Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill

Debate between Stephen Doughty and Mark Harper

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 18th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass) on bringing the Bill before the House and on giving us an opportunity to discuss the issue.

Mr Speaker, you may feel, as I do, a slight sense of déjà vu. I declare an interest as the Minister in the coalition Government who, during the last Parliament, took through the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011. I very much look forward to the speech of my successor but a few, the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office. I will start with a bit of the context, but I will not try your patience by going on for too long with my opening remarks. I listened carefully to the arguments of the hon. Member for North West Durham, and I will cover most of them and say why I think she is mistaken or going down the wrong path on several of them.

I had not intended to talk about this, but there was an implication in what the hon. Lady and a few other Members said. Before the Great Reform Act of 1832, parliamentary constituencies were thought of by many people as their own property—indeed, they were their property—and they passed the ownership of their constituency down their line. I mention that because the discussion has so far missed an important point. We obviously feel a great sense of pride in our constituencies and we want to represent them and, most importantly, the people who live in them, but they are not ours. Our constituencies do not belong to us. It is the other way around: the people in our constituencies expect us to represent them. When I listened to some MPs talk about the constituencies they currently represent, it sounded as though they owned them. The minute an independent boundary commission proposes to change their constituency, the better to represent the constituents living there, they seem to take that as a personal affront.

[Stephen Doughty]

That is very much not the point that I and other hon. Members made. One key issue that I raised is that of under-registration, which has particularly affected students, young people, and black and minority ethnic communities across Cardiff and, indeed, many other constituencies across the country. Is it not unacceptable that such people are not allowed to have an MP who properly represents their numbers in the constituencies in which they live?

[Mr Harper]

I am glad the hon. Gentleman raises that point, because I do not agree with the premise of his question. Interestingly, during the last Parliament, the coalition Government introduced individual electoral registration. It does two things: it makes sure that people are properly represented; and it improves both the accuracy and the integrity of the electoral register. To pick up the point made by the hon. Member for North West Durham about moving into a more modern world, the other thing we of course did was to allow electoral registration online. I am very proud of having started the process, which has been continued by my successors. It is now incredibly easy to register to vote. People can do it online with their national insurance number, which shows that they are eligible for registration, and it is very quick and very easy. A huge number of people have done so. In fact, I think that I am right in saying that the vast majority of those who now register to vote do so online. We have therefore made registration easier.

What the hon. Gentleman forgot to mention about students is that, just because they may not be registered in the town or city where they attend university, that does not mean they are not registered. Students are often registered in more than one location. When I was a student—tragically for me, that was a very long time ago—I was registered both at my parental home in Swindon and at my university accommodation in Oxford. Obviously, I only voted in one of those places in an election, as is lawful, but I was registered in both of them. If I had been registered in only one of them, that would not in any way have meant I was disfranchised. The hon. Gentleman needs to think about that before making such remarks.