Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill

Debate between Huw Merriman and Oliver Dowden

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 1st December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Dowden]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Councils up and down the country, including Hertsmere Borough Council which I represent, did a fantastic job of living within their means and cutting excessive expenditure.

[Huw Merriman]

As my hon. Friend was at the centre of power then—I am sure he will be again soon—I would be very interested to know why there was no proposal to cut the number of Ministers by 10%. I was struck by the arguments advanced by my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin).

[Oliver Dowden]

I must correct my hon. Friend before I move on to his substantive point. I am quite confident that as a Member of this place my role in national life has increased, not decreased. It is a great privilege to represent the people of Hertsmere in this place.

On my hon. Friend’s specific point, my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex makes an important point, which should be considered by the Prime Minister of the day should the legislation ever be put into effect—I very much hope it will. The Prime Minister will have some discretion. The legislation sets out a maximum number of Ministers, but it is my understanding that the Prime Minister does not have to take up the entire allocation. The Prime Minister of the day may wish to choose not to take up that allocation. I do not think that that is an argument of such strength that it means we should revisit the entire legislation at this point, because the benefits of proceeding with the existing legislation as it stands outweigh that.

It is worth noting that the speech I mentioned earlier also made the case, as part of cutting the cost of politics and restoring trust, for reducing the number of Members of Parliament. An interesting question, which was raised by the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne), is how we actually came by the 600 figure, which some Members have suggested is somewhat arbitrary. I think that, in a sense, one number is as arbitrary as another, but the rationale at the time was a 10% cut in the number of Members of Parliament. Those who are good at maths will note that that takes us not from 650 to 600, but down to 585. However, as Members may recall, the then Leader of the Opposition did not succeed entirely in winning in the 2010 election, and was forced to enter into a coalition with the Liberal Democrats. As part of the negotiations on the proposals, the Liberal Democrats consistently argued for more Members of Parliament, while the Conservatives made the case for cutting the cost of politics and having fewer Members of Parliament. We met somewhere in the middle with 600, which at least had the benefit of being a round number.