. They need us for all the problems that they come up against. We are the defenders of last resort. We are the ombudsmen for our constituents.

[Chris Bryant]

But is it not also true that, especially for some of the most vulnerable people in some of the most vulnerable communities, we are the only advocates they can afford, whether we are advocating their cause here or, for example, at their bank? We represent them in all kinds of circumstances that no one would have conceived of as part of the job 50 years ago.

[Austin Mitchell]

I agree with my hon. Friend absolutely; he has made that point very well. That is another good title for MPs: the advocate of last resort—the people’s advocate. Well, in my case, I would be their last resort because of the inarticulacy of my advocacy! But that is the nature of the job, and it is no use complaining or saying that it is beneath our dignity to tackle all these problems. It is no use doing as Enoch Powell used to do when anyone raised an issue—

[The Second Deputy Chairman]

Order. I realise that the hon. Gentleman is making some broader points to support his amendment, which proposes 650 Members, and if he could return to that subject I would be enormously grateful.

[Austin Mitchell]

I am sorry, Ms Primarolo.

I should have said that it is much easier to do this job with 650 MPs, and that it will be much more difficult if the clause passes unamended and reduces the membership of the House to 600. That is the essence of my argument. We are straining to do the job as it is, and we have had to take on more staff. We shall need even more staff if the number of MPs is reduced. It is difficult to do our job, but it is well worth doing.

[Mrs Main]

I had a degree of sympathy with the hon. Gentleman when he was talking about the strength of the Executive, but if he has time to make TV programmes and do other things outside the House, I cannot believe that he does not have a spare moment, or that a reduction in the number of MPs would not be feasible.

[Austin Mitchell]

Some of us labour under the misfortune of being better looking than others—[Laughter.] We might appear more on television for that reason, although my days as a television hero are long gone. The essence of my argument is that this demand comes to us from the people. This is not about us putting ourselves forward to do the work; the demand comes from the people and they have to be served.

[Phil Wilson]

The people who support the idea of reducing the number of MPs from 650 to 600 say that it will save about £12 million, but even they are saying that we will need more resources to look after our constituents and that we will therefore need more staff. That £12 million will disappear overnight to pay for the extra resources that we are going to need.

[Austin Mitchell]

My hon. Friend is right. We cannot economise on democracy. We are a basic part of our democracy. We are the protectors of the people and we cannot economise on that because the demand comes from them, and they have to be served. That is our job. Some people argue that 650 MPs is too many and that this legislature is bigger than others. Yes, it is bigger than many other legislatures, but we have to bear in mind the fact that most other systems are federal. In other words, countries such as Australia, Canada, Germany and the United States have elected representatives at several levels of government. We do not. We are the only elected representatives who can act for the people in that way. That is why the figure of 650 appears in my amendment and why there should be no reduction. The proposed reduction in clause 9, which my amendment would stop, is based on a contempt for MPs and the work that they do. I want to reject that contempt.

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

I shall speak to my amendments 67 and 68. Amendment 67 would substitute the figure of 600 for 585. I tabled the amendment because at the last general election the Conservative party manifesto, on which I was privileged to be re-elected, referred to 585 seats. I have to say that I had some reservations about that part of our manifesto, because I felt that it introduced a degree of inflexibility where, as we have heard from the Political and Constitutional Affairs Committee and the Boundary Commission, it is desirable to leave the Boundary Commission with some flexibility in considering these important issues. From the outset of this Parliament, however, I have been trying to get a straight answer—either from the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) or the Deputy Leader of the House—to the question why the figure of 600 was chosen.

I take very seriously the allegation made today by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) that the figure of 600 was chosen for politically partisan reasons rather than for objective reasons pertaining to good government. I look forward to the Government responding in detail to the question of why 600, rather than 585, which was in our manifesto, was chosen. I note that the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George) is not yet in his place to speak to his amendment 74. It is a corresponding amendment from the Liberal Democrats, calling for a reduction to 500, which was the exact figure that the Liberal Democrats included in their manifesto, on which the hon. Gentleman was re-elected to this House. This is a very serious issue.

The suggestion that the figure of 600 has been plucked out of the air has rather damaging connotations for the credibility of the coalition Government. Let us examine the difference between 600 and 585. With 600 seats, there would be roughly 75,000 to 76,000 electors per constituency. With 585—in other words, a reduction of 2.5% on the 600 figure—an average of 1,800 or so electors would be added to every constituency. Is anyone in government arguing that it is on account of that crucial increase of another 1,800 electors per constituency that we have opted for the 600 figure rather than 585—itself a conveniently round number in the sense that it was a 10% reduction on the present size of the House?

[Mr Heath]

rose—

[Mr Chope]

I give way to the hon. Gentleman if he wishes to intervene.

[Mr Heath]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, but there is nothing magical about the figure of 600, just as there is nothing magical about 585. One was a 10% reduction; the other a round figure reduction of 50. The figure is not magical; it is simply an arbitrary figure that reduces the size of the House in a way that I believe is consistent with the public mood and the needs of this House.

[Mr Chope]

The hon. Gentleman says that it is an arbitrary figure; I am pleased that he concedes that. He says that it is consistent with the public mood, so let us examine that proposition and let us hope that he will provide some evidence for it when he responds to this debate in due course. He also says that the figure is consistent with the needs of this House. Where is the evidence for that? Why should this House comprise 600 rather than 585 Members? If, by referring to the public mood, the hon. Gentleman means the public’s concern about the costs of Parliament, why at the same time as reducing the size of this House are we merrily increasing the number of people in the other place, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr Field) asked? Indeed, as he told us, the number has already increased by more than the proposed reduction here.

The Government are proposing to reduce the number of Members of Parliament by 50, but they have already increased the number of Members in the other House by well over 50—getting on for 60—and there is a prospect of substantial further increases. Where is the case for that? How can increasing the size of the unelected House at considerable additional public expense, while at the same time reducing the size of the elected House, accord with the public mood?

[James Wharton (Stockton South) (Con)]

I have a great deal of sympathy with my hon. Friend’s argument about the House of Lords, but surely the fact that one House is currently moving in the wrong direction does not mean that we should not move in the right direction.

[Mr Chope]

My hon. Friend has made a perfectly fair point. Let us recall, however, that although the Government have consistently argued that the problem is that this elected House is the largest in the European Union and in most legislatures, they never point out that the other House is larger than this, and that in legislatures not just in the European Union but throughout the globe the revising or upper Chamber, or the senate, is almost invariably not larger but significantly smaller than the elected Chamber. Where is the justification for maintaining a much larger second Chamber? No international relative statistics support the case for very large second Chambers, which seems to be what the Government want to introduce.

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman has made a pertinent point in referring to the size of second Chambers in many modern democracies around the world. The point that he has not made is that in most of those instances the second Chamber is elected, whereas our second Chamber—which is bigger than our elected Chamber—is unelected. I consider it a massive contradiction that the Government are proposing an expansion of the unelected second Chamber and a reduction in the size of the legitimate, elected Chamber.

[Mr Chope]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his support. While he was making his intervention, I received a communication from a Whip to the effect that, apparently, the coalition Government are committed to reducing the size of the other House. My response was “When?” I supported an excellent ten-minute rule Bill presented by my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), which proposed doing away with Whips in this Chamber. I am grateful to the Whip for the help that he tried to give, but I should be even more grateful if he could ensure, perhaps through those on the Front Bench, that it is put on record when we will reach a point at which the second Chamber is smaller than this elected Chamber.

[Mr Dodds]

The hon. Gentleman is making an excellent point, as did his hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr Field), but is there not a clear case for presenting the proposals relating to voting, membership and size as a single reform package, given that there is bound to be a reduction at some time in the future? The fact that Whips are running around giving Members information illustrates our current problem.

[Mr Chope]

As so often, the right hon. Gentleman has made a fundamental point. Given that the Government have not been listening to what has been said on both sides of the Chamber throughout our debates, I hope that the other place will concentrate the Government’s mind by taking control of these important issues and insisting that piecemeal constitutional legislation of the sort that we are discussing is not the answer to the country’s problems, does not accord with the public mood, and is cynical in the extreme. I hope that the Bill, which has been subject to vicious timetabling and much of which will not be discussed in this Chamber, will be well and truly filleted when it reaches the other place.

[Ian Lucas]

The hon. Gentleman is making an important speech. Does he agree that what the public want is a straightforward approach from politicians of all parties, democratic accountability and an honest, considered discussion about amendments to the British constitution? Unfortunately, because we have discussed neither the Bill in draft nor issues relating to the House of Lords, we are not having that discussion now. My constituents are telling me that they believe that the Bill is designed for party political advantage, which diminishes this Chamber and all of us who sit in it.

19:00

[Mr Chope]

I take the hon. Gentleman’s point very seriously, because the allegation that there is to be constitutional change in order to try to benefit one political party over another is a very serious one. We should not allow that allegation to be spread among the electorate unless there is a justification for it. I am looking for some assurance from my hon. Friends on the Front Bench that there is no political manoeuvring and that instead this is an objective, non-partisan measure. So far, however, I have not been convinced that that is so, and I do not think the arguments put from the Opposition Front Bench and by Back Benchers on both sides of the Chamber have been properly addressed.

I have made the following point to the Deputy Prime Minister in many previous discussions in the House. There should not be a reduction in the size of the legislature without a pro rata reduction in the size of the Government. The response I have always received to that is, “Well, we don’t see the need to do that as the two issues are not connected,” but they are fundamentally connected. The hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell) and others have already made the point that the measures under discussion will give much more power to the Executive and less power to the legislature, and that is totally at odds with what the Prime Minister said when he was Leader of the Opposition that he was going to do. He said then that he wanted to increase the power of Members of Parliament and reduce the size and power of the Executive. He said that in the run-up to the general election, and it was even spelled out in terms in the Conservative party manifesto. I hope that at the end of this debate we will hear from the Front-Bench team how they think that these measures are consistent with undertakings given to the electorate both before and during the general election campaign.

What conceivable reason can there be for picking this arbitrary figure of 600? One rumour circulating among many of my colleagues is that the motivation behind the move is to provide another way for the Executive, through party managers and the party machine, to be able to put the frighteners on reluctant supporters of the coalition in both Government parties. Boundary Commission representatives said in evidence to the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee that as a result of these proposals every single constituency in the country will have to have significant boundary changes. The Whips have peddled a bit of misinformation, suggesting that if a Member’s constituency already has about the right new number of constituents—76,000—then, “You’ll be all right, Jack,” but the Boundary Commission has made it clear that every single constituency boundary in the country will have to be significantly altered. What goes with that, of course, is the reselection of Members of Parliament, and what goes with that is more power for the Executive, through the party managers, to try to influence the reselection process.

Although we know that, in fact, the most independent MPs got the best results in the last general election, it does not prevent—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) is right: she had an outstanding result in the general election, on which I congratulate her, and it had nothing whatever to do with her loyalty to her party when it was in government. What she achieved sends a very important message. I hope that many of my 147 new colleagues will take that message to heart and realise that even if this Bill goes through and a change is made to almost every constituency, those who have stood up fearlessly on behalf of their constituents will do better at the ballot box, and probably in the reselection process, than those who supinely followed whatever they were told to do by the Whips. That does not alter the fact that this can be done to put the frighteners on people, because nobody quite knows what the future will bring.

[Phil Wilson]

The hon. Gentleman is talking about the chaos that the boundary changes will create, but if this measure goes through, that will not just occur this time around; there will be uncertainty every term, not only for all Members in this place, but for our electors. We could end up breaking the link, which we all respect, between elected politicians and their voters.

[Mr Chope]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. A proposal that has not yet been tabled in an amendment or a new clause, but perhaps could be tabled on Report or in the other place, is for a sunset clause, in order to see how the new number works in practice, rather than allowing it to go on indefinitely. He may be interested in proposing such a sunset clause—

[The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. Shall we concentrate on what is actually in the Bill—in particular, the issue of the number of MPs—and not on what might occur in the future?

[Mr Chope]

Absolutely, Ms Primarolo. I am sorry that I got slightly carried away, as a result of that intervention, in anticipating what might happen in the future.

I tabled my amendment for discussion because in the general election we promised that there would be 585 MPs, because we needed that number and it would reduce the costs of Parliament, but we are now proposing 600. That means that the costs will be reduced by less than they would have been had we opted for 585. Given what we have heard today, it appears that when the books were opened they were even worse than the worst fears of my right hon. Friends in the Government. Surely it is inconsistent with the spending decisions taken today to row back from a figure of 585 to one of 600. That gives credence to the charge made against the coalition Government that, although 600 is an arbitrary figure, it is not quite as arbitrary as we might be led to believe, because it is based on some private work that has been done suggesting that it might be to the advantage of the coalition partners, rather than the Labour party.

[Mr David]

The hon. Gentleman refers to “private work”. Would he like to elaborate on who might have undertaken it, because he makes a fascinating point?

[Mr Chope]

Ms Primarolo, you have already criticised me for speculating, and I am certainly not going to speculate. All I am saying is that, before this House gives approval to a reduction in the number of MPs to a fixed number of 600, the case needs to be made and we need something more than an assertion that it is an arbitrary figure, that it accords with the public mood and that it meets the needs of this House. None of those things has been established. Apart from anything else, even if I agreed with such a move, I would not support it unless I could see evidence of a pro rata reduction in the number of Ministers and the size of the Executive, and thereby not a dilution of this House’s ability to hold the Executive to account. That is my modest contribution, but I make it clear that I intend to seek re-election in the next Parliament, be there 600 or 585 constituencies, or the current number.

[John Mann]

I wish to address my remarks to amendments 364 and 227. I particularly wish to deal with the principle of having the number of Members of Parliament fixed at 600, because I find the fixed number particularly objectionable and dangerous. That contradicts the history of this country going back many centuries, because our system has evolved as a majority system. We have had first past the post—although the alternative vote is now being suggested—as a way of electing individual Members who represent individual constituencies. The moment that one moves towards a mathematical fixation determining the number of seats, the trip down the slippery slope towards proportional representation has begun. If the mindset is that there should be an equality of votes, however that is defined—of course there were important arguments yesterday about how to define the equality of voters and who defines the electorate—and that there should be a mathematical equation, the logical conclusion is that that can be taken further as things ebb and flow.

A further conclusion could be drawn from that, because if it is good enough for the House of Commons, it is good enough for other parts of the—I use this phrase lightly—British constitution. So the House of Lords should have a fixed number of seats and Members of that House should be aware of the likely logic that must follow, whatever that number might be. Some might suggest—I think I once did—that if there was a fixed number, it should be as low as 100. It might be a shock to them to go so low. However, the moment one has a fixed number, one sets in place a principle that totally and absolutely contradicts every principle in establishing constituencies that this country has had before.

This is a critical principle, which seems to have been overlooked in the debate about the precise numbers. The moment we make that change, that principle will be enshrined for ever. The Deputy Prime Minister made comparisons to the Great Reform Act of 1832. I have studied that Act quite extensively, not least because the originator, John Cartwright, came up with the concept living in the house that I now occupy and would have been a constituent of mine. The original rotten borough was East Retford, with 150 voters choosing two Members of Parliament. Following the recent boundary changes, done on the basis of equalising constituencies across the county of Nottinghamshire, I now have the privilege of representing Retford, having lost the district of Warsop.

That was part of a boundary change under the current system to numerically equalise as much as possible the size of parliamentary seats. I have 20,000 new voters and I lost 10,000. I do not object to that principle. The 10,000 who went objected vehemently, because they seemed to feel that I was a good and representative Member of Parliament, but those whom I now represent were delighted to have the opportunity to vote for or against me. That was a major redistribution on the principle of equalising size, but this rotten Bill enshrines in perpetuity the concept of a mathematical arbitrary equation that each constituency will be of the same size, which has fundamental ramifications.

[Mr Mark Field]

I very much agree with what the hon. Gentleman has to say, but does he not recognise that we have already enshrined PR in our political system to quite a large extent, through the European Parliament since 1999, through the way we elect the Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly and London assembly, and through the way in which local authorities are elected in Scotland? We are going down precisely that path, but it is a slippery slope that we started down quite some time ago.

[John Mann]

We have had this slippery slope with the European Parliament and with how we choose its Members. Of course, the Deputy Prime Minister, apparently, was once a representative in my area—no one seems to have realised that fact, because such Members are rather distant and remote, whether they do a good job or not, because of the size of the constituency.

The interrelationship between individual and electorate that has been the basis of democracy in this country—one that other countries have, too often, moved away from in their determination to have either proportionality or equality and to have mathematical solutions to how they build a legislature—is the foundation of participative democracy. We are not just a representative democracy in this Chamber: if we are effective, we are a participatory democracy as well. That principle would be somewhat undermined by an arbitrary mathematical solution to how many Members there should be.

[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

If the hon. Gentleman is going to give us a long history lesson, will he at least assure us that he realises that Members of the House were elected using a transferable voting system until 1945 in some cases?

19:15

[John Mann]

There has never been an arbitrary mathematical equation. I would be ruled out of order if I went through an historical analysis of the Great Reform Act, why Cartwright brought it forward and its relationship to the rotten boroughs, including East Retford, so I shall not, but the principle was one of expanding democracy. There was representation before it, but it was the wrong kind of representation. The principle was about participation; it was in the evolution of participatory democracy that this country led the world—not representative democracy, which we already had. The definition of democracy was changed by the Great Reform Act into one of participatory democracy and has changed over time into one in which all citizens over the age of 18 can participate.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

The hon. Gentleman is talking about mathematics, so here is some maths for him: 70% of MPs in Scotland are from the Labour party but they secured only 42% of the vote. I know that he is a fair man and I feel the pain of the citizens of Warsop, but does he agree that there is something wrong with that?

[The Second Deputy Chairman]

Order. We are discussing the number of Members of Parliament in the House, not how they got here.

[John Mann]

Much though I would love to answer the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), I shall refrain from doing so. Perhaps we can continue a discussion of such matters in private.

[Mrs Laing]

The hon. Gentleman appears to be arguing that the Committee should not decide how many Members of Parliament there ought to be, but if it is not for Parliament to take that decision, who should have the power to do so?

[John Mann]

The hon. Lady asks an excellent question and I shall give her a precise answer: Parliament should do so on the same basis on which it has been done before. The principle previously and now, unless this rotten Bill, particularly this part of it, is made into law, is that the House sets an ideal target, but that the Boundary Commission independently determines the boundaries within which each Member will sit using a set of criteria that relate to the history of the country, the four nations, the history of England, locality and the nature of our democracy. But that principle will be thrown out by the Bill. With the Great Reform Act, there were riots in Nottingham and years of deliberation before the Act was passed and changed the principle to one of participatory democracy and the wider franchise. Are we to break that principle after a couple of days of truncated debate in the House? Are we to have a principle, which could stand in perpetuity, of having a fixed number of MPs? The idea that we would do that is a disgrace to the House and to the traditions of our democracy.

This principle is important and the consequences are great, so let me illustrate them. I have none of the fears that the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) discussed about the precise boundaries in my area. The boundaries were changed in the last election and my majority went up against all the predictions, so I have no fears about any such change or about who will come in and who will go out.

Of course, my constituents would strongly resist the notion that, having built a relationship with one Member of Parliament, good or bad, they should not have the opportunity to re-elect or dismiss that Member of Parliament. That principle is enshrined in our democracy, but it is endangered and partly thrown away by the arbitrary nature of setting a mathematical equation to determine the numbers. My constituency boundaries are a good example of how that would destroy the traditions of England and English democracy.

Ministers laugh at the fact that the county of Nottinghamshire, the seat of Bassetlaw and the electoral representation in Bassetlaw and Nottinghamshire have been set over the centuries, not in a few minutes or a few hours’ debate, but by the very nature and history of this country. Do hon. Members know why the seat of Bassetlaw was created? Because it was a road through the forest and a route through the country. That is why Robin Hood was robbing in such places. The history and geography of this country, going back hundreds and thousands of years, have produced the shire counties.

Should my constituency’s boundaries be changed arbitrarily? My situation is not unique, but it emphasises the nature of an arbitrary mathematical solution. My current boundaries and electorate are about the mean—it is not a small constituency—but a change to the south, which is precisely what has happened before, would be a change within Nottinghamshire. One bit goes in; one bit goes out. That is how the Boundary Commission has done its work over the decades. That is reasonable. It makes its decisions. I disagreed with the last one, but that is democracy: an independent body, not politicians, heard representations and made its decisions on the basis of trying to maximise equality between the seats in Nottinghamshire. That is why that change took place. Any change to the north would take us across a regional boundary—Ministers will not be bothered about regions—and a county boundary as well, into Yorkshire. I have nothing against the people of Yorkshire. That is where I come from. I am sure that I would be as popular there as I am in Nottinghamshire, so that is not the fear.

I deal with Nottinghamshire county council, Nottinghamshire police and Bassetlaw council in Nottinghamshire. The fear of the elected Member is that if we had to move over to an arbitrary base of different councils and authorities, however they are formulated by whichever Government are in power, we would be looking in different directions at once and the role of MPs in advocating for and representing their constituents would be significantly diminished.

It is not just the boundaries with Yorkshire that could be changed; there could be a change to the east, in which case we would go into Lincolnshire, perhaps into North Lincolnshire or West Lindsey council—again, entirely different local government, police and health set-ups. Of course, if the boundary was changed to the west, we would go into Derbyshire, yet another county and yet another set of police and fire authorities.

All that illustrates the point that if we do not attempt, in any system, to try to maintain as much as we can the integrity of the English counties and a direct relationship with local government, however it is structured, the role of the MP and the credibility of Parliament are diminished. That is the weakness in arbitrary mathematical equations, and it is why we all know that the Boundary Commission is in reality horrified by the notion that it would need to use some kind of mathematical equation, because the criteria that it has used over the decades have been proven. They are transparent and challengeable in the courts if anyone wants to challenge them—people have occasionally tried to do so. They are tested in the courts and they are good and rational. Each party might occasionally object to the conclusions and MPs might feel that we have been badly done by, given the nature of the change, but the process is democratic. That fundamental principle is being changed.

[Gavin Barwell]

The hon. Gentleman speaks with great passion, but I am not sure what his speech has to do with the amendment. He objects to the plus or minus 5% rule, which could cause constituency boundaries to cross county boundaries, but there is nothing intrinsic whatsoever in a reduction from 650 to 600, the subject of the amendment, that would have the effect that he suggests.

[John Mann]

The hon. Gentleman is under the misapprehension that we have a statutory limit. At the moment, we have a Boundary Commission, and the setting of an absolute figure will tie its hands, which is precisely why there could be arbitrary boundaries in a constituency such as mine, crossing county boundaries and breaking up the integrity of the English counties. That will do nothing for our democracy.

Some in this House feel that a smaller number of Members will be good for democracy, and I share some of the concerns and think that we could go much further than down to just 600 Members, but the process should be done rationally and over a significant period. In other words, there should be full consultation and thought, and the Boundary Commission should be allowed to do its work in its normal way. Politicians, for whatever reason, should not attempt to fix the result. By fixing the result, the sting in the tail not only for Liberal Members, but some Conservatives is the notion that has been sold to some Back Benchers—that a change will be bad for Labour. But any mathematician can analyse the information and show that that may well not happen in the boundary review. Given the arbitrary nature of mathematics, the opposite may well occur. In fact, any change may well have a neutral effect overall.

Nevertheless, that is the principle, and that is why the Government are rushing the measure through. But to sacrifice the English counties and the basis of our democracy simply for short-term expediency—in order to rush a Bill through and not allow the independent Boundary Commission to do its job in any way—is an outrage to our democracy, and I suggest most humbly that any decent democrat should withdraw those proposals immediately.

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

This is the first time that I have spoken to amendments in my name—amendments 227 and 228 are the two to which I refer—and it is unfortunate that on this first occasion I should do so against my Government, of whom I am an ardent supporter. I appreciate that this might not be a career-enhancing move, but I feel particularly strongly about the issue.

It is irrelevant whether the number of MPs is 600, 620 or 585; it is foolish to put the Boundary Commission into a straitjacket and say, “There will be that number, with no variation.” Many Members from all parts of the House will have been involved in boundary reviews, whether at constituency or ward level, and they will appreciate that the jigsaw never fits together. Equality is desirable, but it should not be the sole criterion.

I agree with the comments that have been made about community identity, but this is about more than just figures. The ancient county boundaries have been mentioned too, and they are particularly important, but my constituency completely surrounds the constituency of Great Grimsby. The hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell) has left the Chamber, but it is always a pleasure to hear him speak, particularly as he is my Member of Parliament. He made a reasonable argument, but it is completely out of touch with the people whom he represents, because, in line with the manifesto on which I stood, I am actually in favour of reducing the size of the House. I see no objection to that whatever.

19:30

People from my part of the world went through the experience of significant local government changes and boundary changes in the 1970s, when the arbitrary county of Humberside was created. We in the local community still live in the shadow of Humberside, because it affects local politics. People hated the whole concept, but regrettably it lives on—not only in the arbitrary region of Yorkshire and the Humber, but in Humberside police and the Humberside fire and rescue service. It contaminates political debate in the area, because people are hostile to the whole concept.

The concept came about because of some grand scheme that did not relate to the local identities that people feel. It is vital to retain those identities, and not just with counties. As I said, Cleethorpes surrounds the constituency of Great Grimsby—and I know that I speak for my constituents when I say that they would be extremely hostile to the idea of Great Grimsby being extended into Cleethorpes; they already feel dominated by Grimsby because we are in the same local authority area. The usual arguments, which we have all come across, apply: more resources go into one part of the council area than the other, and so on. It is important to retain local identity.

On other remarks that have been made, I should say that some coterminosity between constituencies and local government areas is desirable—not only because it makes life easier for us Members in dealing with various agencies, but because it helps to reflect the identities of the area. I hope that as this legislation goes through the House, the Government will consider allowing the Boundary Commission some flexibility.

[Tristram Hunt]

I do not wish to speak for too long, because we need to get on to the Government’s plans for the immolation of the Duchy of Cornwall. However, I do want to speak in favour of amendments 364 and 259. I want to focus on the rationale for the move from 650 MPs to 600. Like many other Opposition Members, I am in favour of broader equality between the electorates in our constituencies, and as a result, I am potentially in favour of a reduction in the number of Members of Parliament. However, as we have clearly seen, if anyone could have come up with a way not to do it, it would be the Bill before us.

We have heard from the Deputy Leader of the House that the intellectual rationale behind the move from 650 to 600 was that it was an arbitrary number, but seemed to have some magic. I am no scientific rationalist, but it seems to me that that might not be the most sophisticated way in which to develop public policy—particularly on something with such dramatic consequences. I suggest that if we are to move from 650 to 600, we need a greater purpose than that.

If we wanted to begin the process with some degree of intellectual consideration, we might begin to think about the role and function of Members of Parliament—what we want them to achieve, and their roles in the community and in the House. We might think about demographic changes, the move from market towns to cities, migration or citizenship. We might think intelligently about the future, and what the role of the Member of Parliament should be in it. As a result of such consideration, the number of Members of Parliament might go up or down. Having worked out that fundamental principle, we might begin to think of a point to which we wanted to head, over the course of Parliaments—but we might not have pulled all that together in a shoddily constituted Bill, rammed through this place with no pre-legislative scrutiny, especially as it deals with what I would have thought was a rather important matter of public policy for this House, and as we respect our democratic traditions, which are admired right around the world.

[Thomas Docherty]

My hon. Friend’s knowledge is second to none in this House. Can he tell me, as someone who is not as knowledgeable, whether he can think of an example from the past when there has been a review of the number of constituencies that has been as rushed or ill-thought-out as the one that we now face?

[Tristram Hunt]

My hon. Friend asks a very good question. My lack of historical knowledge comes to the fore, because I can think of no other example. Perhaps the Rump Parliament would come to mind, or some other innovations during the 1650s. I think that we are seeing certain Cromwellian attributes appearing among those on the Government Benches. Like many others, I am new to this place, but I understand that we used to hear a great many lectures from Members who are now in government about the right to discuss public policy at length and not to have it rammed through.

The Conservative manifesto, about which the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) spoke so eloquently—unlike some of his colleagues, he actually still believes in what he stood for at the election—suggested reducing the number of Members of Parliament to 585, while the Liberal Democrat manifesto went for 500 seats. On the principle of compromise and the coalition agreement, one would have thought that they might bisect the two figures—that there might be a rationale for 542 or, if we are generous, 543, to allow the Isle of Wight to remain whole. But no, they have gone for the magical figure of 600, without any real rationale.

Some of the arguments this evening have been about making politics cheaper. Without making a cheap joke, I think that the coalition has made politics cheaper. It has cheapened public debate by reneging on pretty much all its other manifesto commitments over the past few months. We are told that this is potentially going to save £12 million—but we have not been given the costings for the packing of the House of Lords, which is proceeding as we speak. We do not know the full costs of the referendum. It is particularly apposite, on a day when we have heard about so many cuts in other parts of the budget, that we are allocating money to that.

[Mr MacNeil]

Is there not a great danger, with the moves that are being made, that we will end up with a democracy that has, as a percentage, fewer elected Members and more appointed legislators than we had before?

[Tristram Hunt]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that point. It is extraordinary to have begun this process without thinking about the interrelationship between this place and the other place. One does not have to be a Newtonian to think that for every force there is an equal and opposite counter-force. [Interruption.] I am hearing more and more sedentary comments from the Deputy Leader of the House; I do not know if that is the usual form from him.

One would have thought that all these things would be pulled together in an overarching Bill that had some degree of intellectual credibility in terms of the British constitution and the role of this place and the other place. Instead, we have an arbitrary figure of 600, and meanwhile many more people are being placed in the House of Lords. The international comparisons steadily fall away when we think about the federal structure of many other European nations, local rates of representation in many other European nations, the interrelationship between the two parts of bicameral Parliaments, both nationally and internationally, and the role of Members of Parliament today in terms of the volume of work that they do.

The move from 650 to 600 will be an extraordinarily speedy process. I have had the great pleasure of sitting with some other Members present in the Chamber on the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, and we have heard time and again from independent witnesses, scholars and constitutionalists that the speed of this process is unacceptable and will lead to mistakes. Lewis Baston, from Democratic Audit, said to the Welsh Affairs Committee:

“I am concerned about the speed with which this is being brought through. It seems to be an absolute priority to get the new boundaries in place for 2015, rather than to get them right and to consider some of the principles involved. I would much rather we did this properly.”

Many Members share that view.

Above all, the problem with the arbitrary collapse from 650 seats to 600, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) so eloquently and brilliantly enunciated, is the total absence of sentiment or feel for the nature of either the United Kingdom or the British constitution. The UK is not something to be placed under a slide rule and arbitrarily cut up on the basis of a figure of 76,000. There are interrelationships of complex formations between Wales, Scotland, England, the Isle of Wight, the Isles of Scilly and the historic Duchy of Scotland—[Interruption.] Or Cornwall, even.

It surprises me all the more that the move from 650 to 600 is being driven by the Conservative party, which I had always thought was interested in tradition, identity, locality and community rather than in utilitarian butchery of the historic constitution of this country. We have been here before; one would have thought that the Conservative party might have learned the lessons of Edward Heath, but it seems to be intent on repeating them. The grotesque local authority rationalisations of the mid-1970s were done on exactly the same principle of utilitarian Benthamite thinking, with no feel for locality or historic identity. People did not like them and rebelled against them. The Bill has blown apart the “big society”, because there is no sense of locality, identity or tradition in it. Instead, it is rampant Cromwellian statism.

I believe that the reason for the arbitrary figure of 600 is simply that it is a big round number, and the Government thought it made sense. I suggest that this place deserves slightly more thought to be given to that matter. The arbitrary move to 600 was not in the manifesto of either of the governing parties, and it has no popular mandate. As a result, I am more and more convinced that the other place has no obligation to adhere to the Salisbury convention and pass the Bill. There is no popular mandate for the change, so we might lose temporarily in this House, but I hope the other place will help us win the war—even as the Government, shamefully and against the constitutional principles of this country, continue to pack it.

[Mrs Laing]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt), who is my colleague on the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee. I disagreed with almost everything he said, but he almost had me persuaded when he talked of Benthamites and Cromwellian statism. I am not a Benthamite, and I am not a statist, but—[Hon. Members: “Come over here!”] No, there is more coming. His argument was the most powerful and coherent that we have heard this evening. However, one point was missing, which was the integrity that equalising seat sizes and constituencies will give this place.

Only two issues really matter in relation to this group of amendments, although we have heard much special pleading, not from the hon. Gentleman but from other Members who are clearly concerned about their own constituencies and positions and how their political future might develop if these changes are made to the constitution. That is not what we should be discussing. We should be discussing principle, as the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central just did.

19:45

There are only two principles here. First, somebody, somewhere has to choose the correct number of Members of this House. It was strange to hear the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) speak about the number 600 as if it had—or lacked—some mystical force.

[Austin Mitchell]

How about 666?

[Mrs Laing]

I cannot resist the hon. Gentleman’s sedentary comment. I believe that there is something about 666, though I am not an adherent to that principle either—for me, it goes with Benthamism. I am therefore glad that we are not discussing 666, but why not 600? It is a reasonable, round number. We have to choose a number for Members of Parliament. [Hon. Members: “No, we don’t.”] I am arguing that we have to choose a number; that it is correct for Parliament to do so. We have talked much about the Great Reform Act of 1832, but the subject of how many Members there should be has not been properly discussed for a long time.

[John Mann]

Yes, it has.

[Mrs Laing]

Not for a very long time, and the hon. Gentleman should not shout.

The matter is being discussed properly now, and there is nothing wrong with the figure of 600. It is a perfectly reasonable, round number.

[Mr Andrew Love (Edmonton) (Lab/Co-op)]

The hon. Lady speaks about principles. Should it not be a principle of the measure, since it proposes a change in our constitutional arrangements that is unprecedented in modern times, that at least some public consultation and cross-party discussions take place before anything comes before the House?

[Mrs Laing]

This is a cross-party discussion. We are all here in the Chamber having an open, cross-party discussion. There has not been very much time to consider the Bill, but there have been several months. The Select Committee on Political and Constitutional Reform has examined it, and we have all received e-mails, letters, papers and so on from people around the country who are concerned one way or the other. There has been consultation—that is why we are here. The debate that we are holding at this very moment is consultation. It is right that we have that discussion, and that the House makes a decision about numbers.

I put it to the Committee simply that 600 is a perfectly reasonable number. It is hard to argue against it unless one is doing special pleading on behalf of one’s constituency or county. The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central spoke eloquently about our country’s development, traditions and communities. Communities and traditions develop once boundaries are drawn. My constituency has a part in the north and a part in the south that have little in common with one another, although they are not far apart. However, they join together as a constituency and a district. If another part comes in or goes out, that becomes the community. Communities evolve, and nothing in the Bill will destroy the traditional counties of England.

[Thomas Docherty]

I thank the hon. Lady for being as gracious as ever in taking interventions. Obviously, she and her new-found Liberal Democrat friends are passionate believers in localism. How does not holding public inquiries and arbitrarily forming constituencies sit comfortably with her idea of localism?

[Mrs Laing]

I did not say that I was particularly concerned about localism. I am concerned about the equalisation of the size of constituencies. Perhaps some of my colleagues are concerned about localism, but I am far more concerned about democracy.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

I share the hon. Lady’s concern about democracy. I am the only Labour Member of Parliament in Berkshire and I have substantially more constituents than any other Berkshire Member, so I cannot be accused of special pleading. However, if the ambition is to get equal-sized constituencies—I share the hon. Lady’s belief in that principle—would not it be better to do it in a way that respects local communities, and to do it slowly, over time, thereby producing the number? I suppose the Conservative party would normally describe that as “evolving.” Would not that be preferable to—to borrow a phrase from my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt)—the Cromwellian hatchet that cutting 50 seats constitutes?

[Mrs Laing]

I agree in principle with everything the hon. Lady says, but I would argue that three years is quite sufficient time for the Boundary Commission to undertake the task before it. The decision on the principle of the work going ahead can be taken in the Chamber over these few weeks of discussions on the Bill, and three years is quite long enough for the commission to do its work. The hon. Lady agrees with me on the principle of equalisation. Once a principle is established, it ought to be put into practice as soon as possible. Three years is plenty of time.

[Mark Durkan]

The hon. Lady says that 600 is a reasonable figure in the same way that the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority asserts that the figures it comes up with are reasonable. The problem is the rigid application of that reasonable figure, which will give rise to all sorts of problems and contradictions for which this House will be blamed.

[Mrs Laing]

I have been insulted many times in this Chamber, but I have never, ever been compared with IPSA before. I entirely disagree with the hon. Gentleman. There is proper consultation. Opposition Members speak as if the Boundary Commission is not involved in the process, but it is, and it has three years to do its job. It is perfectly capable of doing that job. The resources are in place and there is no problem.

[Thomas Docherty]

I am fascinated by the hon. Lady’s new-found passion for quangos, which is perhaps a good description of the Boundary Commission, because it is unelected. However, does she accept that crucially, the Government are removing the public inquiry and the right of local people to give their input when the Boundary Commission has produced a report? That is not liberal or democratic, and it is not in the finest traditions of the Conservative party.

[Mrs Laing]

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s argument, but with respect, he is wrong. Very few local people made representations to boundary commissions in the last review and the previous one; most representations were made by political parties.

[John Mann]

Nonsense!

[Mrs Laing]

That is a fact.

[Chris Bryant]

In that case, will the hon. Lady explain why somebody might have said this at the Oxfordshire boundary inquiry in 2003:

“Somebody might take the view that…there are already too many Members of Parliament at Westminster. They may take the view, depending on what happens in the European constitution, that Westminster has less to do, with less MPs – I certainly hope that is not the case”?

That was the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr Cameron).

[Mrs Laing]

I am sure that my right hon. Friend meant what he said. I do not disagree with him—what he said is fine. The hon. Gentleman is forgetting that we are talking about an evolving political situation and an evolving world. As other hon. Members have said, the whole situation is evolving, which is why it is time for the House to look at itself, count its numbers and consider what is right.

The hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell) and I had an exchange yesterday on alphabetical preferences on ballot papers, which is relevant to the proposal for 600 MPs. I am no longer concerned about alphabetical preferences. Since yesterday, when he said that he could call himself A1 Austin and I could call myself Mrs Aardvark, I am pleased to tell him that I have received, by e-mail, a proposal of marriage from a Mr Aaron Aardvark. I had to decline that kind proposal because I could not possibly involve the poor gentleman in the expense of marrying me in order to improve my electoral prospects. That would be gerrymandering and manipulation of the system beyond the call of duty. However, it was a helpful discussion.

The real principle before us this evening is one vote, one value. That is what democracy is all about. Every Member who is elected to this House should be elected by an equal number of voters, at least potentially—[Interruption.] Of course we have a tolerance level of 5%.

[Chris Bryant]

And an equal turnout?

[Mrs Laing]

I should not respond to sedentary interventions, but we are not talking about turnout, as hon. Members know. We are rather more sophisticated than to go down to that level. Potentially, every Member should be elected by an equal number of voters.

[Phil Wilson]

Nobody really disagrees with the point about equal-sized constituencies. What we are looking forward to hearing from the hon. Lady is an argument about why we need to reduce the number of seats from 650 to 600, other than that she likes the number 600. That is the only reason that she has given us. I like the number 650, and I will make an argument for why it should stay at that. I need an argument from the hon. Lady as to why it should be reduced to 600.

[Mrs Laing]

Why should it be 650? Why should it not be 700 or 542? Pick a number out of the hat, or do the lottery. Six hundred is a perfectly reasonable number and as good as any other number—[Interruption.] It is a workable number, and it is also reasonable to reduce the size of the House in the interest of a more efficient democracy.

[Mr Andrew Turner]

We have to be within a 95% to 105% range, and that may be reasonable, but some exceptions apply, including my constituency, the western isles and Orkney and Shetland. Can my hon. Friend explain what it is that makes the latter two right and mine wrong?

[Mrs Laing]

I am glad to say to my hon. Friend that it is not for me to answer that question, but I will give him my opinion, which counts as nothing more than that. We should achieve real equality and I do not think that we should have exceptions for Orkney and Shetland and the western isles. If we are having a simple arithmetical equality, we should stick to it.

[Stephen Gilbert (St Austell and Newquay) (LD)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Mrs Laing]

No, I have spoken for long enough. It is important to stick to equality. Once that principle is accepted, it should be adhered to. Of course, we need to have a 5% tolerance for the sake of practicality and because the Boundary Commission must be able to apply the rules reasonably, but we should stick to equality. This House is about looking at the politics and the principle, not about special pleading for particular constituencies and particular Members and their convenience. I urge the Committee to accept that 600 is a perfectly reasonable number and that equalisation—one vote, one value—is the important democratic principle.

[Mr Syms]

Listening to this debate, one would think that something major and radical was happening to our parliamentary system. In fact, what is being proposed is an extremely modest change, which I welcome, because more radical change would be unwelcome to most Members of the House. We have heard a number of Members talk about boundary commissions and history, but the Boundary Commission is only a post-war invention. It is something that our country can be proud of, because it tries to draw boundaries in a neutral way, while taking into account local interest.

20:00

The only changes in the Bill are, first, the proposal to keep constituencies nearer to certain numbers, because there is currently a vast disparity in seats—and this after the first election on the new boundaries—which causes unfairness. Secondly, anyone who has been to a public inquiry held by the Boundary Commission will know that they tend to be attended by Labour, Liberal and Conservative agents and Members of Parliament, who all make representations. Sometimes local government is involved, but inquiries of that sort are not something that members of the public are necessarily aware of or want to go to. Therefore, 12 weeks in which to write in to make representations, which is also provided for in the Bill, is not unreasonable, and I am sure that the Boundary Commission, in its normal, impartial way, will take such representations into account. However, if Members are worried, they just have to ensure that lots of people write in, and I am sure that when personal interest comes into it, that will be the case.

The most radical part of the Bill is the reduction in the size of the House of Commons, but it is not very radical, because it essentially means that our electorates will increase on average by 5,000 or 6,000, which is not very dramatic. In fact, for many Members, their electorates will decrease by 5,000 or 6,000, because they are already larger than the size that has been chosen. There is a pinch point and a difficulty, which we may talk about later if we get there, to do with crossing county boundaries, which will cause the Government endless headaches. Nevertheless, what we have is, broadly, a modest change.

I sat on the Opposition Benches for a number of years and saw the previous Government introduce various constitutional changes. They included the change in the boundaries for the European Parliament, which was done without consultation, without the Boundary Commission being involved and, I think, without even a manifesto commitment, so we saw the previous Government do all sorts of awful things. The reality is that we are making a modest change, in order to go for some kind of equalisation, which is the basis of fairness.

[Phil Wilson]

Can we not go for equalised numbers without reducing the number of seats? I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman’s love-in with the number 600, but essentially we need to hear an argument. Nobody is disagreeing that we perhaps need more equalised constituencies, but why reduce the number of seats, especially when the average number of constituencies since the war has been about 649 or 650? It has stayed at that level for 60 or 70 years. Why radically reduce it now?

[Mr Syms]

Most Parliaments set their own size—that is part of most constitutions—but two that do not are the UK Parliament and the Bundestag in Germany. The reason the Bundestag does not do so is that it has a list system to compensate the first-past-the-post Members, and when the German electoral commission looks at the arithmetic division of the proportional votes, to ensure that they are proportionate, it can adjust the size of the Bundestag, sometimes by up to a dozen seats. However, the history of this country is that, by and large, we have allowed the Boundary Commission to go out and draw up the boundaries, and then to come back with numbers. However, what happens is that there is creep. Every time we have a boundary commission, the numbers go up. [Interruption.] No, they do, with one exception, which is when the numbers for Scotland are reduced. On the whole, however, the numbers creep up. Therefore, with this Bill, we are being asked to give guidance to the Boundary Commission, so that it can go away and then come back with a report.

[Chris Bryant]

How can the hon. Gentleman explain, then, the fact that there were 659 MPs in the previous Parliament, while there are 650 in this Parliament? What he is saying is patently untrue.

[Mr Syms]

But that is principally because of the changes in Scotland, which, incidentally—

[Chris Bryant]

No, it is not.

[Mr Syms]

It is; it happened because of the Scottish reduction. The reality is that we need to build a slight reduction into the system, otherwise we will have a constant creep-up of the numbers. Is it very much more difficult to represent 76,000 electors than it is to represent 69,000? I do not think that it is terribly difficult—we have the staff and the commitment to do it. All that we are talking about is drawing up fair boundaries, with a modest reduction in the House, which is not going to make a major difference to most people in this House, except in Wales.

The problem with Wales is over-representation. There have been changes in Northern Ireland, where the number of seats was increased because the constituencies were very large, as well as in Scotland and England; Wales is the one part of the Union that is out of line. I understand the pain and difficulty that the proposals will cause in Wales, because there will be quite a radical change there, but throughout most of the UK, it will be a very modest change indeed.

[John Mann]

The hon. Gentleman’s argument would be more consistent if he were to tell us why he sees a problem arising if county boundaries in England are crossed. The moment those boundaries start to be crossed at random, we shall have an entirely different solution in England.

[Mr Syms]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. For historic reasons, it will depend on where any such changes might be made. This is one of the arguments that he will be able to put to the Boundary Commission when it brings forward its proposals—[Interruption.] Yes, he will; people will still have the capacity to make representations to the commission on the reports on the constituencies.

[Chris Bryant]

I am sorry, but the hon. Gentleman is wrong. People will be able to make representations only in writing, and they will not know what representations other people have made. They will not be able to inform their arguments through debate. Consequently, we shall not have the fullness of the public inquiry process that we have at the moment. With such radical changes being proposed for the whole of the country, surely it would make sense to maintain public inquiries.

[Mr Syms]

I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman. The system that is being brought in will provide for a 12-week period in which people will be allowed to make representations—[Interruption.] Twelve weeks is a long time. If there is real concern about crossing a county boundary, I am sure that parish councils, local authorities, MPs and councillors will be able to make full representations in that time, and that the Boundary Commission will be able to hear them and come to a decision.

[Gavin Barwell]

There has been hardly any discussion tonight about the existing rules. Will my hon. Friend put on record the fact that, under the rules under which the Boundary Commission currently works, county boundaries can be crossed?

[Mr Syms]

That is absolutely the case.

[Stephen Gilbert]

As I understand it, the next group of amendments deals with cases of boundaries impinging on existing county boundaries. A number of Members are anxious to move on to that debate; it certainly affects my constituents in Cornwall, and I can see others in the Chamber, including my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner), who will have an interest in the matter. Does my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Mr Syms) agree that that group of amendments will indeed deal with that matter? Perhaps we could move on to it.

[Mr Syms]

In the interests of coalition solidarity, I shall finish my speech.

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

Given that there will be two Front-Bench speeches in addition to other people speaking, and that two votes might be called on this issue, I fear that we might not reach the next group of amendments, although I know that people are anxious to debate those issues. I shall therefore keep my remarks brief.

There are two amendments in my name that are intended to probe the numbers issue. One would replace the figure of 600 with 500, and the purpose of that is to tease out the issue, although it has been reasonably well teased out already. We have debated the numbers and why we need to arrive at one hard and fast figure, rather than setting a number as a target or guide for the Boundary Commission to pursue.

Concern has understandably been expressed tonight about the rigidity of the drafting of the proposals, in that they offer no flexibility to take into account the whole range of factors that have been properly and articulately expressed so far. That straitjacket will result in antiseptic constituencies whose boundaries are perpetually mobile between each election, and I do not think that would be good for the House or for democracy. We want the Boundary Commission to have sufficient discretion to work towards a target while taking into account reasonable geographical, cultural and electoral issues.

We also want the Government to allow places collectively to make decisions for themselves, provided that they do not ask for any special favours. In other words, when it comes to numbers, those in Cornwall are not asking for favourable treatment, but for distinctive treatment. Having 600 Members might result in an MP representing Cornwall having to give up part of a seat in order to achieve proper respect for the boundary between Cornwall and Isles of Scilly. I specified the 500 figure in a private Member’s Bill in October 2003—part of a long campaign in which I have sought to demonstrate to the public that we can achieve efficiencies ourselves and save money.

The impact of devolution and the need to save money and to make international comparisons are issues that have been articulated well so far. I hope, however, that we will have an opportunity to move on to the second string.

[Stephen Williams]

I, too, will try to be brief, as I know some colleagues want to speak on the second string. This clause has huge ramifications, some of which I agree with—notably the equalisation of boundaries. We have just had an enormous boundary change in Bristol. I lost 30,000 electors whom I used to represent in 2005, but gained 30,000 electors from another part of the city at this election. The number of my electorate is pretty much the same as it was five years ago. It is 82,728, with my neighbour the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) representing 69,448 electors. Within the same unitary authority, one MP has 13,280 more electors to represent than another. That is surely an anomaly that has to be corrected. That is why I believe it important to have frequent boundary reviews, not 10-yearly or with even longer intervals as we have experienced before.

[Phil Wilson]

The hon. Gentleman says it is all about equalising constituencies, something people do not necessarily disagree with. Why, however, do we need to reduce the number of MPs to achieve that? We could simply divide the electorate by the number of MPs—irrespective of whether there are 650 or 600 MPs. We could equalise the constituencies on that basis.

[Stephen Williams]

I was just coming on to the reduction from 650 to 600, and I would like to offer some friendly scepticism to my colleagues on the Government Front Bench. The Deputy Leader of the House was candid enough to say that reducing the House of Commons by 50 Members was arbitrary, but I am even more concerned about this number being arrived at without full knowledge of the whole package of constitutional reforms that this coalition Government are going to introduce.

I know that the Deputy Prime Minister has an ambitious programme of constitutional reform for the future, but we do not yet know the detail. We do not know the composition of what I hope will be a wholly elected second Chamber. We do not know what its powers will be or whether it will reflect the four member nations and regions of the United Kingdom. That makes it difficult to deal with the issue raised several times by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant)—that of giving more recognition within Parliament to Wales. I think that could be dealt with more properly in an elected second Chamber than here. We still do not know whether more powers are to be given to English city regions. Full devolution has been granted to Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and to London, but English local government certainly needs radical reform and more powers.

We have heard about cost—I do not believe that it provides a good reason for reducing the size of the House of Commons—and about international comparisons. France, for instance, has 577 seats and Germany 622, but as we heard earlier, they have far greater devolved Administrations and Bristol’s twinned cities of Bordeaux and Hanover have enormous powers in comparison with those of my colleagues who run the city of Bristol.

[Mark Tami]

The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful argument. Could it be summed up in the phrase, “Putting the cart before the horse”?

[Stephen Williams]

That is the hon. Gentleman’s phrase and he has put it on the record.

The number of politicians to whom people in Bristol can turn is very small. I live in the Cabot ward of the city of Bristol—a ward I used to represent on Avon county council and Bristol city council. If any electors—any of my neighbours in Kingsdown—want to complain about an issue affecting them, they can approach me, their Member of Parliament, or Alex Woodman or Mark Wright, their two city councillors. That is just three politicians: those are the only people to whom electors can turn if they have concerns about Bristol matters, national matters or international matters.

20:15

As the Deputy Leader of the House knows, I was most disappointed not to be able to go to the Liberal Democrat party conference in Liverpool this year. I was on a cross-party visit to the United States with four Labour Members of Parliament—one, the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty), is with us this evening—and three Conservative Members. We spent time learning about the federal government of the United States, and in particular about the state of Michigan when we were in the state capital, Lansing.

The United States is to hold elections in the first week of November. I have a sample ballot paper—not an original—from the East Lansing area of the state of Michigan, which the electoral registration officer allowed us to take away. Let me run through all the politicians who are to be elected: the governor, the lieutenant-governor, the secretary of state, the attorney-general, the US congressman for the eighth district of Michigan, the state senator for the 23rd district, the state senator for the 69th district, two members of the Michigan board of state education, a regent of the University of Michigan—of which there are two—a trustee of Michigan State university—of which there are two—the governor of Wayne State university—of which there are two—

[Stephen Gilbert]

rose—

[Stephen Williams]

I have not finished yet, but I will give way.

[Stephen Gilbert]

I thank my hon. Friend. This brings me neatly to my intervention, which is made in the spirit of coalition politics. Given that I intervened earlier on the hon. Member for Poole (Mr Syms), I now intervene on my hon. Friend to remind him of the time.

[Stephen Williams]

Then there is the state commissioner of the county of Ingham, and then there are all the judges to be elected: two judges for the Supreme Court, one for the court of appeals, and the incumbent and non-incumbent circuit judges for the 30th district. There are also a number of state propositions like the referendum that we are discussing.

There will not be elections for all the officers and elected representatives on 4 November this year. There will be no elections for Lansing or East Lansing local councillors, for a directly elected mayor or a directly elected sheriff, or for the two United States Senators who could represent the people from the state of Michigan; and, of course, there will no election for the President or Vice-President, or for all the appointed politicians who help to run Michigan and the United States.

It is clear that a person living in Michigan could potentially turn to a huge number of politicians, both elected and appointed, to resolve their problems. In my city of Bristol, however, there are only three to whom electors can turn. If we are honest with ourselves, instead of worrying about the cost of politics we should admit that we actually do politics rather cheaply in this country. Rather than electing school boards, as they do in the United States, we have school governors—people who give their time freely to serve their communities. Rather than electing judges, we have either appointed judges or numerous magistrates who give their time freely as well.

A reduction to save costs does not seem justified to me, and it is not yet justified in the context of a wider package of constitutional reform both of this Parliament and of the way in which we govern our localities. I look to the Deputy Leader of the House for assurances that we will be given a comprehensive package of political reform to put this reduction into a proper context.

[Mark Durkan]

Like other Members, I am keen for us to reach the next set of amendments, so I shall make only a couple of points.

Arguments are being presented about whether there should be 650 Members of Parliament or 600. The problem that I have with all the figures—including the 585 suggested by the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) and the 500 from the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George)—is that they result in just one sum: one magic, supreme and absolute number. That means that when we take away the holy trinity of the three protected constituencies, the boundary commissions must come up with figures that add up to 597.

That will have to be done in Parliament after Parliament, all the while taking account of changes in the numbers registering in different parts of the country, which will force boundary changes in every one of the four constituent boundary commissions. If there is a significant registration increase in part of England, Northern Ireland could lose a seat in the next Parliament. If there is a drop somewhere else, however, we might gain a seat. In each Parliament, therefore, we will be up a seat, perhaps, and then down a seat. In Northern Ireland, that will mean the boundary review will affect every single seat.

That will be one of the consequences of moving to this absolute figure of 600 and 600 only with no elasticity. To repeat a point I made earlier to the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing), I predict that we will end up questioning whether we decided on the change with too much urgency and as a result were left with a fixed, arbitrary limit and the tyranny of arithmetic—the insistence that one size has to fit all in spite of the reality and all other considerations. That will mean that we will end up with an IPSA-type situation for boundaries. In Parliament after Parliament, MPs will regret that they are dogged by all sorts of fairly arbitrary boundary changes that are driven purely by arithmetic and perhaps dictated by registration changes somewhere else. People in many constituencies will wonder why they are constantly having to go through such changes because of something that is happening somewhere else.

Should the Committee insist on going for diktats that will result in reviews having to be conducted every time and arithmetic for establishing a quota for seats, would there not be merit in amendment 228 tabled by the hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers), which takes 600 as a target figure but allows a margin of accommodation to the boundary commissions so that there can be as few as 588 seats and no more than 612? That margin of consideration would at least allow the boundary commissions to take account of the issues and pressures facing them. Under clause 10, the number of seats allocated to them will be fixed under the Sainte-Laguë formula.

Already the Government recognise that the absolute figure of 600—and all the other aspects of the Bill—cannot be fully applied in respect of Northern Ireland, so they have had to say that in Northern Ireland the seats can vary more widely than the 5% either side of the UK quota. Therefore, we can come in at lower than 5% or over 5%, so our constituencies can be more disparate. That proves that the hon. Member for Epping Forest is wrong in saying that there are no adverse consequences and that the rigid application will not be a problem. The Bill admits that the rigid application is a problem, and it means that Northern Ireland will not be getting equal constituencies. We will have much more disparate constituencies as compared with other parts of the UK. More importantly, we will have much more disparate constituencies in the Northern Ireland Assembly, for which there are six Members. Therefore, disparity of representation and of mandate will arise in, of all places, Northern Ireland and Northern Ireland only. That was not what was intended when this House, as well as everybody else, supported the Good Friday agreement and its provisions.

I therefore ask the Government to consider the very sensible recommendation in amendment 228. Its sister amendment 227 does not accommodate the situation in Northern Ireland, because it allows only a 2% margin of discretion. It should allow for at least 2% or at least one seat. If that could be inserted in the Bill, it would help.

[Gavin Barwell]

I want to start by agreeing with the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt) who, unfortunately, has left the Chamber. He made the point that there is an irony in the positions that the different parties are taking. The Conservative party is making the progressive argument for greater electoral equality, while Labour is arguing the case for greater adherence to traditional community boundaries. One thinks back to 1982 when Michael Foot, then leader of the Labour party, and the Labour Chief Whip took the Boundary Commission to the courts because it had not crossed community boundaries and had not, in Labour’s view at that time, achieved sufficient electoral equality. For the benefit of my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Stephen Gilbert), I shall make four short points about the arguments advanced in favour of these amendments.

We have been asked, first, why we should reduce the number of seats. I can speak only for myself and describe why I shall be voting for such a reduction. I was a candidate during the MPs’ expenses scandal and I carried out a survey of every elector in my constituency. I put to them proposals from all three political parties about things that could be done to improve our political system and found that the second most popular was that the number of MPs should be reduced. [Hon. Members: “To what?”] At the time, I proposed a 10% reduction; that was the figure in our manifesto and I would happily have supported it.

[Susan Elan Jones]

rose—

[Gavin Barwell]

I shall make some progress. I recognise that the coalition has proposed a slightly different figure, but it still represents a reduction and I am happy to support it.

The second argument that has been advanced relates to whether we should have a fixed number of seats. We have heard a great deal of enthusiasm for the current rules, although I am not sure how many Members have read them. As I was saying to my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Mr Syms), they allow the crossing of county boundaries. However, Members may not be aware that the Boundary Commission and the Committee on Standards in Public Life implored the previous Government to change those rules because they are contradictory, confused and muddled. Therefore, some of the enthusiasm that we have heard for the current rules is misplaced, and it is not unreasonable for Parliament to take a view on what the size of this House should be.

I am not a lawyer, but I can say that the amendment standing in the names of the right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) and the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), among others, is defective. It seeks to amend the first paragraph of proposed new schedule 2 to the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986 in a way that would wholly contradict proposed new paragraph 2(3) of that schedule, which would define the United Kingdom electoral quota in a completely different way.

The third point to deal with is the assumption expressed by Labour Members that a reduction in the number of constituencies and, thus, larger constituency sizes will lead to seats that less reflect community identity. That shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how this measure will work, because although that assumption will be true in some cases, in others the measure will lead to constituencies that better reflect community boundaries. Under these proposals, instead of having three MPs covering my London borough of Croydon, we would have three and a half, so the new seats would be likely less to reflect community identity in Croydon. However, the next-door London borough of Bromley covers three and half constituencies and that would reduce to three, which would doubtless better reflect community identity.

[Thomas Docherty]

I understand that the approach will be to start at the south coast of England and work north, so there will be no understanding at all; even within London, that is how it will work.

[Gavin Barwell]

The hon. Gentleman’s understanding is incorrect. I understand that this will be looked at on a regional basis; the work will be done in the nine regions of England and then in the other nations of the United Kingdom. The work will not be done all across the country—I think that that would be technically impossible to carry out.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Gavin Barwell]

I shall make some progress, because I promised to be brief.

The fourth argument advanced is that MPs will not be able to cope with the larger constituencies, and the Deputy Leader of the House has already rebutted that argument forcefully. Many Members in this House, including my two Croydon colleagues, already have significantly larger constituencies than those envisaged under this Bill and cope perfectly well with those arrangements. However, I hope that my Front-Bench team will have given some attention to two points that have been made by Labour Members. The first relates to the size of the Executive relative to the size of this House, and the Government definitely need to consider it. The second point is that it would be perverse to decrease the size of this House while increasing that of the other place. I hope that the Government will soon introduce proposals to enact the coalition’s proposal for an elected second Chamber.

[John Thurso (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

rose—

[Gavin Barwell]

I shall give way once more and then I shall conclude.

[John Thurso]

On the hon. Gentleman’s last point, I could not agree more about an elected upper House. He was also making a point about difficulty, but that does not come from the number of constituents. I would have no problem in taking on a further 30,000 constituents, but I have a problem when I have to take them on 200 miles away.

[Gavin Barwell]

The Bill contains criteria about the maximum geographical size of constituencies. I observe, in passing, that one member of the Australian Parliament represents a constituency in western Australia that is about the size of France, and I believe that the Australian Government provide a light aircraft to enable that to be done.

In the interests of time, Mr Evans, I shall draw my remarks to a close. I merely say that the arguments put forward by those on the Opposition Benches against the reduction in the size of this House do not hold water. My constituents want to see a reduction and I shall be happy to support the proposal to do so.

20:30

[Mr Heath]

On the very last point that the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell) made, I think I recall that there is a Senator in the Italian Senate who represents Australia, Asia and Africa. That is a sizeable constituency and not one that I would suggest for this House.

This has been an interesting debate in many ways. First, I am glad that we have had the opportunity to have the debate on the clause at all. Had the attempt by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) to vote down the programme motion yesterday been successful, we would not have had a debate at all. I am also pleased that we have had the extra hours this evening, because had the hon. Gentleman succeeded in voting the motion down, we would not have had them. Unfortunately, he then—again—filled the extra time with the 50 minutes of his speech.

I am also pleased because we have had a number of what I would consider to be doctrinal statements made. We had a doctrine laid out by the hon. Member for Rhondda for a new principle of consideration for constitutional Bills, in which we should allocate one day on the Floor of the House for each clause of a constitutional Bill. I recall the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010, in which I was involved, as were many other hon. Members who were in the House at the time. It had 95 clauses and eight schedules and it had three days in Committee. That was what the Labour party did when they were in Government and it ill behoves them to suggest that the greatly longer time that we have given this Bill is insufficient.

We also had discussion about what the Salisbury-Addison convention might mean. I have a quotation from the former Lord High Chancellor—I do not know whether it is a ex cathedra statement, but it certainly approaches that—about how the House of Lords ought to apply its own judgment on the Salisbury-Addison convention in the context of a coalition. This is what the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) had to say in 2006:

“My own view is that if any coalition or arrangement as in 1977 gains the support of the democratically elected House and is endorsed by a motion of confidence then the programme for which they gain that endorsement should be respected by”

the House of Lords. That is an extremely helpful endorsement that may be noted.

The other place was mentioned several times in the debate on these amendments. It was mentioned first by the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr Field) and then by the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt), who is not in his place at the moment, who suggested that the Government were packing the House of Lords shamefully. For the record, let us say that 56 peers have been created since the election, of whom 29 have been Labour peers created on the proposition of the outgoing Prime Minister. If we are packing the other place, we are doing so remarkably ineffectively by inserting Labour peers.

The issue about the future of the House of Lords is an important one in the context of this Bill, as it is within the whole constitutional settlement. We are committed not only to an elected second Chamber but to a smaller second Chamber. It is precisely that work that is now being taken on in earnest for the first time in 100 years. The previous Liberal Government said very clearly in the preamble to the Parliament Act 1911 that they wished to see an elected House of Lords. That has been taken on by the Deputy Prime Minister with the all-party talks and we expect to introduce legislation early next year to bring that into effect.

[Ian Lucas]

If that is the case, why is the Deputy Leader of the House dealing with the House of Lords separately to the legislation on the House of Commons?

[Mr Heath]

Because this is a Bill about the House of Commons. The House of Lords will be dealt with in different legislation, which the hon. Gentleman will see in due course. His right hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) is involved in the discussions. The hon. Gentleman will have to wait. One of the lessons that we should have learned by now is that if we wait for every constitutional change to be made at once, nothing happens. That is what has prevailed for the last 100 years. We are going to change that.

The arguments that I hear about the future of the House of Lords have been strangely echoed in the arguments I heard this evening about this place. An argument that is regularly heard in the House of Lords is that any system that managed to appoint a peer as fine as the person who is speaking must be an exceedingly good system that does not require further change. We heard a bit of that this evening. We heard that any system that elected the current Members of the House must be an exceedingly good system and does not need to be changed. Various hon. Members explained how the numbers that precisely apply to their constituency are evidently the right numbers and should not be changed.

We have had the NIMPO—not in my period of office—argument, with Members saying, “Of course, we all want to see the House brought to a smaller size, but not while I’m still here. Wait until I’ve retired and then you can do it.”

We have also had the impossibility argument, with Members saying, “It is quite impossible to reduce the House from 650 to 600 Members because the electoral quota that would be in place, with 76,000 electors, would make it quite impossible for Members to do their work”, completely ignoring the fact that one third of current Members have constituencies of 76,000, or within a margin of 5% of that. The hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell) said that it is impossible because there would not be enough time to do all the jobs that a Member of Parliament has to do. I would be more persuaded by that argument if I felt sure that every Member was a full-time Member of Parliament and did not find other employment—some excessively so. Such Members have contributed to the debate. Apparently, the shift from a constituency of 60,000 to 76,000 would make the job impossible.

We heard from the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) that the job is impossible to do if one represents a constituency that crosses a local authority boundary, but how many Members have constituencies that do that? Apparently, it would be impossible under the quota that we are suggesting.

[Mr Love]

The hon. Gentleman is criticising the arguments that have been used by the Opposition, so may I address the arguments that the coalition Government have used? I have read the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee’s report on the Bill. Having considered every argument that had been made, the Committee, which has an in-built coalition majority, concluded:

“There may be a case for reducing the number of Members of the House to 600, but the Government has not made it.”

Can the hon. Gentleman make such a case tonight?

[Mr Heath]

The hon. Gentleman will have to wait until I get to that point in my remarks, because I have a few other comments to make on what others have said in the debate.

We have heard not only that it would be impossible for Members to accommodate extraordinary constituencies of 76,000, despite the fact that so many of us do it, but that it would be impossible for electors in such constituencies to know who their MP was. We have heard that it would be impossible to have a career structure because anyone who had experience outside the House could not be elected if we had constituencies of 76,000. What an extraordinary proposition that is.

The final proposition was that this is all a partisan move—[Hon. Members: “It is!”] The Opposition say that it is a partisan move to reduce the number of Labour MPs, but we have also heard from the same side in the same argument that it will not reduce the number of Labour MPs. So, we are gerrymanderers, but we are totally incompetent gerrymanderers because we are reducing our own seats and improving the position for the Opposition.

Again, I find it extraordinary that people whom I believed were reasonably intelligent and reasonably numerate can imagine that reducing the size of the House from 650 to 600 means that the 50 smallest seats are the only ones that disappear—they just go puff and disappear into the ether—and that all the rest carry on as they were. The suggestion is that the fact that most of the smaller seats are Labour seats shows that this is a partisan move against the Labour party. I am sorry; I just do not accept that. I do not think that it is a logical argument.

[Phil Wilson]

In a debate last night, the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) proved to me that this is a partisan move, when she said that some hon. Members oppose it because they are

“trying to avoid being turkeys voting for Christmas.”—[Official Report, 19 October 2010; Vol. 516, c. 908.]

That is what the Conservative party is saying.

[Mr Heath]

I am addressing the arguments made in the Chamber tonight that suggested that the reduction from 650 to 600 was an unimaginably ambitious target for the House and would result in the loss of Labour seats and was therefore a partisan move, rather than being what it is: a modest reduction in the size of the House. We have discussed other sizes of the House. The Conservative and Liberal Democrat manifestos proposed a reduction in the size of the House of Commons. The Conservative manifesto suggested the figure of 585, and the Liberal Democrats suggested 500, but on the basis of the single transferable vote.

I have made it absolutely plain that this is a matter of judgment. Six hundred is not a magical figure. I have never pretended that it is. It is an arbitrary figure, but it is one that results in an electoral quota of about 76,000, which is an entirely possible figure, as we have demonstrated, on the basis of the 2009 electoral register.

[Susan Elan Jones]

rose—

[Hon. Members]

Give way.

[Mr Heath]

The hon. Lady will have to be a little bit patient and not just stand there, but ask and then wait until I give way.

The country would like to see a reduction in the number of Members of Parliament in this House. We have tried to strike a balance between what is achievable and sensible in terms of the operation of Members of Parliament and what is desirable in finally turning the corner in terms of the ever-increasing size of the membership of the Chamber.

[Susan Elan Jones]

I am grateful to the Minister for finally giving way. He mentioned that the Liberal Democrats and the Conservative party proposed in their manifestos at the last election reductions in the number of seats. Various Conservative candidates in north Wales said, having cited Guy Fawkes among others, that people would probably think that the Guy Fawkes option was a good one, but we were then talking about a reduction of 10% of seats in Wales. When they were questioned, they said, “Yes, of course, it will be 10% of Welsh seats, because the new Conservative Government will be very rational in doing this.” How does the Minister justify talking about a reduction of, I think, 7.7% across the whole United Kingdom but a reduction of 25% in one of the component nations?

[Mr Heath]

I justify that very easily by the fact that Welsh constituencies are much smaller than constituencies in the rest of the country, and the Bill will equalise representation, as I thought we had established. As I keep on reminding the House, the existing position is that the hon. Member for Rhondda—I choose his constituency only because he happens to be sitting on the Opposition Front Bench—has 51,000 electors, my constituency has 82,000 electors and there is a difference of almost 30,000 between the two. That cannot be justified.

[Mr Mark Field]

I very much agree with everything that the Minister says about the equalisation of constituencies. Can he therefore justify why any exceptions are being made?

20:45

[Mr Heath]

Yes, I can. I can justify why the islands of northern Scotland are in a rather different position from the Cities of London and Westminster. I can explain why constituencies where, as the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil) says of his, the distance from one end to the other is greater than the whole of Wales might be justifiably treated as an exception. I do not find that a difficult case to make.

[Mr Alan Reid (Argyll and Bute) (LD)]

rose—

[Mr Heath]

Now I see that my hon. Friend is going to tell me about his constituency, which I accept is also a very difficult case.

[Mr Reid]

The Deputy Leader of the House has supported the Government line that a constituency with 22,000 electors and three islands is treated as an exception. Argyll and Bute has 13 islands with a public ferry service, and covers a land area of about 5,000 square kilometres, with an electorate of 67,000. If the benchmark is three islands and 22,000 electors, why is there not an exception for other constituencies with islands—13 islands?

[Mr Heath]

I understand my hon. Friend’s point, because his constituency is indeed a very difficult case, and the argument that he will make to the Boundary Commission in order to maintain as much as possible of his current constituency boundary will be a very strong one. I am sure that he will make that argument, but we have not moved on to the group of amendments in which we can discuss that issue, and I have to keep in order.

May I return to the basic principle? I am amazed, because there is an element of the Bourbons about some Members: they remember nothing of what has happened over the past year or so. Do they not realise that the public are desperate for us to reduce the costs of this place? Do they not understand that there is no public clamour for more Members, which would be the effect of the amendment in the next group in the name of the hon. Member for Rhondda? The public do not want more Members, they want fewer, and I believe that our proposal in this part of the Bill is entirely appropriate.

[Mr Andrew Turner]

I do not understand why it is necessary for the Minister, who wants to reduce the number of Members, to create more for my seat.

[Mr Heath]

It is difficult to maintain a process based on the equalisation of seats, and then to sustain the case that an island, which I accept has very particular characteristics of its own and is very large, but which, unlike Orkney and Shetland and Na h-Eileanan an Iar, is within near reach of mainland Britain, should be treated as an exception. However, the hon. Gentleman will continue to make that case, and I understand exactly why he wishes to do so. I know that he speaks for many of his constituents, although not all, and I am sure that he accepts that some of his constituents feel very strongly that the Isle of Wight has natural economic links with areas of mainland Hampshire, and that a parliamentary linkage could be of benefit. But of course, he represents 100,000 electors, and does so very well—

[Chris Bryant]

The House?

[Mr Heath]

I am addressing the Chair, and the Chair is seated at the Table, not on the Opposition Benches.

As I say, the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner) needs to continue to press his case. We shall listen to the arguments that he makes, but we shall also try to maintain the principle of a common—[Interruption]

[Chris Bryant]

Can’t hear you.

[The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. If hon. Members can be quieter, the entire Committee will be able to hear what Mr Heath is saying, so please calm down. We have only another 11 minutes left, as hon. Members know, before we need to move on.

[Mr Heath]

May I deal with the issues raised by the hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers)? He has a great deal of expertise on this issue, and I am grateful to him for contributing to the debate. He proposed giving the boundary commissions flexibility to vary the number of seats assigned to each of the four nations by a small amount. The flexibility proposed in his amendment 228—a margin of 2% on either side of the proportionate entitlement—would not work for Wales or Northern Ireland, as was recognised by the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan). It would not allow the commissions there to increase or reduce those nations’ allocations, as 2% of their national entitlement would not equal one whole seat.

However, there are more fundamental objections to the amendment. It would enable the Boundary Commissions for England and for Scotland to increase or decrease the total number of MPs in the House and the proportion of MPs who represent their part of the UK. Parliament should lay down clear rules for determining the number of constituencies, and they should be allocated to the four parts of the UK in proportion to their electorate. We are seeking equality between the nations as well as within them.

Finally, I want to deal with the amendments tabled—although not spoken to, obviously, because of his absence—by the Chair of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee. They would require the Boundary Commissions to decide between themselves the size of the House at each review, until the figure of 600 was reached in 19 years’ time.

[Mark Durkan]

The Deputy Leader of the House told us that the figure of 600 was arbitrary. He has still not explained why an arbitrary figure has to be fixed in statute in perpetuity. If this is about creating equality between the component parts of the UK, why does the Bill say that constituencies in Northern Ireland can vary more widely, both among themselves and in comparison with constituencies elsewhere, than those anywhere else? That does not achieve what he says the Bill is supposed to achieve.

[Mr Heath]

We will have to differ on that specific point. I believe that what is proposed provides for a high level of equalisation across the whole United Kingdom. It is based on what is equitable for our constituents.

I return to the point about an incremental reduction, which was raised by one other hon. Member. I should like to make it clear that the issue was considered in the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, and the secretary of the Boundary Commission for England reported that there would be no particular advantage to making the change incrementally. The commission also said that it had both the resources to carry out the review and sufficient time, before the deadline for submitting reports on 1 October 2013, to draw up constituencies for a House of 600 at the review. The suggestion that that is impossible to achieve in the time scale that we propose is not substantiated.

The Government’s proposals strike the right balance. They will end once and for all the fluctuation in the size of the House and the upward pressure on the number of MPs under the current legislation, and propose a modest reduction in overall numbers, which will cut the cost of politics, but do so in a way that will not result in constituencies that represent a departure from the type that we see in this Parliament. I hope that right hon. and hon. Members will feel able to withdraw their amendments and support the Government’s position.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

Mr Evans, thank you so much for calling me. It has been enlightening, educational and a real honour to listen to this debate since we last divided the House some hours ago. I have listened to some fine speeches. The hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) put his case with such pith and moment that I was almost persuaded to vote against my own side. The spectre that arose before us was one so terrifying and so fearful that we quaked in our Tory boots; it was the spectre of clause 9 leading us to proportional representation. The fear that came upon me was that as a result of setting a number so precise and clear that it could not be questioned even by the great and good of the Boundary Commission, we could face proportional representation. I saw other right hon. and hon. Members struck with fear at the thought, and I saw them feeling that they would move towards supporting greater flexibility.

My hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) offered us an amendment that would meet almost every objective of Her Majesty’s Government but would still have flexibility—that great aspect of the British constitution, which has served us well since Alfred the Great, who was a Somerset man. I debate with my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath) whether Alfred is more my constituent or his; I think, in fairness, that he would belong more to the Deputy Leader of the House. This constitutional flexibility is something that has been of great benefit to us. I feel that my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes got it right in saying that it is useful for there to be some degree to which one can go outside the boundaries, without being too prescriptive.

On the subject of today’s speeches, what a fantastic history lesson we had from the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt). To think that this was supposedly the least discussed reform of Parliament since the Rump Parliament, when Cromwell decided to send in the troops—the only man to send troops into the predecessor building to this House to enforce debate and Divisions. Some of us may think that the Whips are tough, aggressive and forceful, but even in my experience they have not used force, or pikes, to make sure that I go in the right direction. Oliver Cromwell did indeed do that; he prevented people from voting in that forceful way. The shadow Minister returned us to these matters again and again, and spoke for at least 50 glorious minutes—minutes that felt to me like days, but days of such pleasure, joy and rejoicing in spirit that I hope we will have another 50 minutes from him in due course, or on another occasion, or perhaps tomorrow, if we should be so lucky.

Let us return to the specifics of numbers. Should it be 650, or perhaps 649? Should it be 648 or 647?

[Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)]

Higher!

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend would like to have more—perhaps it is a “points mean prizes” occasion. However, I think that 600 is not too bad a number. One hon. Member suggested 666—the number of the beast. It is worth being careful about the number 666, because if we read our Bible carefully there is always a footnote saying that other ancient authorities refer to 616. I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes set his limit at 612, clearly aware of the dangers of going as high as 616 and thereby finding that we inadvertently had in this House the number of seats that was the number of the beast. We know what that would mean: it would be deeply terrifying—almost as terrifying as the threat of proportional representation.

We had great discussions about the great and noble historical counties, and the wickedness of Humberside and suchlike. I would like to add that Avon was even worse than Humberside. Avon was an abomination—a foul creature disgusting in all respects, destroyed, I am glad to say, by the noble father of my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Ben Gummer). In the numerical aspect, it is important to look at the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome in representing so many Somersetshire constituents. It seems important that the people of Somerset should have as much representation as the people of Rhondda—indeed, I think rather more, because we are from Somerset and they are from Wales. A few extra seats should be especially included, to give Somerset the representation that that wonderful county needs.

I will say just one final thing about seats, because time is getting on. In the Parliament of, I believe, 1392—let me just check that in my notes—no, the Parliament of 1362, one Member, a Mr John Wonard, represented two seats in Devonshire and two in Cornwall. It seems to me that the flexibility that the history of our nation allows ensures that the number will always come out right in the end. A right and suitable number we shall have, a fine and good number, a lucky number, perhaps a number that the—

21:00

Debate interrupted (Programme Orders, 12 and 19 October).

The Chair put forthwith the Question already proposed from the Chair (Standing Order No. 83D), That the amendment be made.

21:00

Division 91

Ayes: 212

---

Labour: 197
Democratic Unionist Party: 5
Conservative: 3
Scottish National Party: 3
Green Party: 1
Plaid Cymru: 1

Noes: 325

---

Conservative: 273
Liberal Democrat: 49
Social Democratic & Labour Party: 1
Alliance: 1

The Chair then put forthwith the Questions necessary for the disposal of the business to be concluded at that time (Standing Order No. 83D).

Amendment made: 327, in clause 9, page 10, leave out lines 8 and 9 and insert—

(a) in England, the boundaries of—

(i) each county for which there is a county council,

(ii) each district that is not in such a county, and

(iii) each London borough,’.—(Mr Heath.)

Question put, That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill.

21:15

Division 92

Ayes: 322

---

Conservative: 273
Liberal Democrat: 48

Noes: 167

---

Labour: 150
Democratic Unionist Party: 5
Conservative: 4
Scottish National Party: 4
Social Democratic & Labour Party: 1
Alliance: 1
Green Party: 1
Plaid Cymru: 1

Clause 9, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 10

Boundary Commission proposals: publicity and consultation

Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

The Committee proceeded to a Division.

[The First Deputy Chairman]

I ask the Serjeant at Arms to investigate the delay in the No Lobby.

21:30

Division 93

Ayes: 317

---

Conservative: 267
Liberal Democrat: 49

Noes: 133

---

Labour: 119
Democratic Unionist Party: 5
Scottish National Party: 4
Social Democratic & Labour Party: 1
Alliance: 1
Green Party: 1
Conservative: 1
Plaid Cymru: 1

Clause 10 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 11

National Assembly for Wales

Amendments made: 163, page 11, line 30, leave out ‘Secretary of State’ and insert ‘Minister’.

Amendment 164, page 11, line 34, leave out ‘Secretary of State’ and insert ‘Minister’.

Amendment 165, page 11, line 35, leave out ‘Secretary of State’ and insert ‘Minister’.

Amendment 166, page 11, line 40, leave out ‘Secretary of State’ and insert ‘Minister’.

Amendment 167, page 12, line 18, at end insert—

‘( ) In this section “the Minister” means the Lord President of the Council or the Secretary of State.’.—(Mr Heath.)

Question proposed, That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill.

The Committee proceeded to a Division.

[The First Deputy Chairman]

I ask the Serjeant at Arms to investigate the delay in the No Lobby.

21:47

Division 94

Ayes: 305

---

Conservative: 258
Liberal Democrat: 46

Noes: 114

---

Labour: 106
Democratic Unionist Party: 4
Social Democratic & Labour Party: 1
Alliance: 1
Green Party: 1
Plaid Cymru: 1

Clause 11, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 12 and 13 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedule 7 agreed to.

Clauses 14 to 17 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

The occupant of the Chair left the Chair (Programme Order, 12 and 19 October).

The Deputy Speaker resumed the Chair.

Progress reported; Committee to sit again tomorrow.