Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill

Debate between Wayne David and Mark Harper

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

[Mr Harper]

I certainly was not “the poor Minister”. I hugely enjoyed my role as Minister for Political and Constitutional Reform. I got to spend an enormous amount of time in the Chamber, with Mr Speaker frequently in the Chair, although I am not sure he enjoyed listening to the debates as much as I enjoyed speaking in them. I do not, however, recognise the origins that the hon. Gentleman mentions.

The hon. Member for North West Durham made a serious point about the accusations made about people who registered ahead of the EU referendum. A thorough piece of work has been done by a gentleman called Matt Singh, who works for an organisation called Number Cruncher Politics, an independent organisation that has looked at this issue very carefully. For this to be an issue, the 2 million extra voters would have to be unevenly distributed across the UK. If in some areas there had been a much bigger rise in the number of electors than in others, that would of course affect the distribution of the 600 seats set out in the legislation.

Interestingly, Mr Singh, in his very thorough analysis of the 2 million increase, wrote:

“The data does not support the suggestion that using the later version of the register”,

as the hon. Lady proposes doing,

“would materially alter the distribution of seats. Instead it points to a very even distribution of the 2 million newly-registered voters between”

currently held Labour and Conservative seats. If we added all the 2 million, of course we would increase the size of the register, but because the extra voters are evenly distributed across the country, we would not significantly change the distribution of constituencies. So I think that is a bit of a red herring.

As I draw towards the conclusion of my remarks, as you wanted me to, Mr Speaker, let me deal with the Bill.

[Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Harper]

I shall first give way to the hon. Gentleman. He and I had a lot of fun when we debated the previous legislation, particularly when we spoke about Wales. I want to give him the opportunity to intervene.

[Wayne David]

When it comes to missing voters resulting from the European referendum, the right hon. Gentleman’s analysis has been challenged by many people. I want to make that point first. My second point is about gerrymandering. The previous Government passed a piece of legislation and this Government have brought forward the date of individual electoral registration. The result, against the advice of the Electoral Commission, is to exclude 1.8 million people from the electoral register. If that is not gerrymandering, what is?