Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Andrew George and Mark Field

Tuesday 15th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Andrew George]

I wish to make a few brief remarks on this most inflexible and rigid part of the Bill. The amendments would move things in the right direction by giving the boundary commissions greater latitude and flexibility than they would have had under the original Bill. In my view, that is a result of the intransigence of the Prime Minister, rather than the Deputy Prime Minister, in insisting that we adopt a situation in which there are just 600 MPs. A more flexible approach would have been to say that there should be no more than 600 and to allow the Boundary Commission the latitude and flexibility to interpret that alongside a clear instruction to work towards more equalised constituencies.

The Government have won that argument, and certainly the current range in electorate sizes across constituencies is intolerable and more effort must be made to achieve greater equality across constituencies. However, to do so in the sanitised, homogenised, rigid, inflexible and intransigent way that the Government propose is not the solution, because that will continue to create a wide range of significant anomalies across the country.

Given some of the interventions that we have heard, particularly from Government Members, it will be interesting to note how the work of the Boundary Commission will dawn on those Members as it does its work. They might believe that the whole town they represent, or the whole part of a shire county, for example, which they feel comfortable with, will not be changed, other than a little nibbling away at the boundaries, which they can tolerate. However, the Government’s approach will mean that we will end up with lines being drawn straight through those constituencies, and the associations that have been established over years between Members of Parliament and their towns will be divided as a result.

I do not know how it will all pan out. As we have heard, although there will be guidance for the Boundary Commission to work within what I call the Government zones, but which others have described as regional boundaries, there is no absolute requirement for it to do so.

[Mr Mark Field]

Surely the hon. Gentleman must realise that every major boundary review, including those that took place before the 1983, 1997 and 2010 elections, resulted in more than half of all constituencies changing, often substantially. That is the nature of any boundary review.

[Andrew George]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, but I think that the inflexibility of the proposals will result in much more significant changes across the country. Having argued that we should have far fewer MPs than even proposed in the Bill, I am not averse to the idea of significant changes being made at one time to the process by which MPs are elected, but I do not think that it should happen every five years, irrespective of what has happened before. That will happen across the country every five years, and as a result of these proposals the changes will be very significant indeed.

All I am asking is that the Government take a less intransigent and more flexible approach—the 7.5% figure is a reasonable extension, frankly. In order to be able to address many of the anomalies, from Argyll and Bute to the Cornish seats and the highlands, the Boundary Commission will need to be given a great deal more latitude than the amendment proposes, as the Minister has rightly said. We had the opportunity to extend the exceptional geographical circumstances of the Western Isles—