Parliamentary Constituencies Bill (Sixth sitting)

Cat Smith Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 6th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 25th June 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

It is lovely to see you in the Chair on this warm afternoon, Sir David. My amendments to clause 1 ask the Committee whether Parliament should vote on the review of the boundaries. As it happens, Parliament has not had the opportunity to vote on the last two reviews because they were never tabled for debate by the Government. This is a safety valve: us as parliamentarians being able to check the homework of the boundary commissions. This is not marking our own homework; this is us ensuring that the boundary commissions have executed the criteria we have given them accurately and that we are happy to proceed. I have seen it pointed out often on social media recently that the Government have an 80-seat majority. If they are so confident in their 80-seat majority, they have nothing to worry about in bringing the review that we are about to have back to Parliament for a vote.

I draw the Committee’s attention to the written evidence submitted by Dr Renwick and Professor Hazell, particularly points 15 and 16. They say that although the boundary commission has only very rarely been questioned to be biased—that would not be the case at all; we all have confidence in its independence—

“there are grounds to worry that this could change”

if the automaticity is implemented. In point 16, they set out some safeguards that could protect against that. I have some concerns that while the independence of the boundary commission is not questioned at the moment, the change could have future consequences that are foreseeable, as set out by Dr Renwick and Professor Hazell, and safeguards could be put in place.

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The clause also makes some operational changes to the consultation process, and it makes that very specific revision to the timing of the next boundary review that I referred to, in order to ensure there is a prompt outcome, while maintaining the importance of the consultation. I hope that it addresses, in a pragmatic way, the concern that a witness directly expressed to us, and in such a way that the hon. Members for Glasgow East and Ceredigion do not feel the need to press their amendment to a vote.

[Cat Smith]

Speaking to amendment 10, the hon. Member for Glasgow East made a very good point about the way in which the Bill must be able to be applied effectively in every part of the United Kingdom. In some of the regions where the commissioners will be doing their work, the geography and landscape are very different from those of other regions. In that sense, I am minded to support the amendment if chooses to push it to a vote. It would give the commissioners more flexibility to be able to respond to the needs of communities, and if we are to have communities that are confident in the boundaries that the commissioners draw, they must have had an adequate say in how the constituencies are formed.

[Christian Matheson]

First, I welcome the Minister’s explanation of the clause. I have been through a few of these boundary reviews now. I remember attending one in the mid-1990s for Cheshire, which was held in Winsford, in the geographical centre of Cheshire, along with my old mentor Lord Hoyle—as he is now is—and Mike Hall, another former MP, and the late and much-missed Andrew Miller, another former MP.

More recently, the Cheshire review was held in my own constituency in Chester, in The Queen hotel, and in that circumstance I found myself speaking against my own party’s recommendations, because the numbers had forced the party to exclude a part of the constituency from Chester that I felt rightfully belonged to it. It was a strange and uncomfortable situation, but I did what I did because it was right.

Having heard the hon. Member for Glasgow East speak to his amendment, I think there is a principle that flows throughout the Bill, which is the importance of taking into account geography, in terms of the overall impact of the Bill and its overall implications. I could easily get from Chester to Winsford and from Chester to Warrington; that would not be a problem. Speaking from my own experience, I think that Cheshire could get away with having one public inquiry.

If I think about parts of rural northern England, the far south-west, or large parts of Scotland and Wales, the sparsity of population makes it less easy to hold public inquiries than in Cheshire or in large boroughs. It is the same principle and the same argument that we will discuss later in the Bill—I do not want to wander too far off the subject of this clause—where we have numbers overriding geographical considerations. There are parts of the country that need to be treated differently because sparsity of population and geographical features make it more difficult for individuals to take part

The hon. Member for Ceredigion asked the Minister a question that had also occurred to me, about whether, in principle, she may consider a slightly different amendment, if she accepts that some areas need more attention because of their geography and sparsity of population. Obviously, the Minister cannot speak to a hypothetical amendment, but I would support that suggestion. The principle that flows through the Bill is that we cannot simply go on bare numbers. Geography, population density and the ease of people getting to, and taking part in, consultations need to be considered. I have a lot of sympathy with the amendment moved by the hon. Member for Glasgow East.

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[Chloe Smith]

I am grateful for that example. My right hon. Friend is correct, particularly about the principle that ought to underpin what we do here. After all, we are looking at public money, in terms of what we might call the cost of politics—the number of salaries multiplied by 600 or 650—and how we ask the boundary commissions to do their work. Those things are underpinned by public money and public time, so we should consider them in Committee . There is nothing more extensive to say about clause 5, so I commend it to the Committee.

[Cat Smith]

The Opposition welcome clause 5. We have argued to keep the number of MPs at 650. I also welcome the Minister’s explanation of why the Government have U-turned and returned to the idea of having 650 Members of Parliament.

The Minister made the argument that the UK population has grown by 5% since 2011. I ask her, and she is welcome to intervene, whether that is an indication that we should expect the 650 figure to increase in subsequent reviews if the UK population were to increase in that time.

I also ask why the number is fixed. We heard in our evidence sessions that one of the difficulties that commissioners have in drawing seats is that they must finally reach the 650 figure. Is there not a strong case for having a target number of MPs that the commissioners should reach within a percentage range? Overall, the Opposition welcome the clause and the decision to maintain 650 MPs.

[John Spellar]

Briefly, several of the factors that the Minister outlined were blindingly obviously after 2015 as well. The population in this country was going up and there had been a referendum to leave the European Union. Was it not, frankly, the shallowness of David Cameron and the stubbornness of the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) that meant that the Government have had to make the change now that they could have made before? We would then have been here representing different constituencies. There is no shame in saying that the former leadership of the party—it is probably unwise to attack the current leadership—got it wrong and that is why they have done a U-turn.

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[The Chair]

Order. I want to say to the Committee that our proceedings are confusing at the best of times, and this is not the best of times. Normally, we would have civil servants to my right with the Parliamentary Private Secretary close by. Notes would be helpfully passed to the Minister. We would normally have a couple of Clerks to my left, helping the Opposition with the order of our proceedings.

These are difficult circumstances and it is more than understandable that there is a bit of confusion. I ask the Minister not to respond at this point, so we can allow Cat Smith to speak to new clause 9, and then the Minister may wish to come back with her comments.

[Cat Smith]

To speak to new clause 9—

[Mrs Miller]

On a point of order, Sir David. I apologise for interrupting the shadow Minister. Can you clarify whether you are taking clause 6 stand part as part of this group? I am a little confused. I thought that we were discussing amendments 8 and 9. Are we doing the stand part debate as well?

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[The Chair]

I am now much better in the picture than I was before. To answer Mr Shelbrooke’s question, once we have dealt with the group that I announced at the start of the proceedings, we will go on to Mr Linden and deal with amendment 6 to clause 6, with which it will be convenient to discuss amendment 7.

[Cat Smith]

I must admit that I am still quite confused, if I am honest, but hopefully all will become apparent.

I am speaking to new clause 9, which is about the electoral registers that are used to compile the boundaries that we draw. In the written evidence submitted by Professor Toby James, a professor of politics and public policy at the University of East Anglia, it was eminently clear that in the latest estimates from the Electoral Commission there were between 8.3 million and 9.4 million people in Great Britain who were eligible to be on the registers but were not correctly registered on the December 2018 register. Since the introduction of individual electoral registration, we have seen registration become increasingly seasonal, and in his written evidence the professor outlined some of the reasons that that might be. His suggestions to the Committee are slightly outside the scope of the Bill, but I draw the Committee’s attention to his paragraph 12, which suggests ways to improve the accuracy and completeness of the electoral register.

New clause 9 would include Department for Work and Pensions data to correct the electoral registers and make sure that the data that the commissioners draw on to draw our constituency boundaries are fuller and more complete than the data they currently work with.

[Ben Lake]

The hon. Lady makes an important point, particularly when we consider that many constituencies will be drawn on the basis of the electoral register on a particular date. I know from my own constituency that at least 6,000 students are not registered, even though, when it comes to constituency casework, I answer their queries and try to serve them, so this is an important consideration. We should try to get as full a picture as possible because, after all, that gets to the heart of representation.

[Cat Smith]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for making that intervention. The points that he has made during our proceedings today about the nature of his Ceredigion constituency, where the population can fluctuate, highlight the point that the data that we use have to come from a snapshot in time. However, that snapshot is often inaccurate for various reasons, including people moving house. They can delay registering or perhaps they do not register if there is no election imminent.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned students who may or may not register in one or two locations, which means that often the register is inaccurate. When we as constituency MPs hold our advice surgeries, we often support members of our community who do not fill in paperwork, which is how they can find themselves before us. One of the things that they might not fill in, because it does not feature in their lives is the form to register to vote. And yet, as Members of Parliament, we will stand up for them in a tribunal situation or we make representations to various Government bodies because we count them as our constituents and we represent them.

New clause 9 would make the data that the boundaries are drawn on fuller and more accurate than the data that they are currently drawn on. As Professor James outlines in his written evidence, different countries use different data to draw their electoral constituencies, including population data, population estimates and electoral registers that have been made more accurate by using local government data.

[The Chair]

It has been admitted that I was given the wrong script. Like a barrister, of course, I insisted that that was a point. However, I have powers to change the order, and that is why I have allowed Cat Smith, who was right to be confused, to make a point. The Minister has also agreed to respond to new clause 9.

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I am sure there are many anomalies in the part of the world of the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood, the north-west. I do not know her part of the world very well at all. I have been up there—

[Cat Smith]

I thank the honourable Yorkshireman for giving way. [Laughter.] On that point, the case has been made by Cornish people that they do not wish to see a seat cross the Cornish-Devon border; I think that view is clear and unanimous in Cornwall. I support Cornish people in that. As a Lancashire lass, I would be very disappointed to see a constituency drawn up that crossed into the white rose county from my red rose county.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

I am most grateful to the hon. Lady for that intervention. I have often said that if God had wanted Yorkshire and Lancashire to meet, he would not have put a huge lump of granite between us.

However, there is an important point here, namely that the arbitrary nature of local authority boundaries is a strange thing. In 1974, Leeds was the only authority that got bigger; all the other authorities got smaller but the Leeds metropolitan authority swept way out of what had been the Leeds City Council area and took in areas such as Pudsey, West Riding Council and all those areas.

My constituents generally do not consider themselves to be part of Leeds. However, I am a Leeds city MP, in a county constituency and a borough constituency, which gives some idea of how that is defined in the geography of election expenses. Equally, I remember a particular opponent in one of the elections who was trying to establish their credibility to stand in the area. They went to certain parts of my constituency waving the flag about what a strong Leeds Rhinos fan they were, in rugby league. I am not a rugby league fan, and am clear that I am not, but I do know that in the areas that said opponent was talking about being a Leeds Rhinos fan, the people were all Castleford Tigers fans, so I was quite pleased with that bit of electioneering.