Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Phil Wilson

Tuesday 2nd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Laing]

No, I certainly do not. The hon. Gentleman’s point has no validity whatever. This is the Parliament of the United Kingdom—of the whole United Kingdom—and every constituency in this United Kingdom should be of equal size and should have an equal number of voters. Every Member who is elected to this Parliament should come here with an equal weight of electorate behind them.

[Phil Wilson (Sedgefield) (Lab)]

Now that we must give votes to prisoners, will we have to have equal-sized prisons?

[Mrs Laing]

Mr Deputy Speaker might say that that point is not relevant to this Bill. It is not for me to argue the matter. I do not want prisoners to have the vote, but that is not the point at issue. The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) gave perfectly good responses to that this afternoon.

Labour Members have produced all the little arguments they can possibly think of to try to preserve the current unfair imbalance in constituency structures that gives the Labour party an unfair electoral advantage. Every statistic shows that, and it cannot be argued against because it is a matter of simple arithmetic. It is not a matter of opinion; it is a matter of fact—[Interruption.]

Hon. Members say, “gerrymandering”, but the gerrymandering was done by the last two Boundary Commissions under the then Labour Government. Of that there is no doubt whatever.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Phil Wilson

Wednesday 20th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[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.