Parliamentary Constituencies bill (Third sitting)

Christian Matheson Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 3rd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 23rd June 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Alec Shelbrooke]

Q To follow that up, given that we are talking about keeping communities together, as the hon. Member for Eltham has said, does the Bill need to give more clarification to the Boundary Commission for England? In Scotland, the system is much more in-depth, with smaller building blocks. I believe that Scottish constituencies do not have as many arguments as the English ones. Do we need to give more guidance about how the constituencies are built, taking into account communities, rather than change the boundary limits based on the electorate?

Dr Renwick: The difference between Scotland and England is in the practice of the Boundary Commissions with respect to splitting wards. The Boundary Commission for Scotland is much more willing to split wards than the Boundary Commission for England. As I understand it—and you heard evidence on this last week from Tony Bellringer—it is very difficult for the Boundary Commission for England to split wards, because it does not have sufficient evidence to do that. It seems clear to me that, if you can split wards in a way that does not break community ties, that is a better way of achieving the balance between the principles of equality of votes and maintaining community ties than by increasing the margin. If the Boundary Commission for England were able to split wards more often, that would certainly help the overall process.

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

Q Dr Renwick and Professor Hazell, good morning. I have two quick questions. First, the two previous Boundary Commission inquiries, which were not voted on in the end, lacked political support because, I believe, they reduced the number of constituencies from 650 to 600. That did not have overall political support. The proposals would also have meant that some constituencies would simply not have reflected the communities that MPs represented. The Government have now recognised that by reverting back to the number of 650. Is it not therefore a good thing that we have that safety valve of final approval from Parliament to reflect the lack of community cohesion that might be introduced by boundaries that do not reflect community needs?

Dr Renwick: No, I do not think so. I think the principle should be that Parliament sets up the rules in the first place that will allow the boundary commissions to produce a satisfactory set of recommendations, and that those recommendations should then be implemented.

[Christian Matheson]

Q But the opposition was proved right in the end, was it not? I do not mean Her Majesty’s Opposition; rather the opposition across all parties to the previous proposals, which was proved right in the end because we moved away from 600 and back to 650.

Dr Renwick: Yes, I certainly agree that 650 is a better number than 600, but it was Parliament that legislated to go to 600, so it needs legislation to make a decision to move back to 650.

[Christian Matheson]

Q Secondly and finally, you are calling for what we have termed automaticity, but you are also suggesting that there are concerns in the current set-up that need to be addressed before automaticity takes place. It is a bit of a chicken and egg situation: which comes first, automaticity or changes in these structures? Are you suggesting that this Bill should include changes to the way that the boundary commission is appointed and set up, or are you suggesting that we should not have automaticity this time, but should legislate for it next time, and use the intervening period to change the structure and appoint any mechanisms needed at the boundary commission?

Professor Hazell: Perhaps I could answer that, if I may? We are suggesting both. We strongly support automaticity, as Alan Renwick has said. In conjunction with that, to bolster the independence of the boundary commissions, in our submission we propose four important changes to the way in which the commissioners are appointed. Some of those are already matters of good practice, which I am glad to say are followed—for example, that the deputy chair was on the panel for the appointment of junior commissioners last year. To prevent any backsliding, we argue that those four changes should be written into law, so we are inviting the Committee, if it supports the principle of automaticity, to say that we should also have those further safeguards written into the same Bill, in order to strengthen the independence of the boundary commissioners.

[The Chair]

Order. We have three people wanting to ask questions and three minutes left. Mr Linden?

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

I would like to take the two final questions together because we have only three minutes left. First, Mr Matheson and then Mr Clarkson.

[Christian Matheson]

Q Thank you, Sir David. I will be brief. We have talked about automaticity and the House of Commons using its political interests to reject proposals from the boundary commissions in the past. Is there not a danger, however, that the instructions given to boundary commissions at the outset through the legislation will also have political considerations in them based upon who has the majority in the House of Commons at the time, and therefore a further return to the boundary commission at the end gives a safety valve to perhaps counterbalance the political considerations that might have outweighed the criteria given to the boundary commissions.

[The Chair]

Thank you. Now Mr Clarkson.