Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Mann and Sadiq Khan

Monday 1st November 2010 Commons Chamber

[John Mann]

Is it not the case that where the traditional English counties, for example, are breached, such as by constituencies crossing from Nottinghamshire into Derbyshire, Yorkshire or Lincolnshire, people will want to have a far greater say than they have for many years in a county such as Nottinghamshire? Although the boundary reviews there have sometimes been contentious, they have been within clearly defined parameters, which have been publicly available and generally publicly acceptable.

[Sadiq Khan]

I thank my hon. Friend for his comment. I will come later to the evidence, which is something the Government seem scared of. It proves his point that at the time when the public inquiries are serving their greatest function, they are being abolished. One has to ask why.

A balance needs to be struck between overlapping objectives, but in the Bill the Government have managed to get the weighting wrong in almost every regard. The limits on disparities between seats are too severe and inflexible, the time scale for the boundary review is far too tight, and the abolition of local inquiries in return for an extended window for written submissions is deplorable.

As I have said, because of the programming of the Bill we have dealt inadequately with the speed of the boundary reviews and with the strictness of the adherence to electoral equality. The abolition of inquiries is entirely at odds with the concept of localism and open politics, which my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) referred to a moment ago and which the Deputy Prime Minister, who has called himself the great reformer, has previously professed. In a speech five months ago, which I will quote because it is important that colleagues in the other place hear it, he said:

“I have spent my whole political life fighting to open up politics. So let me make one thing very clear: this government is going to be unlike any other. This government is going to transform our politics so the state has far less control over you, and you have far more control over the state.”

How does the abolition of local public inquiries empower people?

To suit their rushed agenda, the Government are simply withdrawing any meaningful element of public participation and consultation, thereby reducing the boundary review process to an opaque, bureaucratic and largely mathematical exercise. The loss of transparency and the ability to comment on and amend proposals will seriously damage the reputation of the boundary commissions. It will erode the high level of trust in their impartiality that they rely on for their reports to be accepted, and the quality of their proposals will be compromised.

Any significant boundary change is likely to cause some level of discontent and controversy, but that will be magnified to previously unknown levels of disquiet if the rigid new rules in the Bill are adopted and 50 seats are abolished. In a written submission to the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, the secretaries of the four boundary commissions were clear:

“The changes to the total number of constituencies, and the tighter limits on the number of electors in each constituency, will result in a complete redrawing of constituency boundaries.”

They continued:

“The electoral parity target may require the Commissions to work with electorate data below ward level in many cases”

and

“will result in many constituencies crossing local authority boundaries…the application of the electoral parity target is likely to result in many communities feeling that they are being divided between constituencies.”

If there is no procedural outlet for that discontent, the boundary commissions and the entire review process will be rapidly discredited.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sadiq Khan]

I advise my hon. Friend to be very careful with this coalition Government. In five months, they have got rid of the local public inquiry for the sake of expediency. God knows, next year they may get rid of the right of appeal to the Court of Appeal and just rely on written representations. They may think, “This democracy malarkey is just too expensive. Let’s just have written submissions and then have a vote in our constituencies rather than turning up and having a debate and arguing the pros and cons of an issue.” I am astonished that hon. and right hon. Members on the Government Benches, who should know better, are taking through this shabby piece of legislation.

Another criticism, which came from the hon. Member for Epping Forest, is that the local inquiry takes too long. The final and most lengthy inquiry, the fifth review, was in Greater Manchester and took more than two weeks. The assistant commissioner, Nicholas Elliot QC, made the following observation:

“The advantage, sitting as an Assistant Boundary Commissioner, is that one gets from the two major political parties that they equally look at the overall picture in somewhere like Greater Manchester where it has to be done, whereas others examine it from their own perspective. The difficulty of the Assistant Commissioner is that you do have to look at the overall picture, and it is only those two major political parties who do provide very, very great assistance in trying to come to what may be the best or worst answer.”

[John Mann]

It is good to use Manchester as an example when one talks about public inquiries. South Manchester has the highest concentration of university students in western Europe. Is not one of the anomalies that boundary commission inquiries might need to take evidence on the fact that university students will be able to register in two locations? Therefore, there will not be equal-sized constituencies. What we will have are university constituencies with a significant number of dual registrations. There could be as many as 15,000 people who are dual-registered and choose to vote in their other constituency. The concept of equal votes in equal constituencies is thrown out of the water. Is that not the sort of thing that the boundary commission, even with this rotten legislation, would want to have a look at?

[Sadiq Khan]

rose—