Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Baroness Nye and Lord Kinnock

Tuesday 25th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kinnock]

My Lords, I am glad that I gave way, even though I did not give way. The point about manifestos will be in the clear recall of the noble Lord. It was explicitly and forcefully made by the noble Baroness opposite. I was responding for the sake of accuracy and in the interests of this House on that very point. I am well aware of the Cunningham report and of the conventions of the House. I do not think that any convention or any established custom is superior to the truth.

[Baroness Nye]

My Lords, I would like to speak to Amendment 75ZB and move back on to the amendments, which I think some on that side of the House were slightly straying from.

I was born in Brixton—hence my title Baroness Nye, of Lambeth—but I strayed north of the river at one point, where I had a very nice time as I got married and had three rather lovely children. So there are advantages to both sides.

When I looked at Amendment 75ZB, I wondered why the Boundary Commission would ever want to split constituencies on either side of the River Thames. Let me read one section of the British Academy report, which I think proves that the inflexibility of the Bill is such that we could end up in the situation where constituencies could cross the river. The report states:

“Greater London is the part of the UK where borough boundary-crossing has been most common at recent reviews, and where it is likely to be widely necessary under the new rules. With an electoral quota of 76,000 only three of the 32 boroughs would have an entitlement of as many as three constituencies (Bromley, Croydon, and Ealing). No more than eight of the boroughs have an entitlement which means they could be treated separately in the allocation of constituencies, but because of the non-integer entitlements of their neighbours it could well be that virtually all of the boundaries have to be crossed”.

In that case, it is feasible that we could get a situation where constituencies are cross-river.

I know that that point slightly exasperates some people. For example, in regard to the Devon and Cornwall situation, the Prime Minister has said:

“It’s the Tamar, not the Amazon, for heaven’s sake”.

I know that you could just as easily say “It’s the Thames not the Amazon”. However, as has been demonstrated by my noble friend Lord Howarth and others, with a smidgen of flexibility we would not be in a position where constituencies were not within geographical boundaries and communities would have to be split. If the Minister could be a little more flexible, we would not get into a situation where rivers would have to be crossed.