Parliamentary Constituencies Bill (Eighth sitting)

Debate between Bim Afolami and David Linden

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 8th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 30th June 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Bim Afolami]

I was about to agree with the right hon. Gentleman. However, the point of our system is that in response to arguments, the boundary commission changes what it has proposed. Members can correct me if I am wrong, but I think that during either the 2013 review or the 2018 one—as we all know, those reviews were abandoned because the House failed to approve them—almost 50% of the changes that were made were changed in response to submissions, both from Members who were in the House at the time and from other interested parties, including members of the public.

I have no doubt that the boundary commission will make mistakes, but I trust the ingenuity of those people who will be able to challenge it: not just Members, but political parties, members of the public and random geeks who do this sort of thing for fun. I trust that the boundary commission will listen to reasonable representations—particularly those regarding local ties and linguistic points, which the hon. Member for Ceredigion spoke about earlier—and that we can get this right. We need to get the margin of appreciation as tight as possible so that the votes of all members of the public in this country can count equally. That is a very important principle, and one that I support.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

I am listening very closely to the hon. Gentleman. The Committee has talked at great length about the importance of voters having an equal say. Does he accept, however, that until people in this House are willing to be grown up enough to address the inadequacies of the first-past-the-post system, we are—I do not want to say “unable to pee and chew gum”—putting our effort in the wrong place? Quite rightly, we are saying that we want to have equal voting in constituencies, but we are unwilling to talk about the inadequacies of first past the post.

[Bim Afolami]

At the risk of straying from the measures covered by this new clause, we can have that debate. I happen to support the first-past-the-post system, but I understand that there are very good reasons for not doing so. However, that is not the place of this Bill. If people wanted another referendum on the voting system, I think first past the post would win, as it did several years ago, but I am perfectly happy to have that debate.

In relation to the point made by the hon. Member for Glasgow East about the inadequacies of first past the post, those who do not like that system need to accept that if one is going to respect local ties and local communities and regard them as important, one cannot at the same time support moving to a system that involves much bigger regions, such as a single transferable vote system, or proportional representation generally. That would negate the original point. There are a lot of things that people say they like about the first-past-the-post system. I am not saying that they like every aspect. For example, there are people in my constituency who vote Green, and it is unlikely that the Greens would ever win in my constituency—although, of course, strange things happen in politics. Those who vote Green might say, “I never get a chance for my vote to count.” I appreciate that, but one aspect that people do like about the first-past-the-post system is the fact that community ties are respected and they feel that their Member of Parliament to some degree represents what they feel their community to be like.

We have talked about the difficulties of this. Of course the boundary commission gets it wrong sometimes, but it is up to us, members of the public, political parties and the geeks who do this stuff for fun to try to ensure that the constituencies make sense, because that, I think, is the core of the legitimacy of the first-past-the-post system. And if—this, I suppose, is a warning to the Government or, indeed, anybody else—this whole process were mismanaged and the boundary commission ended up not listening to members of the public, constituencies, Members of Parliament and so on and not making sure that the constituencies did pee and chew gum at the same time, we would get delegitimisation of the first-past-the-post system, because people would not be feeling that they would be voting for a particular Member who represented their community. Therefore I think that it is a point well made.

Parliamentary Constituencies bill (Fourth sitting)

Debate between Bim Afolami and David Linden

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 4th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 23rd June 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Bim Afolami]

Q That is interesting. Out of interest—I could go and check this now, but I do not have it in front of me—on the 2018 review, which obviously did not happen, for various reasons that we have discussed already, what percentage of seats underwent what you would consider major revision?

Dr Rossiter: I do not have that figure to hand. One of the problems is that this affects different parts of the country differently, so, for example, during the 2018 review, the south-east of England was little affected because it was set to lose only one seat during that review. Now that we go back to 650 seats, because of the growth in the south-east of England, the south-east will gain seven seats. Gaining seven seats inevitably results in a huge amount of change.

So, it can be helpful to look at what happened in 2013 and 2018 as exemplars of what results from this, but this is the problem: the devil is always in the detail. It is always in the specific geography of the area. It is always in the specific number of electors—whether a county, for example, has an integer entitlement or a non-integer entitlement. I have near me the example of East Sussex. East Sussex at the moment is entitled to eight and a half seats. With a 5% tolerance either way, that will mean that the East Sussex boundary has to be bridged. Kent is perfectly okay. West Sussex is perfectly okay. Therefore, in sorting out the problem in East Sussex—this is all provisional on 2019 data not changing an awful lot—we will need to see something that goes across the county boundary in one way or another.

Until we know the final figures, we will not be able to be absolutely certain on any of these issues. At least half of seats were changed during the 2013 and 2018 reviews, and when I say that the forthcoming review would be between two thirds and 75%, that is simply a reflection of the fact that it is trying to deal with that extra amount of time. What seems surprising is that maintaining 650 seats does not necessarily help a huge amount. It helps slightly, but not a great deal, in minimising the disruption that is going to happen. I hope that that is helpful.

[David Linden]

Q Thank you very much, Professor Pattie and Dr Rossiter, for coming before the Committee. I have a couple of questions that I want to explore with you. You may have seen in previous oral evidence there has been some discussion of the idea of the building blocks for constituencies, whether those are used by polling districts or wards. Can you offer a view on that? Perhaps Professor Pattie would start off.

Professor Pattie: This is an interesting issue, isn’t it? The issue here again is obviously over, partially, the practice of splitting wards—which clearly can be done—and partially the pragmatics, if you like. I know you have had lots of evidence already about data sources, software availability, etc. I will leave that to people who are more expert in handling those data systems, but clearly that causes an issue. I think I would raise just two points, here. First of all, harking back to our 2014 McDougall Trust report, we did try there to estimate the relative effects on disruption of playing around with the tolerances versus playing around with ward splitting. Ward splitting certainly helped to reduce the amount of disruption, but in our estimates it did not reduce disruption anything like as much as widening the tolerances moderately. The second thing you have to bear in mind here is that we are talking about disruption to communities. Remember how the Boundary Commission’s local government wards operate. It tends to be quite strong on the idea that, in building the ward suggestions, it is trying to represent people, so when you split a ward, arguably you are splitting a community—you are doing the very thing that you are trying to avoid, to avoid the thing that you are trying to avoid, if that makes sense. You end up in a strange circular process in which you disrupt a community to save a community. Where the white line is on that is anyone’s guess, but ward splitting is neither technically a global panacea, nor conceptually a panacea, precisely because in splitting a ward, you might well be splitting a community.

Environment Bill

Debate between Bim Afolami and David Linden

Money resolution & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion & Ways and Means resolution & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Wednesday 26th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

When we consider the context in which this debate is taking place, it is important to remember that, in the 1980s, Britain was known as the dirty man of Europe for its air pollution and for its contaminated land and water. It is largely because of 45 years of European Union membership, which concluded at the end of last month, that, more often than not, Ministers had their minds focused on the issue—whether that was to make sure that they did not end up in European courts, or to make sure that Britain was not subject to fines. I guess that we come to the debate today thinking about why it is we have this issue of divergence with the Environment Bill. To be frank, this is not a Government whom I trust very well. It is a Government who said that Parliament would not be prorogued—it was prorogued. It is a Government who said that there would not be an election—there was an election. So, forgive me, Madam Deputy Speaker, when I struggle with this notion that we put all these powers into the hands of the UK and that, as a result of divergence, Britain will have higher rather than lower standards when it comes to the environment.

We know that that is the case because, when he was on “The Andrew Marr Show”, the Foreign Secretary spoke about the need for divergence. We know from leaked documents in the Financial Times and on the BBC that there is a desire on the part of the Government to see divergence in order to get free trade agreements over the line. That is something that is very much in the public domain.

[Bim Afolami]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. It is very generous of him. On the point about whether he trusts the Government on divergence and how we will adapt to these environmental challenges, is that not his party’s policy in relation to independence—that, by becoming independent, it will give the Scottish people the ability to do things differently and therefore, he hopes, better? Surely he can recognise the fact that, by having these powers on the environment, it gives us the ability as a country to do things in a better way.

[David Linden]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question. The only part that he missed out in his argument is that the Scottish National party’s proposition for independence is to be back in the European Union, where there are higher levels of environmental standards. That is the precise reason why I did not want to leave the European Union and why I want Scotland to be an independent state within it.

I want to speak about the need to improve the Bill. The Government, of course, have a whopping majority. I respect and understand that, and I accept the result of the election in December. None the less, although they have a large majority in this place, they do not have a monopoly on wisdom, so there is a requirement for us to work across the House and seek consensus.

The hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Bim Afolami) talked about the need for us to consider the issue of the Office of Environmental Protection. Having sat through the debate, it is clear to me that that has been quite a contentious issue. The right hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson) was protesting about the idea of having extra quangos. He made great play in talking about Natural England, but it is my understanding that Natural England’s budget has been cut by 50% and its staff numbers have gone from 2,500 to 1,500. It is all well and good to talk about these quangos, but it is important to put on the record that that quango has been subjected to huge cuts by the British Government.

When improving the Bill, there is a need to look at the proposed timescales for the Bill, such as the 2037 target for enforcement. That is simply not good enough. UNICEF, the British Heart Foundation and Cancer Research are all calling for legally binding commitments to meet WHO guideline limits for fine particulate matter by 2030 at the latest.

One issue that I wish to raise in terms of improving the Bill relates to the Nappies (Environmental Standards) Bill that I introduced in the previous Parliament. That Bill came about partly as a result of a fine factory in my constituency owned by Magnus Smyth in Queenslie, which manufactures environmentally friendly, reusable nappies. When Magnus first came to me about this issue, it was because there is not a level playing field. There are disposable nappy companies out there that talk about eco-friendly nappies that still end up in landfill. We know that, when they end up in landfill, they can take 300 years to break down. We know that 33 billion nappies per year go to landfill and that they generate 7 million tonnes of waste. We also know that, on average, one child, until potty training at the age of two and a half, will generate 550 kg of CO₂ equivalents. In many respects, the hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden is right: we do need to have honest conversations about changes in consumer behaviour. The measures in my Bill were not about telling people that they had to use reusable nappies—that would be hypocrisy on my own part; we use a combination of both. But we need to look at some of the measures in that Bill, which included promoting reusable nappies schemes such as the one in Hackney in north London and making sure that we tackle the misinformation peddled by some of the companies. I would be grateful if I could pick up with the Minister that idea of trying to incorporate some of that Bill in an amendment to this Bill to make sure that we are taking action on nappies. I am taking the Government at their word that they want to have higher standards as a result of leaving the European Union, so I am sure they will have no difficulty considering those amendments, which I would certainly be happy to table on Report, if I do not manage to meet up with a Minister, or in Committee.

On having honest conversations and what the Government can do, the first point is that, when schemes are proposed, whether a workplace parking levy or three-weekly bin collections, we as politicians need to take those arguments seriously. It is all well and good for us to play party politics from time to time, but if we are to address the future of the environment, we need to have grown-up decisions. Some parties in the House would do well to reflect on that, particularly in relation to a workplace parking levy, which has caused huge amounts of consternation in the Scottish Parliament, much of which is faux outrage.

I make my final point on electric cars because I had a dinner last night with the automotive sector. It strikes me that the Government are taking a purist view on hybrid models and pure electric, and that is something that they must revisit. There is clearly a lack of support for R and D in that industry, and we know when we speak to constituents that a degree of consumer confidence is required and that is not helped by decisions such as those on charging grants.

I have spoken about the need to improve the Bill. It will not be opposed tonight and will go into Public Bill Committee, but I reflect on the point that if the UK Government are seriously saying that they want the Bill to make our environment-related regulations even better, one way of doing that is to work across the House, whether on environmental standards for nappies or many other things. If they do that, we will take them seriously. If they do not, it will reaffirm my view that the Bill is about watering down standards for a free trade agreement, and I am sure that is not a position that the Minister wants to take.

European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Debate between Bim Afolami and David Linden

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting: House of Commons & Committee: 2nd sitting
Wednesday 8th January 2020 Commons Chamber

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

Is not the principle, though, whether it be on workers’ rights or anything else, that this House will be the place where the decisions on those issues will be legislated upon? Of course there are political differences on all sorts of issues. I happen to take issue with the way in which the hon. Gentleman characterises them, but that is beside the point. However, this House will decide what the workers’ rights for UK citizens should be. Surely that is the aim of this House.

[David Linden]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but it is very much my concern that we have a Tory majority Government who will morph into Thatcherism on steroids over the course of the next five years. For me, the idea that we just sit back and let the Prime Minister and the current Foreign Secretary dictate what direction we take with employment rights is not a chance that I am willing to take.