Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill (Fourteenth sitting)

Afzal Khan Excerpts

Committee Debate: 14th sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 10th October 2018 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

The usual before we begin: everybody please switch off mobile phones, which includes me; no coffees or teas allowed but, if anyone wants to remove a jacket, please feel free to do so.

As the Committee cannot consider the clauses of the Bill until the House has agreed a money resolution, I call the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton to move that the Committee adjourns.

[Afzal Khan (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

I beg to move, That the Committee do now adjourn. Thanks to everyone for coming. I hope we all had a good break.

The energy after the Labour party conference was quite a contrast to the tumbleweed blowing around the hall in Birmingham.

[The Chair]

Order. Mr Khan, I would not ordinarily allow comments about party political conferences, so please keep them to the Bill.

[Afzal Khan]

Thank you, Ms Dorries. Perhaps it is that lack of energy that is to blame for our stagnation in this Committee. The Minister has told us that it is a very long and complicated process to translate the boundary review recommendations into a motion to put to Parliament. I do not believe it would be so complicated in fact. I am sure that an efficient Government could get anything done it they had the energy and focus. Clearly, this Government are more interested in kicking the can down the road than in bringing the issue of boundaries to a head.

The Government already face threats of rebellion from 80 MPs over the Prime Minister’s Brexit deal. Why would they anger even more of their Members by pushing through an unpopular boundary review that is doomed to be voted down? The answer, of course, is because that is what would be best for our democracy.

We cannot continue with boundaries based on 20-year-old data. The current review excludes a million voters and will reduce democratic accountability just when we need it most. For the sake of our democracy, we must abandon the arbitrary and harmful attempt to reduce MPs, and my Bill would do just that. But, as we know, the Government have no problem with putting the interests of their party above the interests of the country.

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure, Ms Dorries, to be back in Committee and to serve under your chairmanship. I see our numbers are dwindling once again. The right hon. Member for Forest of Dean, who is normally assiduous about attending and has been very helpful in pointing out intricacies of procedure that I have not yet got my head around, is not here. Let us hope that is only a temporary absence. I would like to think he is made of sterner stuff and has not been worn down.

I see that our friend from the Scottish National party, the hon. Member for Glasgow East, is not with us this morning. I again assure the Minister, the Committee and you, Ms Dorries, that we shall not be worn down. The reasons we will not be worn down are very much those just stated eloquently by my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton, who has been a personal friend for many years, long before either of us was privileged and honoured to be elected a Member of this place.

There is a clear, pressing and dire need for a boundary review, but one that is fair. The Government’s basis for the current boundary review is to equalise the number of constituencies, but my hon. Friend makes the point that even that aim will not be achieved because there are a million voters missing from the register. Therefore, we will get constituencies that vary hugely in size, simply because the registers on which they are based are inaccurate.

I am looking at Hansard from our sitting on 5 September. We learned that the new boundaries—as opposed to the current boundaries—as published on 5 September will not be brought before the House any time soon because of the complicated drafting of the orders. The Minister was pressed by me on the point that it might take several months. She said:

“I confirm that I used the word ‘months’ and I deliberately did so. I intend to be realistic with the Committee that those instruments are complex and need to be prepared fully and correctly.”

She was, as she promised,

“quite straight about that with the Committee.”––[Official Report, Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Public Bill Committee, 5 September 2018; c. 88.]

I then looked at the previous instruments that the House had agreed and they did not seem that complicated to me. I am not a parliamentary draftsman and I have never been a Minister.