Parliamentary Representation

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Tuesday 11th January 2011 Westminster Hall

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman that the independence of the Boundary Commission, or the boundary commissions in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, is vital, but they quite often get it wrong. In fact, invariably over the past few years, their first version has, as they themselves have readily admitted, not fitted the bill. That is why we think it very important to keep hold of public inquiries, whereby people can test in public the arguments about the shaping of constituencies. Does the hon. Gentleman agree?

[Mr Reid]

I am not convinced by the hon. Gentleman’s argument in that regard. One of the things I have always found problematic with the present system is the fact that there are only 28 days for people or organisations to put in objections or suggestions. Many organisations—for example, community councils in Scotland—meet on a monthly cycle, and it was often just pure luck as to whether the community council was meeting at a time that would allow it to put in objections. Therefore, the Government’s proposals in the Bill for a period of three months are very important. That will allow plenty of time for local debate. Twenty-eight days does not allow proper time for local debate, because by the time that a local newspaper has carried the detail of the proposal, a week of the 28 days will often be gone, and by the time that people get together and hold meetings, the whole of the 28 days will often be gone. The Government’s proposal for three months but without a public inquiry will be an improvement, because it will allow local debate. Although there might not be face-to-face debates at a public inquiry, there will be local debates through the local press over a three-month period. That will allow many more people to participate than would be the case at a public inquiry. Ordinary people will not take several days off work to turn up to public inquiries, whereas they can engage in debate at local public meetings in the evening or in the columns of a local newspaper.

The 5% straitjacket that the Bill imposes is not an absolute principle, because there are exceptions for certain island groups and there is also a 13,000 sq km area cap. I fully support the clause in the Bill that says that Orkney and Shetland and Na h-Eileanan an Iar should have their own constituencies. Since 1918, independent boundary commissions have always allowed individual constituencies for those island groups. It was only at the last boundary review that Orkney and Shetland was written into legislation as having its own constituency, but the Boundary Commission still decided that Na h-Eileanan an Iar should have its own constituency despite its not being written into the legislation. I am fully behind the Government on that.

[Mrs Linda Riordan in the Chair]

As my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives said, however, we would like the Government to elaborate on the principles behind where the exceptions should be. We were not able to tease out from them during the debate on the Floor of the House why the two island constituencies I have mentioned were to be exceptions, but there were not to be exceptions for other islands. As my hon. Friend pointed out, part of the Isle of Wight will share a constituency with the mainland. There is also the island of Anglesey. Under the new rules, the constituency that it would be in would include part of the mainland of Wales.

While we are talking about islands, I want to draw the Minister’s attention to my constituency, which contains many islands. In fact, it contains 25 inhabited islands. Thirteen of those have a public air service or a public ferry service, or both. I visit all those islands as part of my constituency tour. I sent the Minister a copy of the itinerary for my constituency tour, pointing out to him that it takes several weeks to get round the constituency.

That factor is important. Constituents are entitled to have the opportunity to meet their Member of Parliament face to face. As my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives pointed out, there are electronic means of communication these days, but that is no substitute for the Member of Parliament going to individual communities in their constituency and seeing the facts on the ground—or, as my hon. Friend pointed out, at sea. It is also important that constituents be able to meet their Member of Parliament face to face in their own community. I would therefore like the Minister to elaborate on the reasons why the two island groups I have mentioned were chosen as exceptions, and not other islands.

Let me give hon. Members some statistics. As I said, my constituency contains 13 islands that can be reached only by an air or ferry service. That compares with only three in Na h-Eileanan an Iar, because of all the causeways that have been built there. That means that every island in the island group is connected to Lewis and Harris, the Uists or Barra by a fixed link. Therefore, Na h-Eileanan an Iar is in effect three islands, whereas my constituency contains 13 islands that can be reached only by air or sea. If we compare Argyll and Bute with Na h-Eileanan an Iar, we also find that Argyll and Bute has twice the land area and three times the electorate. The Boundary Commission could therefore perhaps be allowed some flexibility to take into account islands and large areas where few people live.

Elsewhere on the highland mainland, the Government have introduced the 13,000 sq km rule. It is important to note that that rule will not result in the creation of new constituencies that are more than 5% under the quota, but it will create three constituencies that are a strange shape. To get within 5% of the quota and to meet the 13,000 sq km rule, the Boundary Commission will have to create three strange constituencies, each containing part of the Greater Inverness area and a large part of the rural highlands and islands. One constituency will comprise part of Inverness, going north and west all the way to Cape Wrath. Another will contain part of Inverness and go all the way west to include the Isle of Skye. The third will contain part of Inverness and go south and east. Those three constituencies will look very strange, and there will be little shared community interest between the different communities in them. As I said, we are supposed to represent communities, but someone in a remote, rural part of north-west Sutherland and somebody in the city of Inverness have little shared community interest.

That leads me to suggest that the Government are being too formulaic in simply writing in a 13,000 sq km cap without taking into account a constituency’s size and shape. Let me give the example of my constituency. Loch Fyne, which is a long sea loch, cuts the mainland part of my constituency almost exactly in two. If some miracle happened and Loch Fyne were suddenly filled in, my constituency’s land area would increase, which would take it closer to the Government’s 13,000 sq km cap. However, it would also make the constituency easier to drive around, because I would no longer have to drive all the way up to the top of Loch Fyne and all the way back down the other side when I went from Dunoon, where I live, to the western part of my constituency.

[Chris Bryant]

The hon. Gentleman is not advocating filling the loch in, is he?

[Mr Reid]

Loch Fyne is a beautiful loch with beautiful scenery, and I am certainly not advocating filling it in; I am just giving an example of how the land area would increase if the geography were different. That would take us closer to the Government’s cap, but it would also make it easier to drive across the constituency. The point I am trying to make is that land area by itself makes for too crude a formula, and the rules should take into account the constituency’s shape and the difficulties of travelling around the constituency. It is difficult to write such things into a formula, which is why we need to give the Boundary Commission a bit more flexibility than the Government propose in the Bill. Islands, peninsulas, sea lochs and so forth must also be taken into account. The House of Lords will shortly re-examine the Bill, and I hope that the Government will be amenable to accepting amendments to give the Boundary Commission a bit more flexibility.

To sum up, I am fully in favour of capping the House of Commons, but, again, there should be a bit of flexibility. I am also fully in favour of speeding up Boundary Commission proceedings. Furthermore, although it is important that constituencies have close to the same number of people in each, it is also important to have flexibility to deal with the small number of constituencies with unique geographic circumstances—rural constituencies in the highlands and islands, the Isle of Wight and Anglesey, and constituencies in Cornwall. Members from those places have come to the House to speak to Ministers and argue for a bit of flexibility. The constituencies where the Boundary Commission would exercise flexibility would be a tiny proportion of the whole. Making provision for such flexibility would improve the Bill and mean that we represented much more cohesive communities than we would under the Bill as it stands. I hope the Government will listen. We are fortunate in having a politically independent Boundary Commission, and we should trust it with a bit more discretion over constituency and community boundaries.

[Chris Bryant]

rose—

[Mrs Linda Riordan (in the Chair)]

I call Chris Bryant.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I had not realised, Mrs Riordan, that the hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers), would sit down quite so suddenly, even though you gave me a warning just before he began his speech that I would soon be called.

I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George). I think he blames me for his not having been able in previous debates to make some of the arguments he has made today. I note from the giggling at the far end of the Chamber that that is probably the tenor of his argument. However, he has been able to discuss some of the issues today. He is right that some of them are being debated in the House of Lords at the moment. As I understand it, they have another 70 or 80 sets of amendments to deal with, and of course the process there is rather different from that in the House of Commons. Rather more time is being devoted to the Bill in the Lords, and some issues are being talked through in rather more depth. I hope that in what is sometimes a less partisan environment, some of the changes that the hon. Gentleman has advocated today will come about.

I note that the hon. Members who have spoken so far have constituencies that are called “something and something”; or rather, Cleethorpes is not really like that—the constituency is just called Cleethorpes—but I note that its Member of Parliament refers to it on his website as “Cleethorpes, Immingham, Barton and the Wold Parishes”. That just makes the point that in the historic past, when there were either county or borough Members of Parliament, everyone pretty much knew who represented them. If someone was described as the Member of Parliament for Manchester, someone who lived in Manchester knew that that was their Member of Parliament. However, through the passage of universal suffrage, the enfranchisement of women, and the steady process of changing the franchise and drawing up constituencies in the 20th century, we ended up with many constituencies that are incomprehensible to voters. One of my concerns is that the Bill now in the House of Lords will lead to a greater sense of uncertainty for voters about who their Member of Parliament is.

It is relatively easy in the Rhondda. Those who live in the Rhondda know they do, and the physical boundary is relatively well known, so people can work out quite easily that the person referred to as Member of Parliament for the Rhondda is their MP. In cities it tends to be more complicated. I suspect that things are fairly straightforward in Forest of Dean. My anxiety is that some of the provisions in the Bill will make it more difficult for voters to see such matters with clarity.

[John Stevenson]

I am fortunate, in that I represent the city of Carlisle, which is easy to identify, but interestingly enough, in the seat of my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart), there are three district councils; one of the divisions of the county council is split between the two of us. In our experience, there does not seem to be that much of a problem in identifying which of us represents the people of the area. I question whether it is as big a problem as the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) thinks it is.

[Chris Bryant]

I do not question the hon. Gentleman’s experience, although it is relatively new. However, things are certainly very difficult in many constituencies. I get more people thinking that they are in the Rhondda who are not than the other way round. People who live in Tonyrefail, who might one day—who knows?—be in the constituency of Greater Rhondda, but are presently in the constituency of Pontypridd, believe they live in the Rhondda. There is confusion, and my anxiety is that we should not make greater confusion for voters. Most of the time most voters do not worry about such matters. It is not the most important issue in their lives.

[Andrew George]

I entirely support the point that the hon. Gentleman is making. Indeed, the boundary of my constituency changed at the 2010 election and those constituents who used to live in my old constituency still contact me. Given the arrangements in the Bill, that sort of thing would happen at every election, so there would be confusion. The point really is that while the hon. Gentleman is content about representing a constituency that is wholly the Rhondda—as is the hon. Member for Carlisle (John Stevenson) about representing one that is wholly Carlisle—under the Bill, at some point a line could be drawn right through the middle of either of those constituencies.

[Chris Bryant]

Yes. For some strange reason I seem to have been up in Oldham recently. Oldham East and Saddleworth feels as it if it has been slammed together with no consideration of what constitutes a community.

I do not want to focus too much on that issue; I really want to talk about equalisation of seats. I cannot remember which hon. Member said it, but it is absolutely right that the apparent party political advantage to the Labour party from the fact that it takes more voters to elect a Conservative MP than a Labour one is far more to do with turnout than anything else. The equalisation of seats will make barely any difference, according to calculations done by virtually every academic so far, to the partisan advantage of one political party or another. For that matter, a 5 or 10% leeway would not make a great difference, on a partisan basis, to one or other party. In Labour constituencies there have tended to be smaller majorities, but still safe seats, whereas a Conservative safe seat tends to have a very large majority, because there is a much higher turnout.

I support equalisation to an extent, and certainly as things stand the situation is not right; it is not acceptable and there should be greater equalisation. However, I worry about the Government trying to get 99% of all seats within a very tight band. That is a much tighter band than in any other country, and it is being done on the basis of registered electors, whereas most other countries use population. The hon. Member for St Ives was right when he said it would be a mistake if, because of the Bill, we ended up with—I think these were his words—“antiseptic constituencies” with permanently mobile boundaries. That would not be good for representation of views in Parliament or for ensuring that a full cross-section of British society is here. Nor would it make it easier for people to understand who represents them, and to maintain that continuity.

To give one tiny instance, if a constituent comes to a Member with a case and the Member takes it up, it might take many years, as did many of the miners’ compensation cases that I took up. Someone whose Member stops representing them because of the boundary change must start all over again, from the beginning, because the data protection people have said that MPs cannot hand the file over to another MP. [Interruption.] The Minister is saying something. I do not know whether he wants to intervene; perhaps he will respond later.

On a point of information, international comparisons are often cited regarding the need for greater equalisation. In fact, in the United States of America, if the same equation is made concerning how many voters it takes to get someone elected, Wyoming has nearly 10.5 times the representation, for population, of California. They base their arrangements not on registered or eligible voters, but on population. Sometimes it is good to equalise—but only to an extent.

It is important to recognise the distinctness of various parts of the country when we are drawing up boundaries. Some have already been mentioned. The Isle of Wight was referred to in some of the debates we had in the House of Commons. We believe that the distinctness of the Isle of Wight should be recognised in the statute, and hold a similar belief regarding Cornwall. I note that yesterday was the anniversary of the crossing of the Rubicon. I do not know whether the crossing of the Tamar is still an ambition of the Government. In one sense, Cornwall is only administratively in England. It has a distinctness that should be recognised. If there were a referendum in Cornwall on whether Cornwall should have Cornwall-only seats, there would be an overwhelming majority in favour. I hope the Government will think again on that matter.

Many of the same issues apply to Anglesey, though in that case it goes the other way in being too small, as opposed to the Isle of Wight being too large. The point was made about Argyll and Bute, and, although it did not sound like special pleading, of course it was. However, the point was well made: it is in many ways a sparser constituency than the highland seats. There is a strong argument for the distinctiveness of Argyll and Bute.

Although I understand the issues about Wales—in particular north-west Wales, where there is a high concentration of people with Welsh as their first language—a drive towards equalisation may, and in some academics’ views will, lead to no parliamentary seat having a Welsh-speaking majority. That would be a mistake in terms of how the British Parliament is viewed in Wales, and would incense a greater sense of nationalism. The Government should recognise that.

My final point on specifics that should be recognised concerns estuaries. The hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Mr Reid) referred to sea lochs, but it is important that wide estuaries such as those on the Mersey, the Humber, the Clyde, the Forth and the Thames should not be crossed when creating parliamentary constituencies. Some argue that that should apply to Welsh valleys, because of their peculiarities. It would seem odd if a small part of the top of a valley—even if there was no connecting road—was bunged into another constituency. However, I think most issues in the Welsh valleys can be addressed; there is no specific reason why not.

A 10% rather than a 5% leeway would mean there was no need to cross ward boundaries in the creation of seats. In some of the big city conurbations, that is important. There would be no need to cross county boundaries—all geographical and physical necessities that the land, or God or whoever has given us could be met, and there would be no dramatic harm to the representativeness that the Government seek to achieve in aiming for equalisation. I hope that, in striving towards their measures, the Government will look again at whether 10% might not be a better leeway than 5%.

I want briefly to say a couple of words about the number of seats in Parliament. The hon. Member for Argyll and Bute said that the number has always crept up, except when the Irish Free State was created and we cut the numbers. However, the measure we should think about first is the nature of the job of a Member of Parliament. International comparisons were made by the hon. Member for St Ives. However, to compare the UK with Spain, France or Germany—where Governments are not constituted in the same way—is to compare apples with pears and is therefore mistaken. Similarly, the powers held by parliamentarians in those countries are very different. In France, much more is devolved and done by councillors. We have far fewer councillors—one for every 3,000 voters, whereas in France it is one for every 110. Those comparisons do not bear examination.

As MPs, we create the Government; we are the electoral college, as it were, for the Prime Minister and the whole of the Government. All Ministers have to come out of Parliament, because the amendment in the 1689 Bill of Rights was lost. Dramatic cuts in the number of MPs would be a mistake. The number of constituents has grown and grown over the years, as has the amount of casework we are expected to do.

I have two final points. I wonder how the AV Bill—I cannot remember what it is called—

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Mark Harper)]

The Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill.

[Chris Bryant]

From a sedentary position, the Minister has helped me out. I wonder how the Bill is doing in the House of Lords. As I understand it, the Bill has to be out of the House of Lords in February in order to have the referendum in May. With another 70, 80, 90 sets of amendments, I wonder whether it is now possible for the Bill to have the two weeks between Committee and Report stages in the House of Lords, and come back to the House of Commons. I urge the Minister—indeed, I make him an offer: if he splits the two elements of the Bill, as we urged in the beginning, we could help him get his AV referendum in time for May.

House of Lords reform has been briefly mentioned by several Members. When are we going to have that Bill? It was originally going to be before Christmas, then at the beginning of the year, then in January. We hear rumours of March, April and May. When will we get the Bill?