Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Murphy of Torfaen Excerpts

Tuesday 15th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

The hon. Gentleman raises the issue of people’s ability to have their say in person. Such provision was not in the Bill originally, but we listened carefully to the debate in the other place, and there were a number of very good arguments. Among others, Lady de Souza and Lords Pannick and Wolff were of the view that it was important to allow local people to have a say, so we tabled a Government amendment and an associated new schedule enabling an outlet for local opinion, and that was included in the Bill.

The proposed changes were accepted without a Division in the other place, but I have said—I think, accurately—that there was then an attempt effectively to turn that process of public hearings back into the largely discredited legalistic inquiry process. There was a debate, but the other place, having decided that it did not want to accept the idea, was content with our proposal for public hearings.

[Paul Murphy (Torfaen) (Lab)]

I do not agree that the proposals before us are anything like proper inquiries, but let us assume that the Minister is right and they are concessions. Does he not accept that Wales loses 25% of its Members while the rest of the United Kingdom loses 7%? Does he not think, therefore, that there should be more such assurance in Wales than in other parts of the country?

[Mr Harper]

On the right hon. Gentleman’s first point, which is that public hearings are different from the old discredited system of local inquiries, he is spot on. They are designed to be different, because the academic evidence is very clear: the old system of public inquiries did not lead to an improvement in the boundaries.

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[Chris Bryant]

Much as I would love to agree with my hon. Friend, I recall previous comments: when people lost the argument at a public inquiry, they tended to hold forth against them; when they won the argument at a public inquiry, they tended to support them. However, in many cases, the Boundary Commission’s original proposals were overturned through public inquiries because of the voices of local people, such as the people of Acton Burnell, of Much Marcle and so on. Sometimes it happened because of the intervention of political parties. None the less, the end result has been constituency boundaries that, in the main, are accepted by the people who are represented.

[Paul Murphy]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful case for boundary inquiries. My constituency was preserved 27 years ago by a long public inquiry. However, I am not sure whether the Minister grasped my earlier point. In Wales, there will be a 25% reduction in the number of seats—I was not arguing about the principle, but making the point that the disruption to the political and constitutional landscape in Wales is hugely greater than in other parts of the country. We should therefore have more public hearings in lieu of the public inquiries.

[Chris Bryant]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. In addition, there are some specific concerns. For example, it is possible that, as a result of the boundary changes, we would end up with no single constituency in Wales with a Welsh-speaking majority. That is not of particular concern to my constituents in the Rhondda, but it is of concern to the British Parliament that that voice could be lost.

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[Andrew George]

I will not give way, because we have only 11 minutes left and I want to finish to allow other Members to speak. We had the option of extending to other constituencies the exceptional geographical status that is applied to Na h-Eileanan an Iar, Orkney and Shetland and the other places that have been mentioned. All the amendment would do is give the Boundary Commission reasonable latitude and discretion to accept the arguments for exceptional status that will inevitably arise. Otherwise, the Government’s intransigence will leave a legacy that I believe the House will regret.

[Paul Murphy]

I do not understand why the Government and the Minister are being so rigid and fundamentalist on this issue. The Minister has already accepted the principle that there can be 5% leeway in the size of the electorate and that that flexibility is the result of local ties and circumstances. Many of us wanted a flexibility of 10%, but the Government wanted 5%. After weeks of debate in the House of Lords and in this Chamber, he is for some reason sticking to the rigidity of 5%, despite knowing full well that the 7.5% flexibility would not result in the problems that he has suggested. Of course it would not, because the principles are exactly the same.

The Minister represents a constituency that has distinctive circumstances as a result of its locality—the former coal-mining area of Forest of Dean. If it was turned into Gloucestershire parliamentary district No. 3, does he think that that is how his constituents would want to be represented in the House of Commons? Of course they would not. They would want to ensure that they have someone who understands their locality and all the special reasons that make it so important. I have already named two examples from Wales, as we have a number of Welsh-speaking constituencies that, generally speaking, have Welsh-speaking MPs to represent their linguistic interests in the House. With the 25% reduction in MPs for Wales, that is no longer likely to be the case.

[Tristram Hunt]

Does that not point to a lack of understanding about the nature of the Union? Those balances and inequalities are represented in this Chamber, because that is the price of holding together the Union, and the Government’s utilitarian approach does no favours to the United Kingdom.

[Paul Murphy]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, in the sense that the unity of our kingdom is based on the recognition of the differences within it. Those differences can be reflected linguistically, culturally, socially and in other ways. The rigidity with which the Government have embarked on this course puts that Union in danger.

[Mr Harper]

I set out from the Government’s perspective the reason why we settled on plus or minus 5%—a 10% range that is based on more equal seats but allows the use of wards as building blocks. Can the right hon. Gentleman explain to the House the principled reason why he thinks that 7.5% either side of that quota is the right number?

[Paul Murphy]

That extra flexibility allows for the factor that I have just described in Wales and elsewhere to be taken into account—of course it does. I should argue very strongly for 10%, but the Government have a particular principle behind their legislation, which incidentally is based not in any way on logic, but on expediency.

[Mrs Laing]

The right hon. Gentleman is doing very well, as ever, at putting before the House what appears to be an argument based on principle, but in reality are not he and his Labour party colleagues afraid of the inflexibility of a 5% variation, because it would take away their in-built advantage under the current unfair system?

[Paul Murphy]

In the examples that I have just given, of Welsh-speaking constituencies in Wales, the seats are held mainly by Plaid Cymru and the Liberal Democrat party, so there is no advantage for the Labour party in that. I am not arguing a partisan point; I am arguing that 7.5% would provide for that flexibility throughout the United Kingdom and avoid the worst excesses of the Bill.

[Mr MacNeil]

A couple of moments ago, the right hon. Gentleman said that the Union might become weaker with the passage of the Bill. How much weaker does he think that 88-year-old Union—stretching back to 1922—might be after Royal Assent tomorrow?

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[Paul Murphy]

The Union will be weaker as a result, because the Bill will not take into account the various points that I have just described. If we do not allow the small countries within our larger country to be properly represented within the Chambers of the legislature, we will ensure a bad effect on the relations between different parts of that country.

As a former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, I really do not believe, as my hon. Friend the Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) said, that the Government have thought for one second about the political impact of the changes before us on the constituency boundaries in Northern Ireland. They do not understand that, when we drew up the Good Friday agreement, much of our argument was about how we could create a sensitive balance between Catholic and Protestant, Unionist and nationalist in Northern Ireland. That balance will be upset by the rigidity on which the Government have embarked, and at this very last moment I urge the Minister and the Government to change their minds.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

My problem with Lords amendment 19 is new paragraph 5A(b) of schedule 2 to the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986, which states that

“such necessity arises from special geographical considerations or local ties”.

I want to focus on “local ties”, because that is why I shall vote against the amendment. It is bad law, and, looking at “local ties” and how that might be expanded, we should consider my seat, Elmet and Rothwell.

First, let us focus on Rothwell, which between 1917 and 1955 had its own parliamentary constituency. After that, it was included in others, and at the most recent election it fell outside a safe Labour seat for the first time, making me the first Conservative MP for Rothwell.

Moving on to special interests and local ties of an “exceptionally compelling nature”, however, I note that outside my constituency there is a village called Sherburn in Elmet. Many people in that part of the world, when I tell them that I am the MP for Elmet and Rothwell, say, “Ah, I live in Sherburn in Elmet; you’re my MP,” but of course, I am not, because it is not in my constituency.