Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Mann and Greg Mulholland

Tuesday 19th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Greg Mulholland]

I think the hon. Lady must be the only person in the Chamber who could possibly regard what I have said as a contradiction. I will tell the Committee who is inconvenienced by the boundary changes: it is the voters of this country, as well as Members of Parliament. There are constituents in this country who have been in four different constituencies in recent times. They simply do not know what parliamentary seat they are in, who their MP is or even who they will be allowed to support at the next election.

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman is making the sensible case for equalisation rather than the illogical case for it. Does he agree that if such a profound change were to take place and if it were the view of Parliament, it would be right and proper to bring the measure in over a longer and more considered period of time, not least because the Government’s proposal is not for an equalisation but for an equalisation plus or minus 5%? Thus a degree of discretion will be allowed, which is potentially arbitrary. It could be countered even on the principle of equalisation if there were the ability to have public inquiries and hearings based on the principle that the hon. Gentleman is advocating.

[Greg Mulholland]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but let me make it clear again that I support the principle of having more equal constituencies. Indeed, we need to move towards such a system that recognises, as the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) said, that populations change. Clearly, that has to be recognised; it is why we have boundary changes now. It is also fair to say that those boundaries changes might be too infrequent and based on out-of-date data. However, that is an argument for having boundary changes every 10 years so that we have the same boundary at least for two consecutive general elections. Having different boundaries for every single general election is, frankly, absurd and would lead to utter electoral chaos.