Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill

Debate between Andrew Gwynne and Lord Dodds of Duncairn

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

[Andrew Gwynne]

I just do not agree with the hon. Gentleman. There is no case for reducing the size of the House of Commons when we have in front of us the big task of making a success of the Government’s negotiations with our European and global partners. If we cannot hold the Government to account on that, this House will be failing in its duty.

[Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)]

The hon. Gentleman is making an excellent speech. Another argument for retaining the current number of Members of Parliament is that we have reports, including from the former head of the civil service in no less than The House magazine, that the number of civil servants will have to be increased quite dramatically. So the civil service will increase, but the number of people overseeing and directing the civil service and making laws will be reduced. By the way, the number of Assembly Members in Northern Ireland is going to decrease.

[Andrew Gwynne]

The right hon. Gentleman makes an important point, because we are talking about the costs of government here, not just those of Parliament. The two cannot be disentangled.

Moving on to the review itself, its unfairness and unequal nature are compounded by the fact that many individual voters have been omitted from the calculations used by the boundary commissions. I wonder how the Government can defend their position on equalising the number of voters in each constituency, which each and every Member would support, while using information based on an electoral register with close to two million voters not counted. As Government Members will be aware, the spike of newly registered voters enthused by June’s referendum and the increased sign-up from May’s local election mean that around 4% of the electoral register has not been counted in the review. That serious omission risks producing a distorted picture of our nation and alienating hundreds upon thousands of younger first-time voters under 30. How dare we tell the 700,000 young people who signed up in a few short months in the run-up to the referendum that we want them to engage, but that their voice is irrelevant in deciding the political map of our communities? Put plainly, the omission of close to 2 million voters has completely distorted the boundary review process, so the aim of equalising our constituency boundaries will not be possible.