Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill (Sixteenth sitting)

Christian Matheson Excerpts

Committee Debate: 16th sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 24th October 2018 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Before I call the hon. Member for City of Chester, I just want to put on the record the fact that I understood every word that the hon. Member for Glasgow East said.

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

And of course, Mr Owen, we understand and follow every word you say as you direct us. It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, but that pleasure is tempered by the disappointment that, once again, we have failed to receive the money resolution that would have allowed us to proceed.

It is genuinely always a pleasure to listen to the right hon. Member for Forest of Dean. I have said previously that his experience is invaluable in this Committee. Let me put on record the Opposition’s view that there is absolutely no question about the Boundary Commission’s integrity—none whatever. There is an issue, of course, about the guidance, which the right hon. Gentleman mentioned, that the House gives to the Boundary Commission when it makes its decisions and proposals.

The Bill would not reduce the number of constituencies, but it would allow an ever-so-slightly greater tolerance about the national average than the boundaries currently awaiting the House’s decision. It would allow for an equalisation of the size of constituencies, and a greater recognition of communities of interest around them, which make up an important part of the identity that electors feel with their parliamentary constituency. We absolutely want to progress to greater consistency across the numbers in parliamentary constituencies, because it is not helpful to have too great a divergence from the national average and constituencies of too great a size.

Hundreds of thousands of voters were not on the register on which the existent boundary proposals were based, so there will inevitably be a great variation in the number of voters. It has been suggested to me that some of the inner-city seats in London might have well in excess of 100,000 residents—150,000 in two cases—but not voters, because people have fallen off the register.

[Mr Harper]

On that point, of course whenever we draw a cut-off line and start a process, we cannot possibly be completely up to date. A big change happened with the general election and the referendum, and the analysis that was carried out by Number Cruncher Politics and the Library shows that the distribution of those voters is broadly equal across the country. If they were all on the register, it would not make a material difference to the distribution of seats across the country, so the hon. Gentleman’s fear is unwarranted.

[Christian Matheson]

I am grateful for that intervention, and I take the right hon. Gentleman’s point. I shall look up that report, but that still does not negate the problem that there are hundreds of thousands of people who are not actually on the register.

I do not intend to detain the Committee for much longer, save to say that we need progress, and we are being prevented from making progress by the Government’s failure to bring forward the money resolution or the alternative to it, which is the orders for decision by this House. I believe they are doing that because it suits the internal dynamics and politics of the Conservative party. Those considerations are overriding the national need for a decision on this matter. The longer this goes on, the more unhelpful the Government’s position is.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Chloe Smith)]

I will respond to the two questions that the hon. Member for Glasgow East asked me. I will not touch the second, because it is absolutely nothing to do with the scope of the Bill. On the first, I will simply say for clarity—