Parliamentary Constituencies bill (Third sitting)

Bim Afolami Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 3rd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 23rd June 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Bim Afolami (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)]

Q Professor McLean, you mentioned that you felt it would be difficult for the preference of existing constituencies to be kept to if we keep within the 5% quota, because there would need to be quite a substantial revision, and Professor Curtice made similar remarks. Could you expand a little on your analysis of how that might shake out? In terms of our recent electoral history, where do you think this disruption will rank?

Professor McLean: A problem is caused when you are going by a regional area. The practice of the English commission has been to go by counties for some of its units, including administrative counties such as the former metropolitan counties that were abolished in 1986. That is a defensible practice, because the larger the unit within which you operate, the easier it is to reconcile conflicting criteria. Therefore, if you are in a unit of, let us say, three constituencies, one of which by happenstance is the right size and the others are not, it might be difficult to maintain the right-sized one and observe the other rules. If you are in a unit of 15 constituencies, one of which is the right size, the commissioners have more freedom to draw a map that retains the constituency that happens to be the right size while altering the others.

I said earlier that it is likely—I do not have the data, but John may—that there are now very few constituencies anywhere in the UK that are the right size, which is to say, one 600th of the House, given that we have had 20 years of migration and the disruption mentioned in Scotland and especially Wales. So I think it will be very hard to preserve existing constituencies.

Professor Sir John Curtice: All I can add is that I did look quickly at what statisticians call the standard deviation of constituency size—that is simply a measure of the extent to which the number of registered electors in a constituency varies between one seat and another—and that number is constantly increasing. Basically, there is now a greater difference in the size of constituencies than there was in 2017, there was a greater difference in 2017 than in 2015, and there was a greater difference in 2015 than in 2010. Although politically this redistribution may not be as dramatic as people on both sides of the House might imagine, there is no doubt that getting the constituencies to reflect electorate sizes is bound to be disruptive.

[Bim Afolami]

Q Do you both think we will end up with more cross-county constituencies, particularly in the south-east of England?

Professor McLean: That is going to be up to the operating practices of the Boundary Commission for England if it remains non-statutory, and it is not proposed in this Bill that it should be given statutory instructions different from those in the 1986 Bill. Thinking on my feet, I think that with the exception of the Isle of Wight, which is not a true exception because it is one of the preserved areas, county populations in the south of England are sufficiently large that—sorry, we are not here treating Rutland as a county—

[Bim Afolami]

It is not a proper county anyway.

Professor McLean: If we take out the Isle of Wight and possibly Rutland, it should be reasonably feasible for the English commission to operate at county level, but that is an operating matter for the commission. At present it is not in the Bill. If an amendment to give greater respect to county boundaries were introduced to the Bill during its progress, that might imperil the equality rule, which the current law gives as trumps.

[Bim Afolami]

Q One final question, if I may. We have talked a lot about the automaticity of this and how Parliament does not have the ability to vote it down. Bearing that in mind, do you both have a sense of how you feel the boundary commissioners might behave differently now that they would almost have a bit more freedom because of Parliament’s not having its ability to vote it down? Do you think they will behave differently in their judgments? They are obviously very professional people and will do their work as best they can, but we all live in the real world and we know that if we think that Parliament has the ability to vote it down, that might affect how radical the final findings we present are.

Professor McLean: The only one of the four commissions that has possibly felt itself at risk under those conditions in the past is the Northern Ireland one, where there are deep issues of community and sectarianism. I am all for protecting commissions from that sort of pressure. Having observed the operations of county inquiries in England—I have never done a Scottish inquiry—I would say that the boundary commissions’ staff and inspectors have always maintained great professionalism. I would not expect that to change under the sort of behavioural issues that you raise.

Professor Sir John Curtice: I would trust the boundary commissioners much more than I would the House of Commons on this subject, to be perfectly frank with you.

[The Chair]

I would like to take the two final questions together because we have only three minutes left. First, Mr Matheson and then Mr Clarkson.