NATO Summit: Vilnius

Debate between Alec Shelbrooke and Lord Spellar

Thursday 6th July 2023 Westminster Hall

[Alec Shelbrooke]

At the transatlantic forum, which many of us with leadership positions take part in—it takes place in December, at Washington’s National Defence University—American politicians saw for the first time, at first hand, the anger that had built across many European nations about the knock-on effects that the policy might have, not least the gaps that it could lead to in defence procurement and the development of technology. All Governments will often pursue an economic policy that fits with their national agenda, and not necessarily see the impacts elsewhere. The forum is another good example of soft power, because conversations can take place and can be fed back.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

The underlying reality is that the Inflation Reduction Act in the United States is recognition that they, and the rest of the west, had allowed their industrial capacity to be hollowed out and basically subverted, particularly by China, and they are rebuilding their industry. There might be discussions to be had, but should we not also recognise that industry is vital, not only for our economy but for our security? It is time for us to catch up.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

I agree with much of what the right hon. Gentleman said. That is a very good example of the fact that the Assembly is not afraid of being critical of Government policy. It is not afraid to be critical of Governments of any colour. The committees have been in the building for a long time.

I was about to come to the reports produced. A report produced by Defence and Security Committee is about ensuring an industrial base for the manufacture of defence equipment and munitions. I do not think it is a state secret any more, particularly as it got leaked on the internet by somebody in America, that there is real concern about the ability to rearm. The right hon. Member for Warley (John Spellar) touched on the fact that industry has not created a constant supply line. My committee recognised that we must have that constant supply line, and industry must have the confidence to invest; I suspect that the Economics and Security Committee recognised the same. That is a good example of the work that has been done, and fed to leaders in advance of discussions that they must have at the Vilnius summit.

As we are all aware, we are involved in a war. It is not a war with NATO, but allies are supporting Ukraine, and doing everything we can to let it stand up for freedom and democracy, and to let the Ukrainian people choose how they live their life and who runs them. It is an important fight; it is the fight of democracy against autocracy and dictatorship. It has, however, posed real challenges. The Assembly is not afraid to highlight those challenges and ensure they are fed into discussions.

Reports become the body of the work of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. One issue reported on was the rapid evolution of Baltic security after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It has led to another very important political point. Everybody recognises article 5 of the North Atlantic treaty, which says that an attack on one is an attack on all, but it has become apparent to many—this is being discussed in our Committees—that article 5 is not an emergency call. It is not a 999 call, or a 911 call, for those in America. It is about re-enforcement—the rapid reaction force, which takes three weeks to get there.

Article 3 says that a country must be able to defend itself first. That is why countries have moved forward with a forward defence presence; for example, there is the joint expeditionary force in the Baltic sea, and the 300,000 troops being lined up along the border, so that the tripwire is not tripped. That is a fundamental difference, because until the invasion of Crimea, NATO had shifted its perspective; it went from being a cold war defence organisation to being a political organisation. It was doing exceptionally important work, as the right hon. Member for North Durham pointed out, as countries from eastern Europe joined the path of democracy. After the invasion of Crimea, there was a switch to both roles being important. It is a tribute to NATO and its leadership that it was able to adapt to the change in geopolitical circumstances so quickly.

It is not just Members of the House of Commons who are members of the Assembly; five Members from the other place also make a great deal of effort. Lord Lancaster from the other place, who is on my Committee, had his report, “Troubled waters—how Russia’s war in Ukraine changes Black sea security”, published. Security in the Black sea region has changed immensely.

I will take this opportunity to thank our allies in Türkiye for their incredible work; sometimes they do not get the credit they deserve. They are looked at in different ways. They enforced the Montreux treaty, which has stopped huge amounts of Russian maritime capital equipment making its way into the Black sea and creating an issue. They negotiated the export of grain; they are constantly patrolling the Black sea to defuse sea mines that have become dislodged; and they are very much protecting that area. Indeed, there are a lot of NATO allies around the Black sea, and they are in a tough region, as we can see from looking at their geographical neighbours. It shows the strength of the NATO alliance that we have countries from so many different parts of the world carrying out very specific roles.

I turn to the work of the Defence and Security Committee. When I took on the chairmanship, I wanted to look at maritime security. The High North is coming ever more to the fore. We recently conducted a visit to Canada, which was very much based around its naval training, because Canada is surrounded by three oceans yet has not invested in its maritime capability in the way that we would. Its Halifax-class frigates are slightly different from ours, and are being refurbed at 30 years old; that is the same age as our Type 23s, which we are retiring, yet they are being refurbed to take another 20 years at sea. There are interesting comparisons to be draw in the alliance when it comes to procurement. We might consider what we are doing with the Royal Navy, and the modernisation and the technology that can be brought forward in the realm of the NATO maritime alliance.

Russia may not be able to control the oceans in the way that the Americans can, but it is exceptionally good in the arena that it operates in. That arena is increasingly becoming the High North, for them and for the Chinese, who are mapping the area, working out where they can push up and where they can exploit, and where the mineral resources lie. They are also investing heavily.

The Assembly has been able to identify and bring more to the fore the problems the Canadians face, not least permafrost. Permafrost is retreating in the High North, which is destroying military infrastructure, such as runways that have been relied on up to this time. NORAD—the North American Aerospace Defence Command—needs updating, and there are fuel supply depots that are not being used. We talk about the UK’s procurement struggles; we need to recognise that many allies have similar struggles. That again shows the strength of the alliance: we can come together to face what will become an ever-greater threat.

Russia has recognised that it needs to shift the ball, and there is an interesting conversation about the capability of its intercontinental ballistic nuclear missiles and whether it would use them. We have the policy of counterbalance, but it now has developed the Poseidon torpedo, which could by all accounts make its way underwater for six days to the coast of North America, explode a mile offshore with a nuclear warhead and create a tsunami. That changes the counterbalance, which is why, again, this alliance is so important. It is also why it is so important that the UK renews Trident and the Dreadnought fleet, to make sure that counterbalance exists. That way, even if we do not know where the silos are, we know that there would be a response, and that would reduce the threat. If the Russians want to go down that road, let them, but they still have not got a free pass to do that, because we have the counterbalance.

More positively, NATO works on interoperability, and F-35s from the UK have been landing on Italian carriers. Such steps send out important messages to our foes—to the Russians, and to the Chinese in many ways—that NATO is not just a gathering of 31 countries with their own military equipment; it is building its interoperability. The interoperability offered by the F-35 marks a fundamental change in air support in the alliance.

I will conclude, to allow colleagues to contribute. As we approach the 75th anniversary of NATO, and talk here before the Vilnius summit, I think everyone in this Room would agree that NATO is more important than at any time. Only through these alliances and partnerships will we bring about the counterbalance needed to ensure that we can carry on living in freedom and democracy, which the people of Ukraine are fighting for with their life as we speak.

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[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma. As we are dealing with defence matters, it is worth noting that your predecessor was the last serving member of the British Army to have served in this House.

I congratulate the leader of our delegation, the right hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke), on securing this debate. It has highlighted once again that, whereas in the popular mindset NATO is seen as a military alliance, it is fundamentally very much a political alliance, and was right at the beginning. It was created in response to political events.

When one reads Ernie Bevin’s justification for NATO, it is interesting to see that he stresses the extent to which they tried to secure political agreement with the Soviets for the management of Europe after the second world war, not just in Germany, Berlin or Austria, but across Europe. They were perpetually frustrated and eventually understood, particularly after all the political and military coups that took place across eastern Europe, that they needed collective security against the threat, and that they needed not only a military, but a political organisation. It is right that the Foreign Office leads the debate, because it leads in NATO. That, again, demonstrates the fundamentally political nature of the alliance. It is, of course, backed up by hard power and our nuclear deterrent, but it is underpinned by industrial and societal issues.

I have always taken an interest in manufacturing and defence industry matters—probably because of my previous incarnation as a national officer in a major industrial union—and, interestingly, that is now very much a mainstream debate inside the NATO Parliamentary Assembly and in the various capitals of NATO countries. There is a real role for Parliaments to get engaged, as hon. Members have mentioned. Countries will be looking at rebuilding their own industrial capacity but, even within the United States, there is recognition that no one country can do that alone.

Diversity of supply from secure and trusted suppliers is enormously important. That is true about fundamental materials—even this week, countries were finding China cutting off various materials to chip makers—but it runs right the way through. Sometimes, among the less well informed, the debate has focused on the high end, such as computer chips, but basic, fundamental industrial capacity in the form of foundries and drop forging is enormously important in maintaining capacity. The struggle in Ukraine has highlighted that importance.

There is a lot of catching up to do. Our Government are doing some of it but, to my mind, they are still being so slow. There is no point in criticising Joe Biden and the Administration in Washington for rebuilding their industrial capacity. We should work with them, and we should also work across Europe. There is a regrettable tendency within the EU bureaucracy to try to make this an exclusive EU function, more as a political operation than a defence and industrial one. It is hugely important that the UK, the EU, and the United States and Canada look at how we can best co-operate to ensure that we can supply our troops not only in normal times, but in times of crisis and emergency.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that this mindset has to be present across all Departments and all Governments at the top? There is a reason why we need warehouses full of billions of pounds’ worth of equipment, and it is not just, “Let’s get that off the accounting books.” What has been shown is just how vital it is.

[John Spellar]

I absolutely agree with the right hon. Gentleman. It is also about industrial capacity to replace that equipment. There are some real debates to be had about the associated costs and capacity, but that is much better done with proper understanding of specialisations. That should also involve our friends in Australia through the AUKUS agreement, which will be important for the UK and the role we can play with our European colleagues.

There is also the battle for hearts and minds inside Europe, which goes right the way back to the founding of NATO. Sometimes there is a misplaced focus on technology. People talk about being able to use Facebook and various parts of social media. Those skills are important, but, as Rupert Murdoch said about the entertainment industry, in the end, content is king. That is the important thing. That is where we very much need to sharpen our act, or rather recreate the capacities that we used to have. After all, in the second world war we had the Political Warfare Executive, which was probably one of the most outstanding information and disinformation operations. We seem to have moved backwards from that.

We are up against an opponent for whom politics is everything. In both Russia and China, Lenin still rules OK. Politics absolutely dominates the scene. That is where the NATO PA comes in, because we are able to bring the democratic arguments. Congressman Gerry Connolly’s work on putting the defence and advancement of democracy right at the heart of NATO was rightly referenced, but we also have to develop those capacities.

Both the EU and NATO have done some work on disinformation, but we have to up our game. We have to rediscover that. We have to create the mechanisms in Government that can co-operate with other countries in NATO, and with representatives in the NATO PA, in order to take the fight to authoritarians or their fellow travellers across the world, not to prevent the battle of machines but to win the battle of the hearts and minds. The NATO Parliamentary Assembly has a crucial role to play in that.

Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Debate between Alec Shelbrooke and Lord Spellar

Consideration of Lords amendments & Ping Pong & Ping Pong: House of Commons
Tuesday 10th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Alec Shelbrooke]

I would like to start by commenting on Lords amendment 7 and the flexibility. We keep hearing this mathematical argument, but we seem to be getting away from the overarching principle. Already this afternoon, we have heard that it is difficult to keep local communities together unless we move to a tolerance of 7.5%, which strikes me as odd when it would mean going from a difference of roughly 7,500 voters to one of 11,000. Many electoral wards in this country have fewer than 7,500 voters, so are we now making the argument that wards themselves split communities and that they are wrong as well? There is a fundamental principle: if we went to 7.5%, one vote could be worth one 67,000th and another could be worth one 77,000th. That is quite a significant difference.

I listened carefully to the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden). I very much enjoyed working with him in Committee and having the debates that we had, and I have a huge amount of respect for him. He made a very important point about equal representation. He said that by losing seats, Scotland will not have equal representation. I would argue that the exact opposite is true: it is equal representation—and of course there are two protected seats in Scotland; recognition has been made of the geographical reasons why the Outer Hebrides and Orkney and Shetland are separate. It is not fair to say that Scotland is getting less representation and that it needs to be equally represented, because there will be equal United Kingdom representation. That is what this is about: the United Kingdom’s Government.

The hon. Gentleman and I are never going to agree on his nationalistic views and my Union views—that is why I sit on the Conservative Benches and he sits on the SNP Benches—but we just seem to be plucking figures out of the air for the 7.5% and the 5%. Again, I listened carefully to the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith) and I have a huge deal of respect for her. She made an argument about the 600 seats and how that changed the number of voters when dealing with the 5%. However, away from the numbers, the fundamental principle must be to get as close as possible.

I made the point in intervening on my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House about trying to get as close to the quota as possible. It should be possible to do that if the Boundary Commission for England, especially, takes the approach that the Boundary Commission for Scotland takes and decides that it does not have to draw some very strange shapes and lines using ward boundaries, but that it can work with smaller electoral segments.

We heard the argument in Committee that polling districts can be changed by local authorities and can lose that representation—that they could be gerrymandered —but of course there will come a point when the Electoral Commission looks at where they are today. It has already said that it will go on where they are today; it is using the March 2020 register and those units as they exist today. If, in eight years’ time, there have been changes to those polling districts, for whatever reason, that can be taken into account at that time, and the Electoral Commission is an independent body.

I will happily support the Government in disagreeing with Lords amendment 7. Fundamentally, we cannot lose sight of the fact that we are trying to give equality of vote. In my mind, the tolerance is there not to try to draw the most convenient shape using wards, but purely to allow the flexibility for which a need will inevitably build up over the eight years, as my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House said, with new housing developments and so on. My right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) has made the point many times that development, especially in certain parts of the country, is huge, and it leads to such housing developments. That is what the tolerance should be about; it should not be about trying to draw the shapes to have one just creeping in at the bottom end and one just meeting the higher end. The flexibility should allow a 5% tolerance of the share of that vote over the eight years; it should not get there straight away. If a constituency is made at the higher end, within eight years, it will almost certainly be above that number and we will be back in the same situation.

My constituency of Elmet and Rothwell has 79,316 electors. The neighbouring constituency of Leeds East has 65,693. The neighbouring constituency to that of Leeds Central has 82,211. It simply cannot be right to have such variation within less than 10 miles as the crow flies.

My hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew) is in his place and cannot speak in the debate. [Interruption.] I can still smell and taste; it’s all right. He and I have represented Leeds electors since the early 2000s. We have seen great differences in the city and how it is set up. His constituency is on the higher side of the number of electors in Leeds. My voters are getting almost one 80,000th of a vote, whereas in the neighbouring seat they are getting one 65,000th of a vote. It is right to reject Lords amendment 7 simply because we should see it not as a way to fill the gap and make constituencies work, but purely as a way to give people a vote that will change plus or minus 5% over the eight-year period to try to keep things roughly similar.

Lords amendment 1 is about moving from eight to 10 years. The reality is that that means we would probably go through three general elections on those boundaries. We have heard a lot in these debates about how big the boundary changes are probably going to be when they come through, but that is because nothing has happened for a quarter of a century. The changes will be of that size; they will be disruptive.

It is better to go in a cycle of two general elections so that, hopefully, from this point on, with the Government amendments to try to make the whole system more robust and far less open to political shenanigans in the House, we will not see such major changes in future. It is better that the system can be, for want of a better word, tinkered with to make sure that we get back to roughly within those tolerances. We all accept that there will be demographic change and housing change. Big things are happening, including the ambition to build so many houses, which will cause change.

What seems like a small amendment would have a huge impact. Very large changes would have to be made simply by adding those two years and getting into a three-general-election cycle.

Lords amendment 8 is about registrations. It is a fundamental right of people in this country to choose whether they want to register for a vote or not.

[John Spellar]

It is absolutely, certainly not. It is actually a criminal offence not to return a registration form.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

The reality is that people who do not want to register to vote can do that. They have to register for council tax and those processes.

[John Spellar]

That is absolutely wrong. It is an offence not to return the electoral registration form. The fact that councils do not enforce that and do not think it is worth it may be another matter, but it is a prosecutable offence not to return a registration form.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

Well, the right hon. Gentleman has made a point there that I stand to be corrected on.

I also stand to be corrected on this point. I do not want to mislead the House; these figures can be checked. For the European referendum, in my constituency, 1,500 extra people went on the register and have now come off. They chose to register to take part in that ballot, which meant a lot to them, but they do not want to take part in other ballots. They worked out how to register; they registered; they legally took part in the ballot; they have not registered going forward. It has to be right that people have that choice. As my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House said, the amendments would lead to a far greater complication of the system, and centralised data, which has not exactly worked well in other areas—including, quite frankly, some of the things that people are trying to achieve at the moment in this crisis. We have seen some of the problems and weaknesses that can occur.

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[John Spellar]

I join others in paying tribute to and sending condolences to the Minister for the Constitution and Devolution, the hon. Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith). There is, however, one upside to her absence, which is that, with the Leader of the House, we have the Conservative Trumpist philosophy, red in tooth and claw, absolutely out there in the open. We had it again just now on ghost voters on the register. At the same time, the Government reject any attempt to make a more rational, accurate and comprehensive registration process. We have seen that all the way through, with attempts on voter suppression and attempts to make things more difficult at the polling station, in spite of the complete lack of evidence—in the same way that Donald Trump has been trying to discredit the American election, claiming that there are fraudulent voters, particularly in postal voting. It is the same old song. For those on the Government Benches, here is a breaking news story: Donald Trump has lost the election.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

I do not think anybody on these Benches will disagree that Donald Trump has lost the election.

The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, which many of us have taken part in, produced its report. It is not fair of the right hon. Gentleman to cast aspersions on the Government about suppressing voter registration. The changes that were made to the postal voting system in this country were made as a direct result of OSCE reports on previous elections. I have a huge amount of respect for the right hon. Gentleman —I consider him a friend—and I know he would not wish to cast such an aspersion. I hope he will reflect on that.

[John Spellar]

It may not be fair, but it is perfectly accurate. The reality is that in neither country has there been a shred of evidence of fraud in postal voting or personation at the ballot box.

Parliamentary Constituencies Bill (Eighth sitting)

Debate between Alec Shelbrooke and Lord Spellar

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 8th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 30th June 2020 Public Bill Committees

[John Spellar]

Thank you, Sir David. I am sure that like me you were trying to cut your way through all the contradictions and inconsistencies that were in the right hon. Gentleman’s contribution. Many of the points had considerable value, except that they were not consistent. They were not even consistent with this morning’s business. We were talking about being as close as we can be—except, of course, when the seat of Ynys Môn has been won for the Conservative party. I never noticed such interest when it was a battle between Welsh nationalists and Labour for that constituency. An exception, of course, is the Isle of Wight. It is perfectly possible to visit it by ferry, and MPs can go back and forth to it. We need to get as close as possible and we can split wards, and everything else, except of course when it comes to the Isle of Wight, which, on the basis of previous electoral trends—okay, it did go Lib Dem at one stage—is probably going to leave with two Conservative seats.

Then the right hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell talked about taking account—which, of course, the boundary commission cannot do—of future building development. I think it is appropriate to be able to look forward. However, with a widened area of discretion, constituency A would be able to say, “We will build fairly close to the line.” Constituency B might be a bit smaller, because of the reasonable expectation, as long as builders do not sit on the land, that there would be a large number of additional people. Of course, it could not know how many of those would be eligible for parliamentary representation, because in many areas the size of the population does not necessarily match the size of the electoral register, because of the number of people who would not be eligible to be on it.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

On the point about house building going in, it goes back to the evidence that the boundary commission draws the line at that particular moment; but, again, if it is known that it is coming in, at the moment nothing stops that plus 5% being right up at the limits. Even though building the housing is in a city council’s plans, it will, within a year, almost immediately go over the limit.

[John Spellar]

That is rather my point—exactly. With a wider area of appreciation, it is possible to take account of that. It becomes much more difficult the narrower it is. It also comes down to the size of the building blocks. I think the right hon. Gentleman mentioned that some of his wards are in Leeds and some are in the country. For those MPs who represent rural areas or small towns the wards are quite often 1,000, 1,500 or 2,000. In most of the metropolitan areas they are in the 8,000 to 10,000 mark. In certain areas—not Birmingham, any more, since the change in the boundaries and all-up elections—including in Leeds, for example, my under- standing is that the number is somewhere around 16,000 to 19,000. That makes, again, for a sizeable building block.

There is, frankly—and with all due respect to our colleague the hon. Member for Glasgow East—no point talking about Scottish wards, because they are much larger, being based on a single transferable vote system, If, heaven forbid, Conservative Members now seek to move towards STV in the United Kingdom, that will be another issue entirely. However, there is not the same identity of ward members as we have when we must have much wider wards. The idea is to keep, as far as possible, structural organisation for a ward, although there may need to be some minor exceptions. The boundary commission initially crossed borough boundaries as an exception, to deal with problems in London, as I recall. Now, it seems to almost totally disregard such boundaries. That is one reason why the Labour party, unsuccessfully, still wanted to allow Parliament to act as a constraint on the self-fulfilling activities of the boundary commission.

It is enormously important to maintain some sort of coherence and identity. It is not just constituencies that should have geographic and community coherence, but wards as well. There should not be gerrymander-style wards, similar to some American constituencies, which get close to having exact mathematic equivalence but end up being utterly extraordinary shapes and sizes. That is why we should not take note of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe recommendation to look at size of population, as the United States does, rather than electoral registers. The United States bases its wards on census figures, not electoral registration. In some areas, authorities might be encouraged if they had to focus on electoral registration rather than registration suppression, as happens in a number of states, whipped on by Donald Trump.

For that reason, one probably has to have slight, and probably unjustified and unworthy, suspicions, about the vehemence with which the argument for 5% is being mounted by Government Members. We have been told, both by the Conservative party witness and by Members, that the OSCE report firmly says that the total variation should be 10%—in other words, 5% on either side. They prayed that in aid as justification for their case, but that is not what the OSCE says in its recommendation. It clearly states:

“The maximum admissible departure from the distribution criterion…should seldom exceed 10% and never 15%, except”—

it even says this—

“in really exceptional circumstances”.

There are practical reasons in favour of the proposal. We need to ensure the maintenance of communities and prevent considerable inconvenience similar to that experienced as a result of the previous boundary changes. We have heard evidence that 650 seats may or may not make it easier, but these very tight margins make it more difficult for the boundary commission, parliamentarians and, most importantly, the electorate.

Parliamentary Constituencies Bill (Sixth sitting)

Debate between Alec Shelbrooke and Lord Spellar

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 6th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 25th June 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Alec Shelbrooke]

I am most grateful to the hon. Lady for that intervention. I have often said that if God had wanted Yorkshire and Lancashire to meet, he would not have put a huge lump of granite between us.

However, there is an important point here, namely that the arbitrary nature of local authority boundaries is a strange thing. In 1974, Leeds was the only authority that got bigger; all the other authorities got smaller but the Leeds metropolitan authority swept way out of what had been the Leeds City Council area and took in areas such as Pudsey, West Riding Council and all those areas.

My constituents generally do not consider themselves to be part of Leeds. However, I am a Leeds city MP, in a county constituency and a borough constituency, which gives some idea of how that is defined in the geography of election expenses. Equally, I remember a particular opponent in one of the elections who was trying to establish their credibility to stand in the area. They went to certain parts of my constituency waving the flag about what a strong Leeds Rhinos fan they were, in rugby league. I am not a rugby league fan, and am clear that I am not, but I do know that in the areas that said opponent was talking about being a Leeds Rhinos fan, the people were all Castleford Tigers fans, so I was quite pleased with that bit of electioneering.

[John Spellar]

Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us which football team he does support?

Parliamentary Constituencies Bill (Fifth sitting)

Debate between Alec Shelbrooke and Lord Spellar

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 5th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 25th June 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Alec Shelbrooke]

I said the size—the number.

[John Spellar]

Will the right hon. Gentleman take the opportunity to assure the Committee, and therefore put it on the record, that at no time in the future would he accept a place in the House of Lords?

[Alec Shelbrooke]

I can give the right hon. Gentleman the same assurance on that issue that all Labour leaders have given. [Laughter.]

[John Spellar]

So that’s a yes?

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[Alec Shelbrooke]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. That moves us on to clauses and amendments later in the Bill that we will be able to debate further. My constituency is a county constituency. I am in the city of Leeds, but the other seven seats are borough constituencies, so it is not fair to compare me directly. There is some argument over how big Leeds Central is. It varies from 78,000 voters to 94,000 because it has such a transient population. However, the seat of Leeds East has only 66,000. I know that some Opposition Members might not particularly miss the seat of Leeds East today, but I will not ask them to comment on that. Those are the differences in just one city, among neighbouring seats. Leeds West, on the other side, is a different size to Leeds North East. Seats vary hugely within just one city by tens of thousands of votes, not necessarily just a few. However, I take on board the hon. Gentleman’s point.

I have two final points to make. The right hon. Member for Warley mentioned the OSCE report earlier in his point of order, and I picked up on it as well. The report says that

“making members of parliament (MPs) accountable to their electorate and creating a link between the MP and voters…is undermined when MPs know that they will acquire new voters with new constituencies before each election.”

I do not necessarily agree. I think that we are honourable enough to represent the people we represent right until the end. I am sure that everybody in this room, as soon as they are elected, pays no regard whatever to the voting intentions in areas of their constituency. I have worked every single area of my seat, which had a traditional mining area. The village of Allerton Bywater was a colliery. It was at the frontline of the miners’ strike. I stood in local government for it in 2002 and received 8% of the vote. In the last general election, I received 52% of the vote. It changes. We go in and work an area, and none of us takes any of our constituents for granted.

I therefore think that that is a slightly disingenuous comment, but it points to the fact that at some point things have to happen, and political events may happen towards the end of a Parliament. If we want just to delay the change and kick it forward, we are running into the fact that we could say, “Let’s have it come into effect straight after a general election, so that we all know what we’re doing next time and there’s time to adjust,” which plays into that argument. When is a good time to do it? From our point of view, I do not think that there is one. There is an automaticity point here.

I understand the amendment that Opposition Members have tabled; in fact, I think that the hon. Member for City of Chester made a very reasoned and well placed argument. My view, though, is that we have not removed Parliament’s ability to have its say in the process for two fundamental reasons. First, Parliament is having its say at the very beginning, in the criteria laid out. Secondly, there is still nothing really—we can argue about technicalities, but they have all been overcome in the past two or three years—preventing Parliament from stopping the change, if it wanted to, before it came into effect.

[John Spellar]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley. It has been a very instructive debate. It is very interesting—in some ways encouraging—to see that experts are back in favour in the Conservative party, after a period in which they were castigated, belittled, abused and reviled. Academics and no doubt judges will soon be back in the pantheon. However, I do not think that creating a series of new priesthoods of those who can lay down divine, unalterable and unchangeable wisdom is right in a representative democracy.

It is absolutely right that there are checks and balances within the system. As my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester said, academics give views and those views can be challenged on the evidence that they have produced. But they all end up being advisory, and they all end up getting commissions for local government or boundary commissions, or from other bodies. In the same way, academics in transport had lots of views when I was a Transport Minister. None of them were living on their university salary: they were all doing commissions for different bodies. It may or may not have had some influence on their views.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

I wonder whether the right hon. Gentleman agrees with me, though, that one of the strengths of what we do at the Committee stage with the line-by-line analysis is to also act as a guide to the deliberations that have taken place and the arguments that have been put forward, for those who may independently be on the panel.

[John Spellar]

That is a very fair and effective point. There also needs to be a check, therefore—they know that there will be a check further down the line, and that they do not ignore those guidelines or indeed ignore the realities on the ground with complete impunity. In a minute I will come to why we saw that happen, and talk about the history of the last ten years and why boundary commissions failed on two occasions.

I must divert briefly from the matter following the intervention from the right hon. Member for Basingstoke, who had clearly prepared her comments about the OSCE, or maybe she came in after I raised the point of order at the beginning of the sitting. “The Code of Good Practice in Electoral Matters” clearly states that the

“maximum admissible departure from the distribution criterion…should seldom exceed 10% and never 15%, except in really exceptional circumstances”.

Therefore, it does not prescribe mathematical equality, nor indeed straining the system in order to achieve that mathematical equality.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Spellar]

I very much take my hon. Friend’s point. Fundamentally, the parliamentary approval finally acts as the constraint on the Executive, but also on the bureaucracy. I do not believe in this, as in so many other areas, we should just hand over decision making to the great and the good. Academics and lawyers have a proper role: they should advise. Quite apart from their role in a judicial capacity in trying cases, their views should not be unchallengeable. As I said earlier, I thought that view was quite fashionable in the Conservative party, but that may have changed.

One could do away with the whole problem. One could have a national list and, just as in Israel, whatever the percentage of votes are achieved, that is the number of seats given. I happen to believe very strongly in the constituency link. I happen to believe in individual constituencies and the Member’s link to those constituencies, representing their local interests and views. In the last election, we saw very different patterns across the country. Those regions and towns were represented. That is why it is important we try and keep those together.

Finally, one of the experts referring to the question of local links rather disparagingly said that very often they were political points dressed up as constituency links. There was some truth in that, although I think he was far too disparaging of constituency links and relationships. Equally, we are seeing that in the debate we are having. There are some political elements in this, as we are seeing with the 5%. Also, as in clause 1, there is a slight anomaly here. In 2031, the report will have to be in by 1 October and every eighth year after that it is 1 October, except in 2023 when it is 1 July. One therefore has to question whether there is an interest—I give way to the vice chair of the Conservative party.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

The right hon. Gentleman has given me a good smile this morning. For that to come into effect, there would have to be a vote of the House once more, because we are still under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011. Once again, I hear what the right hon. Gentleman is saying, but again, it would have to be a decision of two thirds of the House.

[John Spellar]

The cat is out of the bag.

[John Spellar]

Not one denial that this is a change that is designed after, presumably, not a two-thirds majority but a simple majority of the House to do away with the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011. I think it is part of their programme to put through that legislation and then call a snap election in October, rather than in the following May, which is scheduled in all the other legislation.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for promoting me way beyond my humble Back Bencher status to being able to control the date of the next election. It still comes down to a fundamental point that all of these matters rest on a vote of the House. It comes back to the point that I made earlier: we are voting in this Committee on setting those parameters. It does not usurp the will of the House at any time, because the Bill is in Committee, it will go through both Houses, and it will come back. Whatever the political naughtiness may be around the discussion, it will always come down to a vote of the House.

[John Spellar]

Mr Paisley, I am prepared to end by conceding that there is clearly political naughtiness, and it is very much contained in clause 3(2).

Parliamentary Constituencies bill (Third sitting)

Debate between Alec Shelbrooke and Lord Spellar

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 3rd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 23rd June 2020 Public Bill Committees

[John Spellar]

Q Should we have districts?

Professor McLean: Well, since we have more time than we thought, we could have a discussion about US congressional districts, but Members may wish to move on.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

Q Gentlemen, thank you for giving your time today. As you have probably picked up from reading previous reports, one of the issues this evidence inquiry is trying to get to the bottom of is how we are going to advise the commissions about the best way to do these boundaries.

Building on what you have just said, Professor McLean, about keeping the right size and in terms of communities, about which one can always argue, can we look at rule 5(1)(c) in the 1986 Act, which is about keeping boundaries in existing constituencies? My question, to both witnesses, is about whether the Bill needs to have some clarifications put in it, especially around what we are struggling with regarding the Boundary Commission for England. The evidence from the Boundary Commission for England was pretty much, “We are always going to try and do it with wards, and we will just get the numbers to work.” That overrides almost all the rules in clause 5, including geographic considerations. I gave the example of a North Yorkshire ward that one can only get to by completely leaving the constituency and spending a considerable amount of time on the road, but it would make the numbers work.

Can I probe your minds on the resistance to building outside of the wards, or, in other words, splitting wards down, as they do in Scotland, in order to try to keep existing communities together? What are your views on the different definitions of county constituencies and borough constituencies? How does that play into the building of constituencies? Does the Bill need further guidance to try to equalise the United Kingdom’s approach to how it builds constituencies, with the gold standard of Scotland being a good example?