Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Andrew Bowie Excerpts

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

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

That is not actually accurate. The national insurance database does not consist purely of voters; it consists of people who have national insurance numbers because they are eligible for tax in this country, and they may be foreign nationals. That is another problem: we would be trying to match together a database that is held for an entirely different purpose. It would have to be scrubbed to turn it into an electoral database, at which point we would have an electoral database held centrally, which is exactly the problem we are trying to avoid. I think we are on strong ground on this one.

[Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that although we want to encourage mass participation in the democratic process among the young, old and everybody in between, it is an inherent right in our democracy that people get to choose whether they partake in that democracy? If someone chooses not to register to vote, that is up to that individual, and that is something that we respect.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Freedom of the individual in participation is of fundamental importance. People have to decide whether they wish to vote—whether they wish to be actively involved. It is worth saying, again, that individual electoral registration has increased the number of people who are registered and increased the accuracy of the database. As I said, a million ghosts—phantom voters—were removed, and that is important. The integrity of the electoral register is of fundamental importance to the confidence that people have in the honesty of our system, and we have a very robust system.

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I thus again urge the Government to increase the tolerance to give the commissioners wider discretion.

[Andrew Bowie]

rose—

[David Linden]

I am happy to give way to my hon. Friend.

[Andrew Bowie]

I thank my hon. Friend—and he is a friend. Does he not agree that what we are trying to achieve is ensuring that each vote in this country is, as far as possible, equal to the next one? The more that we increase the tolerance, the less equal everybody’s vote becomes, and so we move further and further away from what we are trying to achieve by going through this process in the first place.

[David Linden]

What I am trying to make sure is that I and my hon. Friend are made unemployed fairly soon—but that is a separate matter. The point is that it was previously enshrined in legislation that Scotland would have 73 seats and then it would rightly be reduced to 59 in the light of devolution. Government Members cannot have their cake and eat it; in one respect they are enshrining in legislation a certain number of seats, but locking that down in legislation means that there will be a degree of difference. However, I have a huge amount of respect for my hon. Friend, and he has put his point on the record.

I return to the point made by Mr Bellringer in the evidence session that there is a need to move towards a tolerance rate of, say, 7.5%. That is why I urge the Government to increase it to give commissioners the wider discretion that they asked for when they gave us that evidence. I know that the Government are not particularly fond of listening to experts these days, but I am very hopeful that this afternoon they could just make a wee exception for the Boundary Commission for England.

Finally, I want to make reference to Lords amendment 8. Before doing so, I offer my sincere condolences, on behalf of my party, to the family of Lord Shutt, who, as we have heard, passed away only in the past couple of weeks, but was responsible for securing this amendment in the other place. By using the electoral registers as the data source to draw parliamentary constituencies, the Bill also seeks to disadvantage young people, as the data is less likely to include the names of young people than it is older people, since young people are often not registered to vote. Registration rates for eligible 16 and 17-year-olds were estimated to be 25% in 2018—a drop from 45% in 2015. In contrast, 94% of those aged 65-plus were estimated to be registered. The SNP therefore supports this amendment, which requires the Government to bring forward proposals to improve the completeness of the electoral register in relation to attainers. Only then can we ensure that we are not disadvantaging young people in the electoral process.

The Leader of the House has spent the majority of his time in this House on the Back Benches advocating Brexit and talking about Parliament taking back control from an all-powerful Executive—something this Bill makes worse. I therefore want to finish by paraphrasing something a wise man once said in this House many years ago about standing up for democracy:

 “’Stiffen your sinews, summon up the blood and imitate the action of a tiger, for that is how you should behave towards our European partners, not like Bagpuss.’” —[Official Report, 24 October 2011; Vol. 534, c. 109.]

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[David Linden]

I agree that we need equality. On that basis, and given that all Members should be equal in this House, the hon. Gentleman will be aware that the system of English votes for English laws is currently suspended. Will he call on the Government to ensure that that system does not come back, so that his hon. Friend the Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie) can cast his vote in exact same way as him in a Division?

[Andrew Bowie]

Well said!

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[Stephen Doughty]

I stand to speak to the amendments and to a number of the points raised in relation to them. It is vital that we have this debate, not least in the light of the events of the past few days in the United States and elsewhere but also because the security and sanctity of our democracy and ensuring that it thrives is important not only for our own country, but is vital for the example that we set a globally. When democracy, human rights and the rule of law are under threat around the world, as we have tragically seen in a number of instances in Africa and elsewhere in recent weeks, it is all the more important that we are seen to be leading the way with a strong democracy and strong representation for people.

Indeed, that view is shared by President-elect Biden, who has been clear about the need for a coming together of global democracies to defend democracy and democratic systems and the rule of law around the world. He called for a global summit for democracy, and he rightly said in his speech in Copenhagen in 2018 that “Democracy demands diligence”. That is why it is all the more important that we are scrutinising the Government on these measures.

The comments from the Foreign Secretary the other day were deeply disappointing when he refused to agree with the importance of counting all the votes. It was extraordinary that he had to be asked that question multiple times by Sophy Ridge at the weekend. That was an extraordinary example to set. It was particularly disappointing to hear the comments today from the Leader of the House and the right hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke) about fraud and so-called ghost votes. As hon. Members, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Warley (John Spellar), have said, that is Trumpian language and it has no place in our democracy. It is also not borne out by the clear facts and the evidence in the Electoral Commission’s report of 30 September this year, which stated:

“The UK has low levels of proven electoral fraud.”

It reported that in all the elections that took place in 2019, including many local elections and, of course, the general election, there were just three instances of proven electoral fraud and just one caution out of all of those. The report went on to state:

“There remains no evidence of large-scale electoral fraud in 2019.”

I would therefore caution the Leader of the House, the right hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell and others who seek to use those words to stir up the idea that there is fraud or ghost voting, that this is deeply concerning and does not reflect the facts on the ground. It is very much the type of language and the sort of nonsense we hear from Nigel Farage, Donald Trump and others, and I am afraid that their time is coming to an end.

I want to turn to some of the specific points in the Lords amendments. First, on the question about the commissioners, it is crucial that the independence and integrity of the process is respected by individual citizens across the country, and that we do not have the Lord Chancellor appointing the commissioners. We have already seen that the Lord Chancellor was willing to put his principles to one side when it came to the rule of law over the United Kingdom Internal Market Bill, and I therefore do not have much confidence in him or other members of the Executive having oversight of that process, particularly when the other parliamentary safeguards are being removed from the process. It is crucial that we have boundary commissioners who are independent and who maintain the confidence not only of the public but of all those who stand for elected office, whatever their political party and whatever legislature, including this House, they are standing for.

Secondly, I want to refer to the questions about electoral registration. I have to say that we again heard some erroneous information from the right hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell on this. I heard what my right hon. Friend the Member for Warley (John Spellar) said earlier. I like the right hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell, but he was simply wrong. He asked to be corrected, and I will correct him: there have been fines for the non-return of electoral canvass forms since the Representation of the People Act 1918. Whether or not those fines are enforced is another matter, but the law is very clear. I have just had my electoral registration canvass form come through. The Welsh Government and our councils are doing their job before the crucial Senedd elections in May, and a big caution is set out clearly on the front saying that we must return the form and not ignore it. It is also made clear that we must not provide false information, and that there will be penalties for those who do so. We ought to be taking steps to strengthen and enhance our electoral registration systems in whatever way is possible.

[Andrew Bowie]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to say that not returning a form that has been sent to someone is an offence that they can be fined for. However, it is not an offence not to voluntarily register to be on the electoral register, which is exactly the point that my right hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell was making earlier.

[Stephen Doughty]

But surely the whole point is that we should be encouraging people to take part in the democratic system, particularly our younger people. I have mentioned 16 and 17-year-olds in Wales, and I welcome the fact that the Senedd has passed our Senedd and Elections (Wales) Act 2020, which makes amendments to the Representation of the People (England and Wales) Regulations 2001 to bring in that right. It is right that young people should have a voice in our democracy. I have supported amendments on that in relation to this place on many occasions.

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[Chris Clarkson]

Quite right. Someone’s choice to exercise their franchise should be a positive affirmation and a conscious choice. If we want more people to vote, we should be increasing awareness and improving education. Simply adding names to a register will not increase participation and could lead to a form of stealth malapportionment, whereby certain constituencies would appear on paper to have an on-quota electorate, only for the number of people actively voting to be akin to a rotten borough.

Extrapolating, estimating or automatically registering people is not an answer. We know from countries such as Canada—which, by any measure, we must consider a mature democracy and one with which we would like to be compared—that automatic registration has not been effective and there are high levels of dissatisfaction with the accuracy of preliminary lists.

I have no doubt that their lordships have sent us back a Bill that they consider to be improved. Some of them will be drawing on their own experiences as Members of this place, and I must thank them for their time and consideration, while politely disagreeing with all but new clause 2. The Bill will enable a much-needed review of constituencies, some of which are 20 years out of date, and it will do so in a fair and robust way. The next general election should take place on the basis of boundaries that lend equal weight to every voter, and we have the means before us to enable that now.

[Andrew Bowie]

It is a privilege to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton (Chris Clarkson) and his passionate defence of the Government position and opposition to the majority of the Lords amendments. It is also a pleasure to join so many of my colleagues in sending best wishes to one of the most liked Members of the House, my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith). We send her our best wishes for a speedy recovery and we cannot wait to see her back at the Dispatch Box. I will not start to compare the performances of Ministers in Her Majesty’s Government, but I am sure that the Leader of the House would agree that she would have given a stellar performance at the Dispatch Box today to which he could only aspire.

What we are trying to do today is based on two fundamental principles, those of fairness and equality. This Government and the Conservative party believe that every vote in this one nation, this United Kingdom, should, as far as is possible, count as much as the next. It is essential if we are to stand here with any semblance of respectability in the eyes of the public that they know that we are here with as much right as the next Member of Parliament, representing, as closely as is possible, the same number of electors as the next person in here. That is the aim of the Bill and it is why we are driving towards a new boundary review.

In Scotland’s case, such a review is nearly 20 years overdue. My beautiful West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine constituency came about as a result of the 2004 boundary review Scotland process. My constituency’s population has increased from 81,000 in 2004 to 97,000 today, with the electorate increasing from about 61,500 to 72,000. Although that places it slap bang in the middle of the range the Bill proposes, it shows the difference between where we are now and where we were 20 years ago and how out of date the current boundary proposals are. The situation in my constituency is nowhere near that of Linlithgow and East Falkirk, which now has 86,000 electors, whereas Glasgow East has about 54,000. [Interruption.] Sorry, I meant Glasgow North, and I apologise deeply to the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden). We can therefore see that this Bill is much-needed.

As I say, the Bill is about equality and fairness. On Lords amendment 7, although the difference between 95% and 97% might not seem much on the face of it, it poses a huge difference in the size of constituencies. We are talking about a 15% tolerance; it would not be just 7.5%, but 7.5% either way, and so the difference would be 15%. That could allow some constituencies to have up to 78,000 electors, which is slightly above where mine is, and others to have as few as 67,000. Surely, any Member of this House would see that as unpalatable and unfair, and something we should combat.

I am going to move on quickly to Lords amendment 8, as I know we have a lot of speakers and we need to get through this. Everybody in this House who is involved in the democratic process, at whatever level, wants to see higher turnouts in elections and more engagement in the political process, but it is also a right of any citizen in this country to choose not to take part in the political process. Although the right hon. Member for Warley (John Spellar) might have been right to say that it is an offence for someone not to return an electoral registration form if they have been sent one, it is not an offence not to volunteer to go on to the electoral register. It is up to us all to encourage people across this country to get involved, to register, to vote or to join a political party, but it is surely not incumbent on this Government or any Government—in fact, I think that it would be a rather dangerous path to go down—to insist that every single citizen in this country is automatically put on the electoral roll. I think that would be dangerous and damaging, and as I have said, it is a fundamental principle that people get to choose whether or not they engage.

I will finish where I began. This is about fairness and about equality. This Government are determined to make sure that every voter in this country counts for the same as the next one, and that is why I oppose the Lords amendments, with the exception of Lords amendment 2. I support the Government’s position in trying to get this Bill through as quickly as possible. It is a simple and necessary Bill, and one that is very much overdue.

[Wendy Chamberlain]

May I start by re-echoing the comments of Members from across the House in wishing the Minister for the Constitution and Devolution well at this difficult time? I hope her treatment progresses well.

I would like to speak in favour of all eight Lords amendments. The Bill has been much improved since it left the House back in July, and I am pleased the Government have supported Lords amendments 3 to 5, but I am particularly keen, in the time I have, to touch on Lords amendments 7 and 8.

On the flexibility quota, all the evidence suggests that a 5% quota will lead to huge upheaval. Just one in five constituencies will remain the same and about two thirds risk being changed completely. That presents a huge change to our parliamentary map, as we head into 2024, which we all know is just over three years away. An end to the pandemic might be in sight, given yesterday’s good news, but the economic damage will still be being felt in two years’ time, so I ask whether it is responsible to unleash a wave of reselection battles between Members of Parliament—although likely to be on the Government side of the House—once the new boundaries have been unveiled and many MPs find that their constituency has been significantly changed. The 2013 boundary review caused such disquiet that it was rejected by this House for exactly that reason, and the report from 2018 was not even laid before the House because there was no chance it would have been passed.

On the automaticity conditions in the Bill, Members must realise that this is really the last chance to scrutinise the Bill as it stands. Once the touch paper is lit, that is the end of our role in this process.

Today, on Report and on Second Reading, I think proponents of both the 7.5% and 5% flexibility conditions have been mischaracterised. Some Members are talking as though 5% is the ideal of electoral equality, while 7.5% is at exactly the other end of the scale, but the truth is that they are variations on a theme: 5% will not mean complete equality between voters, and 7.5% will not mean that voters in one constituency have far more of a say than those in another.

On Second Reading, the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), who is no longer in her place, pointed out that her constituency has 83,000 electors, while mine has 61,000. There is significant variability in my own constituency related to the University of Saint Andrews and the registration of students at their term-time addresses, but it is right that inequity should be addressed, and there are many more examples across the country of similar cases.

It is important to remember that whether we adopt 5% or 7.5%, the constituencies I have mentioned, including my own, become more equal, but there will still be variation under either quota, and we account for that variation because we accept that strict numerical equality is not the only basis on which to draw up constituencies. We recognise that other factors are important and should be taken into consideration, such as language, geography, cultural ties, and these are all on the statute book. For a small handful of constituencies, we judge these factors to be so important that we have decided that numerical equality should not apply to them at all.

One of the arguments regularly put forward in relation to first past the post is the politics of place. Strict numerical equality arguably makes that much harder to achieve. I would argue—I know you are conscious of time, Madam Deputy Speaker—that if we want to achieve politics of place and equality of voters, we should look for a more representative voting system in the first place. I find it strange that the Government are insisting that, for the rest of the country, we should impose numerical equality so strict that it will be difficult for the Boundary Commission properly to take these factors of geography and cultural ties into account. That is not just the view of Opposition Members. I note that the 7.5% condition is included in the Private Member’s Bill of the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Sir Peter Bone), no doubt because he recognises the disruption that 5% will cause to such a high proportion of existing boundaries.

We must ask how important those ties are compared with the goal of numerical equality. Not only will 7.5% prevent excessive disruption, but it will allow the boundary commissioners better to account for those other factors. Given the arguably small difference, which is within the norms mentioned by the Leader of the House, that seems like a reasonable compromise.

Secondly, I wish to discuss Lords amendment 8, a cross-party amendment tabled by Lord Shutt of Greetland, which received significant support in the other place. As hon. Members have mentioned and are aware, the Liberal Democrat peer Lord Shutt sadly passed away at the end of October, just a few weeks after steering this amendment through the House of Lords. David was a no-nonsense politician and a proud Yorkshireman and was passionate about democracy and electoral reform—displayed through his excellent chairmanship of the committee that considered the Electoral Registration and Administration Act 2013. Its report originally recommended this amendment. It is fitting that, as a Liberal Democrat, his last political act was championing the representation of young people. His friends and family, including many people across the Houses and parties, will miss him dearly.