Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Baroness Pitkeathley Excerpts

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

Relevant document: 13th Report from the Constitution Committee

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Pitkeathley) (Lab)]

My Lords, the Hybrid Grand Committee will now begin. Some Members are here in person, respecting social distancing, others are participating remotely, but all Members will be treated equally. I must ask Members in the Room to wear a face covering, except when seated at their desk, to speak sitting down and to wipe down their desk, chair and any other touch points before and after use. If the capacity of the Committee Room is exceeded, or other safety requirements are breached, I will immediately adjourn the Committee. If there is a Division in the House, the Committee will adjourn for five minutes.

A list of participants for today’s proceedings has been published by the Government Whips Office, as have lists of Members who have put their names to the amendments, or expressed an interest in speaking on each group. I will call Members to speak in the order listed. Members are not permitted to intervene spontaneously; the Chair calls each speaker. Interventions during speeches or “before the noble Lord sits down” are not permitted. During the debate on each group I will invite Members, including Members in the Grand Committee Room, to email the clerk if they wish to speak after the Minister, using the Grand Committee address. I will call Members to speak in order of request and will call the Minister to reply each time. The groups are binding and it will not be possible to de-group an amendment for separate debate. A Member intending to move formally an amendment already debated should have given notice in the debate.

Leave should be given to withdraw amendments. When putting the Question, I will collect voices in the Grand Committee Room only. I remind Members that Divisions cannot take place in Grand Committee. It takes unanimity to amend the Bill, so if a single voice says “Not Content”, an amendment is negatived, and if a single voice says “Content”, a clause stands part. If a Member taking part remotely intends to oppose an amendment expected to be agreed to, they should make this clear when speaking on the group. We will now begin.

Debate on Amendment 15 resumed.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Lord True) (Con)]

My Lords, I am extremely grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken. I am not sure that I will tell my honourable friend Mr Bone about the support he has from the Liberal Democrats—I am very solicitous for his health, of course. The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, made a powerful and interesting speech, which I listened to carefully, as I have tried to to all speeches in your Lordships’ Committee.

A false dichotomy underlies part of our discussion last week, between an attitude posited—even called a sort of arithmetical obsession by one Member of the Committee, who avows his authorship—and the idea of fluidity and connection with local places and local ties. It is said that these two things are antithetical; they cannot run together. Of course, there is a balance in these matters. I believe, and I hope to persuade the Committee, because the Government cannot accept the amendments spoken to today, that a good and fair balance is struck by a tolerance of 5%.

There has been a difference of opinion. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, and the noble Lords, Lord Lennie and Lord Grocott, proposed a tolerance range of 15%, plus or minus 7.5%. The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, backed up ably by the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, proposed plus or minus 8%, together with headroom to move to 20%—plus or minus 10%—where deemed necessary. The noble Lords, Lord Lipsey and Lord Foulkes, went further, suggesting 20%—plus or minus 10%—in all instances. Amendment 22 in the next group even envisages a 30% range in some circumstances. A variety of opinion has been put before the Committee, before referring to the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, who went in the other direction by suggesting a tolerance range of 5%.

I also thank other noble Lords who spoke, my noble friends Lord Blencathra and Lord Hayward. My noble friend Lord Blencathra nodded to the amendment from my noble friend Lord Forsyth and came down on balance, I think, in favour of 5%, as did my noble friend Lord Hayward. His expertise, detailed knowledge and experience of this subject—matched, as we heard today by other Members of the Committee—are of great benefit. I was struck by what he said about splitting wards and noted also what the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, said on this subject.

My noble friend Lord Blencathra gave us a dose of practical political reality in his powerful speech. There will be disputes. The noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, was very solicitous for the future of the Conservative Party, which was kind of him, but wherever one strikes this, there will be disruption—the word used by the noble Lord, Lord Tyler—but the Government believe that the current position, set out in existing legislation, is the right one; namely, a tolerance range of 10%, to allow the Boundary Commissions to propose constituencies 5% larger or smaller than the quota.

The Government are resolute in their goal of delivering equal constituencies so far as possible. We committed to do so in our 2019 manifesto and the elected House has upheld that position. With our having made that pledge, I hope noble Lords will recognise that this House should not wind back the current reasonable and achievable tolerance range of 10%.

Of course, I understand the views expressed in this Committee about communities being kept together within single constituencies and about particular geographies being respected. They are powerful sentiments and were eloquently expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Shutt, but the concept of equal votes—the simple idea that each elector’s vote must count as nearly as possible the same—is equally, if not arguably more, powerful. It is the cornerstone of our democracy and fundamental to maintaining voters’ participation and trust.

The only tool we have by which to ensure such an approach is to apply the electoral quota on a universal basis while allowing appropriate flexibility to the Boundary Commissions to take into account important local factors such as geographical features and community ties without introducing significant variability. That will remain the position. Previously, Parliament has debated tolerance and judged that a range of 10% is right and will allow this. The Government believe that we should hold to that position. It strikes the right balance between achieving equal, fair boundaries and allowing the Boundary Commissions flexibility to take account of other factors.

If we let out the seams of tolerance, as it was put in debate, the results are quick and clear, as my noble friend Lord Blencathra illustrated. Using the electoral figures from 2019, with a 15% range, one could range from 78,000 electors to almost 11,000 fewer. At 20%, one would be looking at a potential disparity of 20,000-plus electors, with some constituencies of around 62,000 and others approaching 83,500. I agree with my noble friends Lord Hayward, Lord Blencathra and Lord Forsyth: there is no legitimate argument for having constituencies with sizes varying by potentially 11,000 or 20,000 electors, depending on the amendment in question in this group. That is not equitable.

At 20%, the latitude provided to the Boundary Commissions is so significant that more than 80% of constituencies could be untouched by the next boundary review. Some—and it has been argued for in this Committee—may think that a good outcome, but I urge that we recall that the purpose of a boundary review is to update constituencies to take account of how the population has changed. The current parliamentary constituencies, which no one defends, are based on the electorate as it was in the early 2000s, nearly 20 years ago. We all know that there have been significant shifts since then, in migration, in housebuilding and in population growth.

Let me touch on the idea put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Tyler—followed up by the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, with some interesting historical references —of giving the Boundary Commissions discretion to apply a greater tolerance in certain instances where they judge it to be needed. The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, suggested a basic tolerance range of 16%, but with flexibility to move to 20%. Similar ideas were put forward in the other place. On the face of it, such discretion may seem attractive, and the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, made a good fist of it, but, in reality, it can make the job of the Boundary Commissions more difficult and the outcome of boundary reviews considerably less certain.

It is not difficult to envisage that the Boundary Commissions would quickly come under pressure to use the discretion allowed by this amendment. When a commission used that discretion in one part of its territory, it is highly likely that communities in another part would call for something similar. The same phenomenon would be likely to occur across the four nations of the union. For example, were the Boundary Commission for Scotland to be quicker to propose constituencies with a larger variance range, it would surely not take long for a similar approach to be demanded of the Boundary Commission for England or for Northern Ireland.

The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, mentioned protected constituencies. We have discussed this concept and will do so again on a later group of amendments. I thank him for acknowledging that there is a small number of specific instances where exceptions might be sensible. We will discuss that later but, again, the Government’s feeling is that we have struck the right balance.

One reason why the Boundary Commissions are as effective and respected as they are is that they implement rules that are clear and unambiguous—the importance of clarity of rules was referred to also by the noble Lord, Lord Rennard. While they act with clarity and transparency and steer clear of subjective judgments and rankings, the scope for disagreement and challenge—yes, it will be there—will be limited. The Government are keen to protect that position.

Our task is to update the UK’s parliamentary constituencies and to ensure that our electors have votes that are fairer and more equal. That task is urgent. As Professor McLean said of Parliament when giving evidence to the Public Bill Committee,

“it is … very embarrassing that it is operating on the basis of 20-year-old boundaries and therefore we did not have equal suffrage in the 2019 general election”.—[Official Report, Commons, Parliamentary Constituencies Bill Committee, 23/6/20; col. 94.]

I should at this point add my own comments of respect and appreciation for the late Professor Ron Johnston and endorse what many others have said in this Committee.

I urge the Committee to recognise that the tolerance level agreed in previous legislation and reaffirmed by the elected House on this Bill is right and reasonable. Changes to it have been rejected on numerous occasions in the elected Chamber, to which it relates. I ask noble Lords to resist the desire to fix something that the Government contend is not broken and not to press these amendments.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Pitkeathley) (Lab)]

My Lords, I have received no request to speak after the Minister, so I call the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter of Kentish Town.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab) [V]]

On Thursday, on an earlier group of amendments, I thought that the Minister was correcting my quotation from the Constitution Committee. In fact, he rightly questioned my assertion that it had endorsed, rather than simply noted, suggestions from others as to how to ensure that the Boundary Commissions were independent. He was right; I was wrong. I think that is 1-0 to the Minister.

However, on this amendment, the Minister is on shakier ground, but I shall to try to avoid making what the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, called a “holier-than-thou” speech, especially as I want first to turn to something more serious that the noble Lord said, when he claimed:

“Trying to link this matter to the issue of saving the union is very shoddy politics”.—[Official Report, 10/9/20; col. GC 320.]


I shall not try to pretend that I understand Scotland, but just at the moment in Wales, when the Government seem intent on weakening the devolution settlement via the internal market Bill and when again and again UK Ministers ignore the Welsh Government—indeed, even sharing the internal market Bill with Welsh Ministers two hours after it had been shared with the press—the noble Lord might note that a seismic reduction in Welsh voices in Westminster fuels separatist emotions and the feeling that Wales is a mere afterthought to this Government. I was particularly struck that the Government’s statement on the internal market Bill quoted the Scottish Secretary of State, a Scottish businessman and the Scottish Retail Consortium, with no equivalent endorsement from anyone in Wales, not even the Welsh Secretary.

I am not speaking for Scotland, but I hope that the Government do not think that chopping Welsh input into Parliament has no wider implications. As was said in an earlier debate, the Americans recognised early on that size alone did not matter, with each state being accorded proper recognition in the Senate. The UK Government should give serious thought to binding in each of the four nations if they really want to retain the United Kingdom. This does not go to the heart of these amendments, but it is a response to what the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, said. Incidentally, he apologises because he has just left to chair his own Select Committee, but he has been with us thus far.

--- Later in debate ---

Amendments 16 and 17 not moved.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Pitkeathley) (Lab)]

We now come to the group beginning with Amendment 18. I remind noble Lords that anyone wishing to speak after the Minister should email the clerk during the debate.

Amendment 18

Moved by

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Con) [V]]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Tyler. I am in much agreement with what he said, specifically on Cornwall and Devon. My name is also against Amendment 20. I thank him for his kind words and say that he was making even more sense than usual despite that lack of sleep. I offer him many congratulations on that feat.

I want first to say something in general in relation to amendments in this group before turning to the position relating to Cornwall. I have much sympathy with the argument that a 5% variance in each direction is too strict and rigid. We should not apologise for a principle of equal-size constituencies in population terms in general. We have demonstrated as a country and a Parliament flexibility in relation to some islands, quite rightly, and I cannot see why we should not do the same elsewhere. Clearly, there has to be a restriction on the variation, but we need more flexibility in that direction, particularly in rural areas and particularly in the rural areas of Wales, which I know well. There is a compelling case in relation to Brecon and Radnorshire; I look forward to hearing from the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, who knows a thing or two about that area. There is such a case to be made too in relation to England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The same principle applies, as the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, said.

In Cornwall, not only does the Tamar provide an effective natural boundary—who can doubt that who has been into Saltash?—but it is also a demarcation of a clear difference between Cornwall and the rest of the country. It has its own cultural attributes, its own language and its own national minority. There is a powerful, compelling case for acting differently in relation to Cornwall as we have done in relation to islands such as Ynys Môn, the Isle of Wight and so on. I agree with the powerful case put by the noble Lord, Lord Tyler.

I shall not delay the Committee too long, but I strongly support this amendment. The Minister, whom I know well and who has listened with great care and attention as he always does in these debates, appeared sympathetic to the case for Cornwall. I hope that he is persuaded of the need to protect in legislation the unity of Cornwall and to write that into the Bill.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Pitkeathley) (Lab)]

Baroness Jolly. No? If the noble Baroness is not with us, we shall go on to the noble Lord, Lord Hain.

[Lord Hain (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 22 standing in my name and that of the noble Lords, Lord Wigley and Lord Cormack, and the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, to whom I am grateful.

Why this Bill? Is there a clamour from voters to change their constituencies? No. Do, for example, rural voters in Wales want even larger constituencies because they think that their MPs are too close to them? No. So what is the motivation?

Much is made by Ministers, as the noble Lord, Lord True, has already done, of the case for equalisation, but equalisation has been the principle behind our constituency system for generations—we all accept that principle. The point is that the Boundary Commissions have had the discretion to apply it fairly and sensibly, taking proper account of local views, of community identity and of geographic sparsity instead of being rigidly straitjacketed, as this Bill requires.

The Bill means that the uniqueness of Wales, in the past always having had special consideration by this Parliament, including in the 1944 Act, and by the Boundary Commissions, is ignored. In no other nation of Britain, proportionate to the population, are there such large and remote areas and vast geographical rural areas where there are thousands more sheep than people and constituencies are hundreds of square miles if not larger. Yet under this Bill, four existing geographically large seats in Wales could well become, and almost certainly will become, two monster ones. Instead of being hundreds of square miles in size, each will become thousands of square miles, in mid-Wales, north Wales and west Wales—none of them, by the way, Labour seats, so no party pleading is going on here.

Much has been made about the Bill creating constituencies that are more equal in size, but that has come at the expense of community ties, history and geography. We do not live in a world where populations grow in neat conurbations which fit an electoral quota dictated from on high. Nor does our geography in Wales lend itself to communities being switched dogmatically between constituencies to help achieve that quota. Our existing system already takes account of that by trading off strict electoral quotas in order to prioritise community identity, local ties and geography. Identifying with the constituency we live in and the close link between an MP and their constituents are fundamental to our parliamentary democracy and envied by democracies around the world.

The rigidity of the electoral quota and the 5% variance provided for in the Bill put that in jeopardy and give primacy to a rigid mathematical equation which is damaging for our democracy. That is why Amendment 22 proposes, in relation to Wales alone and to meet its specific needs, that the electorate of any constituency be no less than 85% of the United Kingdom electoral quota and no more than 115% of that quota. Why is this needed? Wales’s unique geography means that constituencies can vary drastically, from vast rural constituencies which are sparsely populated, such as the existing Brecon and Radnorshire, to densely populated, small urban constituencies in Cardiff and Swansea.

It is no surprise that two of the five largest geographical constituencies, Montgomeryshire and Dwyfor Meirionnydd, are also two of five smallest in electorate size, while two of the five largest electorates, Cardiff South and Penarth and Cardiff North, are also two of the five smallest geographical constituencies. There is a logic to that. There are seven constituencies in Wales which are more than 1,000 square kilometres in size—Brecon and Radnorshire is more than 3,000 square kilometres—but because of the rigid electoral quota used during the last review under the previous legislation, the Boundary Commission for Wales ended up proposing mega constituencies to achieve numerical parity and to cover the vast areas of sparsely populated rural Wales, as I described in great detail when moving Amendment 14. Much the same will happen under this Bill.

Mega constituencies like that will only alienate voters from those whom they elect to represent them, leaving them feeling more cut off and remote than before. It is a toxic combination which will lead to disengagement and undermine democracy. Equally, the strict quota is problematic for valley constituencies and makes the task of creating constituencies which make sense to valley communities extremely difficult.

It is not easy to move single communities from a valley and dump them in a different constituency. By their very nature, valley communities are linked and do not easily connect with neighbouring valleys. To reach a neighbouring valley you cannot just drive over a mountain of fields and forests. You have to drive to the top or the bottom, making communication take longer and not easy. Valley communities are also linked to specific towns in terms of transport, community links and historical ties. These community ties form the basis of many of the valley constituencies in the south Wales area, which I know well, still live in, and represented for a quarter of a century.