Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Monday 6th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

Of course I would be delighted to meet my hon. Friend’s group. Whether we will have a meeting of minds is another matter. He feels passionately about the current electoral system, but others feel passionately that there should be a different system. Those passions should be reserved for the debate that will occur in the run-up to the referendum, and at the end of the day it is not for us to decide, but for the people of Britain to decide what kind of electoral system they want.

There are three problems with the current electoral map. Constituencies vary too much in size, they are based on information that is out of date, and there are too many of them. In our parliamentary system, MPs both represent their constituents and are their stake in who forms the Government of the day, but at the moment the will of the voters is not weighed equally. For example, last December, Manchester Central contained 85,522 electors, while Glasgow North had just 50,588, a difference of 41%. On the broken scales of our democracy, 10 voters in Glasgow North have the same weight as 17 voters in Manchester Central. That is not a single anomaly, because those differences are repeated up and down the country. As of last December, Wirral West, Edinburgh South and Wrexham had fewer than 60,000 voters. Falkirk, Banbury and West Ham had more than 80,000. That unfairness is deeply damaging to our democracy.

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

The Deputy Prime Minister stresses greatly the need for constituencies of the same size, as it is a question of equality of voting. It currently takes about 35,000 votes to return a Labour MP, 37,000 votes to return a Tory MP and about 115,000 votes to return a Lib Dem MP. When we redraw the boundaries, what does he think would be a fair number to go for to return a Lib Dem MP?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

As I will describe shortly, the number that we anticipate being the guidance for the boundary commissions is roughly 76,000, and we allow for a 5% margin greater or less than that in the Bill.