Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Wednesday 9th February 2011 Lords Chamber

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[Lord Teverson]

25: Clause 11, page 11, line 10, at end insert—
“Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly
(1) All parts of Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly must be included in constituencies which are wholly in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly.
(2) Rule 2 does not apply to these constituencies.”

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I can perhaps help my noble friend on this one because this amendment is not at all about a single constituency—it is about something that is far more important than that. I remind noble Lords that, back in the early 1970s, a royal commission—the Kilbrandon commission—looked at the situation prior to the first attempt at devolution. It also looked at Cornwall. The report stated that what the people of Cornwall,

“want is a recognition of the fact that Cornwall has a separate identity and that its traditional boundaries shall be respected ... Just as the people of Scotland and Wales tend to resent the description of their countries as regions of the United Kingdom so the people of Cornwall regard their part of the United Kingdom as not just another English county”.

It went on to describe a,

“special relationship and the territorial integrity of Cornwall”.

I do not think that Cornwall’s position could be described better than that. Indeed, Cornwall is seen by many—not just Cornish people themselves but its residents and those who move there—as the fourth Celtic nation of the United Kingdom. It has a Celtic language. It has Celtic place names and family names. It has that whole tradition. It was not a part of Anglo-Saxon England, and many will say even now that it was not seen as a part of England until well into the previous millennium.

It is the area of culture, history and geography that makes Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly a very important exception which should be recognised within the Bill. The background of its culture, as I said, is Celtic. Its industries—fishing, agriculture and particularly tin mining, which goes back many centuries—are a particular characteristic of Cornwall. More recently, China clay has been mined there. Apart, I concede, from a little bit of Devon, that is a unique feature of the area. Many noble Lords will know that place names beginning with “Pol”, “Tre” and “Pen” are unique to Cornwall and to be found at a high density. They go back to the Celtic language, which is actually closer to Breton. Brittany is a region with which Cornwall still has a close relationship.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, I do not have any doubt about the passion, sense of identity and pride that my noble friend Lord Teverson brings to this debate about Cornwall. We are well aware of the broad views of the various political groupings and of the Members of Parliament. Last night I heard the noble Lord, Lord Myners, explaining why he could not be here today but leaving his own views on this on the record. As always, with this, as with a number of the other amendments that we have discussed throughout this Bill and in recent times, we come again to whether a special pleading—I do not say that in any pejorative sense—outweighs the Bill’s objectives of giving equal weight to the votes.

I also understand the argument being put that Cornwall would rather have only four MPs than five if one of them crosses the Tamar. I am not sure whether that is actually in the best interests of the people of Cornwall. I do not really understand the argument that the pride and the identity—the pride in Cornwall’s rich history and the talk of strong community—that we have heard of will be diminished simply because one MP is going to take responsibility outside Cornwall. The answer to my noble friend Lord Newton’s question is that I totally agree that there is no unique argument about river borders and we have not applied that in the Bill.

I recognise the strength of feeling in Cornwall but I cannot agree that Cornwall’s position is similar to the Scottish island constituencies in terms of why the exceptions were accepted. By this, I mean that the Bill originally provided for exceptions on the practical level. Without these exceptions, we would be faced with constituencies that would be impractical for Members and constituents and so would deny effective representation. In other words, the genuinely extreme geography of the dispersed Scottish island groups does not make it possible to combine them with the mainland, for practical reasons. If we look at the Scottish island groups in this way, we do not think it possible to argue the same case for Cornwall.

I recognise the strong sense of identity that many have in Cornwall. I do not agree that parliamentary constituencies can create or destroy that identity. I believe that a parliamentary constituency can cross the boundaries of a local authority, without taking away at all from the sense of identity of each constituent community within that constituency. The fact that a parliamentary constituency might cross boundaries, be it in Ayrshire or Cornwall, in no way takes away from that sense of identity. I repeat; I have heard no argument that convincingly sets out the opposite case.

I know that we have had a lot of fun about Cornwall and Devon. I occasionally have jousts with my noble friend Lord Shutt about the relative merits of Lancashire and Yorkshire. That is part of a long tradition within our United Kingdom but it is very difficult to push those arguments too far. Further, I argue that there is strong evidence to support the case that constituencies can and do exist that contain more than one community with more than one sense of identity. Many Members of the other place represent diverse communities today, from constituents with rural and urban communities to those containing the speakers of dozens of different languages, all of whom have their different cultural identity. Belonging to one constituency does not detract from one or diminish that diversity. I believe that Members of the other place who are in that situation do an excellent job representing the various interests of all their constituents.

Again, I recognise the strength of feeling and pay tribute to the campaign that my noble friend has waged, but I cannot agree that we should depart any further from our objective of greater equality in the value of votes unless the geographical ramifications of doing so might create an impractical constituency. We do not see a sense of local identity and the setting of a parliamentary constituency as an either/or decision. Instead, we seek the best balance between respecting a local objective and a national one. Locally, the opportunity to voice one’s opinion to the Boundary Commission at a public meeting means that those commissions will be able to take local factors into account on a case-by-case basis. Nationally, we want electors to know that their vote counts and has equal weight as much as we possibly can. The Bill, we believe, presents the best balance between those two important principles, so, although I respect his passion, I invite my noble friend to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for his reply, but I am deeply disappointed by it. Perhaps I might first take up the issue raised by my noble friend Lord Newton of Braintree. I stress again that I am not just talking about physical rivers and saying, “Those are the boundaries”. The Tamar is a symbol of that boundary, rather than the river itself. Other rivers act as boundaries which this Bill does not allow to be crossed. Much of the passage of the Wye, at its south, is the border between Wales and England, and the Bill does not allow that to be crossed. How does Cornwall see itself? Some call it a nation; others see it as a historic nation of the United Kingdom.

I also disagree with the Minister on the importance of this. I stood for South East Cornwall in the 1992 election, and I was blessed with a visit from my noble friend Lord Ashdown. He was going to walk with me and all the media—there was a question of a hung Parliament at the time—down the high street in Saltash. He got off his battle bus and said to the gathered press of the south-west and the nation, “It’s great to be back in Devon”. That is why I never became a Member of the other House. Cornwall really believes in its own destiny, its future and its contribution to the United Kingdom, but it wants its own parliamentary constituencies, and on that basis, I wish to test the opinion of the House.