Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Viscount Simon and Lord Maples

Monday 17th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Viscount Simon)]

I must advise your Lordships that, if Amendment 58A is agreed to, I cannot call Amendments 59 to 63ZA inclusive and Amendment 66B due to pre-emption.

[Lord Maples]

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, asks why it should fall to Parliament to make this decision. It seems to me that it must, and that ultimately the will of the House of Commons should prevail but that obviously our views should be sought too. The nature of the rules that the Boundary Commission operates at present involves an inevitable escalation of the number of Members of Parliament at every Boundary Commission review.

I completely agree with the noble and learned Lord that there is no magic number. Those of us who sat in the House of Commons probably would not be able to agree what the optimum number should be. However, there are now 650 Members. I think that there were 625 when I first got in in 1983—or perhaps that was the figure in 1979—and there were 659 in 1997. Therefore, there has been quite a variety in the number of MPs. In the 20th century, the number rose from 615 to 659, but of course that does not take account of the fact that the number of Scottish seats fell by, I think, 13 at the time of devolution. If those are added as well, we are still talking about a number around the 660 mark.

With 600 seats, the average number of voters would be 75,000 per Member of Parliament. I should like to speak—