Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Baroness Gale Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 15th September 2020 Grand Committee

[Baroness Humphreys (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for tabling this amendment to add Brecon and Radnorshire to the list of protected constituencies in Wales. It is, as the noble Lord says, a beautiful constituency, with endless miles of green, lush hills and pastures, a few popular and busy market towns, and wonderful historic farmhouses. It is a constituency that I am very familiar with. I have enjoyed every occasion when I campaigned or canvassed there. I can testify to the remoteness of some of the villages and the problems of walking up to the top of hills in an effort to get a mobile phone signal. It also, of course, has the rather dubious honour, as we have heard, of being the largest constituency by area in England and Wales.

The noble Lord’s concerns are understandable, but his concerns reflect those of other constituencies too. Last week, I said how comfortable many felt with the 40 constituencies we have had in Wales since 2010. However, I recall the reactions to the outcome of the 2018 boundary review in north Wales as well. That review proposed that my home constituency of Aberconwy in the north, a reasonably compact constituency with an electorate of some 44,500, was to be replaced by a new Gwynedd constituency, covering the whole of the rural hinterland, from the tip of the Llŷn peninsula in the west almost as far as Denbigh in the east, some 70 miles across, and south as far as Tywyn in Merioneth, some 60 miles away from my home in the Conwy Valley. As is the case with Brecon and Radnorshire, there would not have been a town with a population larger than 10,000 in the constituency. The thought of attracting a candidate brave enough to take on a commitment to such a large area was quite daunting.



I hope the next review will be kinder to north Wales. Whereas the review for the 2010 elections succeeded in producing compact constituencies by linking the more populated coastal conurbations with their rural hinterlands, that option was not available to the 2018 review. The reduction in the number of proposed constituencies in Wales at that time from 40 to 29 and the requirement to create constituencies of equal size put a strain on the options open to the commission.

Key to the hope for a less severe outcome next time in north Wales is the decision to create the protected island constituency of Ynys Môn. The 2018 review had linked the island with the university city of Bangor, across the Menai Straits, in order to create the larger Ynys Môn and Bangor constituency. This had the effect of leaving the rural area of north-west Wales without a major conurbation to help reduce the area of the massive Gwynedd constituency the commission proposed.

I assume that it was this same approach that also led to the proposed formation of the Conwy and Colwyn constituency—an amalgamation of the major coastal conurbations of Llandudno and Colwyn Bay, which also robbed their rural hinterlands of areas of significant population. My hope is that the 2020 review will now be in a position to link rural areas of north Wales to their larger conurbations and create constituencies that make more sense historically, geographically and demographically, even if those new constituencies cover a much greater area than they do now.

The 2018 review also proposed increasing the size of Brecon and Radnorshire by adding part of south Montgomeryshire to it. The noble Lord is obviously seeking to avoid that proposal returning, but the review also proposed increasing the size of Ceredigion by adding parts of north Pembrokeshire and adding south Clwyd to the remaining part of Montgomeryshire, creating the mega-constituencies the noble Lord, Lord Hain, mentioned earlier. Each of these mid-Wales constituencies could make an equally valid claim to become a protected constituency, but I think that each of them realises that protection for one constituency, in these circumstances, can have a negative knock-on effect on its neighbours.

Now, with 32 or more seats to create, rather than the 29 proposed in 2018, there is some hope that the Boundary Commission for Wales will have slightly more room to manoeuvre and will have the opportunity, I hope, to deliver a better balanced outcome.

[Baroness Gale (Lab) [V]]

I support the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Lipsey. Brecon and Radnorshire is the largest constituency in Wales and England by area, with a population of around 69,000 and an electorate of 53,000. It is a rural area with a small population, and to get the numbers up to the quota suggested would mean having a constituency that would cover an even larger area of Wales.

Brecon and Radnor at the moment is a very big constituency, stretching from Ystradgynlais in the south—which is the largest town with a population around 9,000—to Presteigne in the north. It is a round trip of around 300 miles. I know as I have done it. I spent much time driving around the constituency when I was a Labour Party organiser. I used to enjoy the scenery very much. The drive over the Brecon Beacons is probably the most scenic you can find, I would have thought. The beauty is outstanding.