Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Chris Bryant and Lord Barwell(7 years, 11 months ago)
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Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
Our countryside is not littered with advertising hoardings, unlike in other countries in Europe, because of the action taken by a Labour Government through the Town and Country Planning Act 1947. However, lots of farmers and other landowners are now circumventing the rules by parking great big lorries with hoardings by roads. What are the Government going to do to stop this?
Gavin Barwell
We have made sure that local authorities have the powers to take enforcement action in such places. As I said in response to an earlier question, we are determined to ensure that local authorities are properly resourced to take that enforcement action.
Student Visas
Debate between Chris Bryant and Lord Barwell(11 years, 5 months ago)
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Gavin Barwell
If I can make progress, I will come back to the hon. Gentleman.
I will not go into too much detail on students because the previous hon. Members who made speeches set the situation out clearly, but the UK gains four clear benefits from international students, the first of which is economic. We have heard the figures for the UK as a whole, but the Mayor of London’s office tells me that the economic benefit to London, my city, is about £2.5 billion a year.
The second benefit is to the experience of our students when they are at university. I was lucky enough to attend the university of Cambridge, and can attest to the benefit I gained from studying with pupils from around the world.
The third benefit, which my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) strongly communicated, is to what is frequently referred to as the UK’s soft power. A 2011 Select Committee on Home Affairs report identified that 27 foreign Heads of State had been educated in the UK. That is a difficult benefit to quantify, but an important one to this country.
Gavin Barwell
It does include Syria—clearly, educating Heads of State will not be a benefit universally, but the hon. Gentleman would agree that, in general, having people in leading positions in foreign countries, whether in Governments, the diplomatic service, the military or the business community, is a benefit to the UK.
Immigration
Debate between Chris Bryant and Lord Barwell(12 years, 11 months ago)
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Gavin Barwell
I would give way to the hon. Gentleman, but a number of other Members wish to speak, so I am going to restrict my remarks to seven or eight minutes.
Also under the Labour Government, net migration increased fivefold to 250,000 by 2010. That gave rise to two major concerns. The first was about population growth and pressure on services, and Members have spoken a lot about that in the debate. This morning I visited a project called the Well in my constituency. It is run by the Salvation Army, but a number of different public agencies are involved in it. It deals with people who are either sleeping rough, sofa-surfing or have profound housing difficulties. They often have mental health, alcohol or drug problems as well. It was interesting to see both at that project and at the Nightwatch scheme in Croydon, which provides food parcels to people who are in profound housing difficulties, that there were a significant number of people from eastern Europe in need of those services. They came to the UK looking for a better economic future but have not found it, but they are unable or unwilling to return.
Immigration has given rise to a second concern, which has not really been referred to in the debate because it is not part of the polite political discourse. If we are honest, there are people in this country who feel that their local community has changed demographically during the course of their lifetime and is not the place that it used to be. That is not my view of my local community, but when I canvassed door to door in the run-up to the election, I found that there were people who felt like that and we need to recognise that.
Both those effects are increased by the fact that the impact of migration in our country is particularly pronounced in certain parts of the country. About 12% of the UK population as a whole were born abroad, but in Greater London that figure rises to about 36%, and in some London boroughs it is even higher than that.
That concern about migration led to one particularly damaging effect in some of our communities. When the Conservative Government left office in 1997 there was not a single British National party councillor in this country but, as a result of the huge increase in migration, a number of extremists were elected to public office. Thankfully, the number is now declining again.
Before I touch on a couple of further measures that I should like the Government to take, I wish to set out my views, because it is important for a Conservative representing a demographically highly mixed part of London to recognise that in the past the Conservative party has been perceived, to some degree rightly, as unwelcoming to people from overseas who have tried to settle in this country.
My view is very much that immigration is a good and necessary thing. If we examine our population, we see that the baby boomer generation is ageing and that if we do not bring in some people of working age, we will have fewer working people supporting more pensioners. If we believe in the UK as a global trader, we clearly need to have links with countries around the world and people need to be able to come here and set up businesses. I sit on the Select Committee on Science and Technology and am very passionate about our best universities having the ability to attract the best and brightest talent from around the world. I also see in my home town the vibrancy that migration can bring.
It is possible, however, to have too much of a good thing, which is what I contend we have had. Government policy needs to pass seven tests, the first of which is tone. It is so important that we do not demonise migrants. They are doing what any Member of the House would do in the equivalent situation.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Debate between Chris Bryant and Lord Barwell(14 years ago)
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Chris Bryant
I hope that the House of Lords will look at this sort of measure. Historically, it has always looked at measures coming from the House of Commons, where the Government enjoy a majority by definition. Where the Lords have thought that legislation was calculated for partisan advantage, they have sought to look at it very closely. On many occasions in the past they have sought to change such legislation and make the House of Commons think again. As to the Salisbury convention, one problem is that it is difficult for the Lords to work out what counts as having been in a manifesto, given that two of them are now relevant. However, the number of seats specified in the clause did not appear in either manifesto, so this does present a problem.
There is a further problem. In recent years, it has been unusual for the Government to enjoy a majority in both this House and the other place. By virtue of the fact that there are now two parties in government, there should ostensibly be a majority in the House of Lords. I am very confident, however, about their lordships’ capacity for independence of mind, regardless of the whipping arrangements.
The other reason why I believe the system is being rigged, which is why I am opposed to the reduction from 650 to 600 seats, is on account of the double whammy that will apply to some parts of the United Kingdom. I am sorry if hon. Members feel I talk too much about Wales—I was about to say that I make no apology for saying that, but I have already apologised. My point is that Wales faces a double whammy. If the number of parliamentary seats had to be reduced, I would have thought that no single part of the country—particularly a constituent element of the Union—should be so disproportionately affected in one fell swoop. Reducing the number of parliamentary seats in Wales by 25%, while no other part of the United Kingdom is to suffer such an immediate cut, will be detrimental to the relationship between Wales and the rest of the United Kingdom and will merely inflame the thoughts of nationalism that already exist in Wales.
Gavin Barwell (Croydon Central) (Con)
Did not the last Labour Government reduce the number of seats in Scotland, while making no changes anywhere else in the United Kingdom?
Chris Bryant
The hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that the number of seats in Scotland was reduced as a result of lengthy consultation there, not just of political parties but of the whole of society. There was a long convention that lasted for several years before the 1997 general election, which led to the Scotland Act 1998, the referendum, the creation of the Scottish Parliament—of which we are very proud—and, in exchange for that, a reduction in the number of seats in Scotland. The hon. Gentleman has just voted against a measure that would have prevented the Boundary Commission from reporting until after a referendum had been held in Wales on the powers that should be available to the Welsh Assembly. There is an inconsistency in what he is arguing.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Debate between Chris Bryant and Lord Barwell(14 years ago)
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Chris Bryant
The hon. Gentleman knows that in majoritarian systems, there is a disproportionate benefit for parties that get beyond 40% of the vote. That is a simple fact, so in a sense, his argument is partly in favour of a change to the electoral system, which I am sure he supports, although I suspect he supports a fully proportional system rather than the one subject to the referendum. However, it is not true to suggest—as we read in some of the propaganda—that it takes fewer votes to elect a Labour MP than a Conservative or Liberal MP. [Interruption.] I am not denying that that has happened, but it does not happen because of the drawing of the boundaries. It sometimes takes fewer votes to elect a Labour MP because of the tendency of likely Labour, Conservative or Liberal Democrat voters to live in certain areas.
Gavin Barwell
Has the hon. Gentleman seen the report by the British Academy entitled, “Drawing a New Constituency Map for the United Kingdom”? It finds that a number of factors give rise to the apparent bias in the electoral system, but that constituency boundaries were worth 18 seats to the Labour party at the last general election. He is right to say that there are a number of factors, including the distribution of the vote, but Labour seats are smaller on average than Conservative seats. That independent analysis found that that was worth 18 seats to Labour at the last general election. Has he seen that report and would he like to comment on it?
Chris Bryant
I have seen the report and I agree with some elements of it. I agree with the bits that agree with me and disagree with the bits that disagree with me and that are unhelpful to my argument. The hon. Gentleman mentioned one of the bits of the report that is not helpful to my argument, so I was not going to refer to it.
Chris Bryant
I happened to see that programme, and it helps my argument, so I am quite happy to refer to it.
Gavin Barwell
I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s honest answer to my question, and I do not mean to be unhelpful to his argument, but if he accepts that analysis—
Gavin Barwell
The hon. Gentleman must do a little better in explaining why he does not accept that analysis. If, as the independent British Academy report suggests, the current boundary system favours the Labour party, albeit in a minor way, does he accept that it is unreasonable to allow that unfairness to continue, and does he agree that it should be addressed before the next general election?
Chris Bryant
There are a lot of misconceptions in relation to the supposed benefits or otherwise of the system to the Labour party. For instance, I heard frequently during the general election—this is before Cleggmania rose and fell—that the system was unfair because the Conservatives would need to be 10 points ahead to gain a majority. That is not precisely the hon. Gentleman’s point, which I will come to in a moment, but many people forget that the difference between winning an election and winning a majority is significant in our system. However the boundaries are drawn, the moment a party gets over the 40% mark in a majoritarian system such as ours, it tends to do rather better than its share of the vote would suggest.
Chris Bryant
My hon. Friend makes precisely the point that I have laboriously tried to make, and far more succinctly. He is right that a wide range of factors pertain to the different number of votes it takes to elect Labour and Conservative MPs. The Liberal Democrats are not in contention in a large number of seats in the country but none the less gain 15% or 20% of the vote nationally. They accumulate a lot of votes around the country, but do not necessarily secure seats in the House of Commons. That is one function of the majoritarian system. I do not think that the number of votes necessary for election indicates fairness or unfairness in relation to drawing the boundaries. Short of gerrymandering the boundaries so that the pockets of Lib Dem voters around the country ended up in the same constituencies, we would be unable to overcome that element of unfairness.
Gavin Barwell
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way to me a third time. I completely agree with his argument on the number of voters that it takes to elect MPs from certain parties. However, for the benefit of hon. Members who have not seen it, the British Academy report shows that the average electorate in Labour seats is significantly lower than the average electorate in Conservative seats. Even after we strip out factors such as turnout and the advantageous concentration of the Labour vote in certain parts of the country, a partisan advantage is still derived from the way in which the boundaries are drawn. In the average Labour seat, there are just over 69,000 electors, but in the average Conservative seat, there are just over 73,000. That is unfair. Should it not be corrected before the next election?
Chris Bryant
I have said several times already in the course of these debates that there should be a greater drive towards equalisation. However, as we will debate under clause 9, I do not want the drawing of our constituencies to be merely mathematical. Other things must be taken into consideration.
Gavin Barwell
The problem that the hon. Gentleman is trying to explain occurs under the current rules. There are plenty of constituencies in this Parliament that cross local authority boundaries. We already have and deal with the problem to which he alludes.
Gavin Barwell
The hon. Gentleman made the point that, if we go for greater electoral equality, we will have seats that cross local authority boundaries, but there are already significant numbers of Members representing seats that cross local authority boundaries. Lots of London seats cross London borough boundaries. [Interruption.] No, the London borough of Croydon is not crossed, but the neighbouring borough of Bromley has a seat that crosses into Lewisham, and that applies to the seats of lots of hon. Members. It is perfectly straightforward.
Gavin Barwell
Yes, there are seats at the moment that cross regional boundaries. The seat of Brigg and Goole is in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire.
Chris Bryant
I am not sure who is giving way to whom now. The hon. Gentleman makes a point, and it sounds like he is happy with crossing those boundaries—[Interruption.] And clearly the Minister is relaxed about it as well. However, I am less relaxed about it. There is already a problem with it, but there is no need to exacerbate it.
Political boundaries are one thing—in the end they are in our minds, they are a political construct—but geographical and cultural boundaries are not just boundaries that we have imposed; they have been given to us by others.