Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Austin Mitchell and Lord Barwell

Tuesday 19th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Barwell]

The hon. Gentleman made the point that, if we go for greater electoral equality, we will have seats that cross local authority boundaries, but there are already significant numbers of Members representing seats that cross local authority boundaries. Lots of London seats cross London borough boundaries. [Interruption.] No, the London borough of Croydon is not crossed, but the neighbouring borough of Bromley has a seat that crosses into Lewisham, and that applies to the seats of lots of hon. Members. It is perfectly straightforward.

[Austin Mitchell]

Not county boundaries.

[Gavin Barwell]

Yes, there are seats at the moment that cross regional boundaries. The seat of Brigg and Goole is in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gavin Barwell]

I am going to conclude my speech now; I have taken a number of interventions, and I promised that I would not speak for too long.

We have just had a boundary review, for which many Opposition Members will have voted, that was based on electorate figures. None of these points about tackling under-representation were made when the orders were put through in the last Parliament to implement those boundary changes. Although the point is a good one, it was not applied previously.

In conclusion, the people of Croydon are significantly under-represented in this House, and I think we need urgent action to address that unfairness. We certainly need to take action to deal with under-registration, but the current boundaries are not fair, which is why it is important to take action quickly to put that right.

[Austin Mitchell]

I rise to speak—briefly, I hope—in support of amendment 127. I gather from my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) that we are going to press it to the vote. I also support amendment 341, which I hope the hon. Member for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland) is going to put to the vote—he must. I support amendment 38, too, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer), which he is going to press to the vote.

All three amendments are an attempt to soften the rigours of the brutal redistribution proposed in clause 8. Indeed, it is a redistribution so brutal that it amounts to a gerrymander. The pretext is that the unequal seats work against the Tory party. We have heard that argument put at length by the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell). It is true that the inequality in seats helps the Labour party and works against the Tory party, to which I would reply, in the classic words of Demosthenes, “Ah, diddums. What a great shame”! Various factors are relevant, including turnout, people taken off the register, which happens all the time—[Interruption.] Ah diddums, rural seats and so forth. Another factor, which has not been dealt with in the debate so far, is that the population moves.

There was a similar bias in the 1950s, but then it favoured the Tory party because of rural seats and the rurality factor. I hope Members will remember—I certainly do; I am old enough to remember—that the Conservative party won power in 1951 and had a working majority, but Labour had secured over 500,000 votes more than the Conservatives. The system then worked in favour of the Conservatives, who at that time were not so adamant about the need for a redistribution and a massive upsetting of the whole system to make it fairer. Now they are adamant. That unfairness towards the Conservatives persisted until the 1960s. Now it has worked the other way because of the subsequent drift of large Labour majorities out to the suburbs, where the vote is more evenly distributed.

These amendments all provide an opportunity to modify the brutality of the redistribution that the Government propose, with Liberal support, to remedy this deficiency. Clause 8 is effectively creating what I would call a doomsday machine. It is rather like the monsters my grandchildren watch on television. They are called transformers—they are huge metal monsters that go out clumping all around the country. It is a kind of redistribution by Blitzkrieg! It is just like that when this has to be done so suddenly and in defiance of any community centre or local government boundaries.