Constituency Boundary Revisions

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts

Thursday 30th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

The noble Lord certainly gets top marks for pursuing the same question over and over again. My answer is the same as it has always been—there is no change. It is important to remember that equalising the size of constituencies in the boundary review means that everyone’s vote will carry weight. If we let some constituencies stay smaller than others, voters in them will have more power than people in the bigger ones, and the boundaries will be based on data that are 20 years out of date. That cannot be fair or right. The principle of equally sized constituencies was endorsed by the Committee on Standards in Public Life and will ensure the vital demographic principle of one elector, one vote.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)]

I declare an interest as a councillor in the London Borough of Lewisham. The noble Baroness’s response today has been disappointing. How does she justify redrawing boundaries for the House of Commons using electoral data when millions of valid entries on the register will not be taken into account, due wholly to the decision taken by this Government to reduce by one year the transitional period?

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

I do not want to make a political point but this appears to be a cynical delaying tactic. In the previous Parliament there seemed to be a conspiracy to delay the boundary review by legislating to put it back until 2018. Here, we have new excuses to push it back again, but to do so would mean that the next general election would be fought on incredibly outdated constituencies. We need to move ahead and have the boundary review in place by 2018. We need to be able to put our candidates into their constituencies in time to fight the 2020 general election. This has been decided as the way forward. For goodness sake, let us just go ahead and do it.