Parliamentary Constituencies Bill (Sixth sitting)

Christian Matheson Excerpts

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

[Chloe Smith]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, because she allows me to move on to the matters in clause 2. They are very important, and she presages what I am going to say.

Clause 2 changes the way in which the recommendations of the boundary commissions are brought into effect. This is the meat of the debate. The purpose of the change is to bring certainty to the boundary review process and give confidence that recommendations of the independent boundary commissions are brought into effect without interference or delay. The boundary commissions develop their proposals through a robust process involving extensive public consultation over a two to three-year period.

The right hon. Member for Warley made a very thoughtful point about checks and balances, and what he called a new set of priesthoods. Aside from the fact that this is not new—this commission has been in existence for many decades, and rightly so—the point that I want to make is this: the public are the check and balance on that body. By way of example, more than half the recommendations made by the Boundary Commission for England in the previous cycle were changed. This morning, examples were exchanged of where change was desirable or not desirable, and where it was proposed or rejected, but the fact is that that level of responsiveness to the public has been shown to be there in what boundary commissions do, so the need for check and balance is met by what the boundary commissions do in their public consultation. That is very important. My hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich West eloquently touched on that.

It is important that the boundary commissions’ impartial recommendations are brought into effect promptly and with certainty in order to avoid wasting public money and time and to underline the independence of the process. Clause 2 provides for proposed constituencies to be brought into effect automatically. It does that by amending the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986, which provides for the recommendations to be brought into effect through an Order in Council made by Her Majesty following approval of the draft order by both Houses of Parliament.

As happens now, the Secretary of State would be required to give effect to the recommendations of the boundary commissions. Let me say a little about the wording that hon. Members will see in the Bill. Professor Sir John Curtice also noted this in evidence. The wording has been updated over time. In the current legislation, a Minister must submit the draft order

“as soon as may be”.

The new wording used in the clause is:

“as soon as reasonably practicable”.

I do not think that is of great interest to the Committee, but I just want to make the point that that is more up-to-date wording. There is nothing more to be read into that change of words.

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

Is there any practical difference between the two forms of worfing, or is it simply using more up-to-date language?

[Chloe Smith]

The hon. Gentleman—my friend, if I may return his compliments of this morning—has it exactly right. I thank him for aiding the Committee’s understanding on that point. I could give examples of where that kind of wording has been updated in other Acts, but I think I do not need to do so if it is as simply put as that.

As happens now, an Order in Council will be used to give effect to the recommendations, but Parliament will not play a role in approving that order, and the Secretary of State will no longer be able to amend the draft Order in Council that implements the boundary commissions’ recommendations in the event that it is rejected by Parliament.

We heard in the witnesses sessions that a number of respected academics support this change. Countries such as Australia, Canada and New Zealand use a similar approach. It is the right one to use. We heard from Dr Renwick and Professors Hazell, Curtice and McLean, and there are many more who stand on that side of the argument. One of the most eloquent whom we heard in our sessions was Professor Wyn Jones from the Welsh Governance Centre, who said:

“It is probably better that MPs set the terms of the exercise for the Boundary Commission behind a veil of ignorance, if you like, without knowing exactly what the particular outcomes would be for them as individual MPs.”––[Official Report, Parliamentary Constituencies Public Bill Committee, 18 June 2020; c. 57, Q117.]

I considered trying to get a joke on the record about Immanuel Kant and the ways that that surname could be used, but I thought it would be better not to test the boundaries of that at this stage of the Committee.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke went on to say, witnesses were clear that the independence of the process should not be violated—a strong word, as she pointed out. Whether Professor Curtice was also right to call Committee members and Members of the House turkeys, I could not possibly comment, but it is self-evident that MPs have an interest in the outcome. That is simply a fact.

I now turn to amendments 2 to 4 and the opposition to the clause that I assume goes with them. I disagree fundamentally with the amendments and I urge hon. Members to withdraw them. I recognise the passion with which hon. Members put their arguments. The hon. Member for City of Chester spoke about parliamentary approval being a “safety valve”, but those arguments are wrong-headed. Essentially, they say that a process should be regarded as independent if someone agrees with it, and not if they do not, which is a poor way to approach the question. The changes are important to ensure that the recommendations of the independent boundary commissions are brought into effect promptly, without interference from any political quarter, without waste of public time and money, and without delay.

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[Chloe Smith]

And in that will reside the views of the majority of Members of the House of Commons, who know what the right argument here is in this case, which is to deliver equal and updated boundaries. I am only sorry that some of the arguments we have heard this morning seem to express almost a lack of confidence in Parliament’s right and ability to set a framework at the outset and then have confidence that it can be delivered by what is a very high-quality public body, judge-led and acknowledged by witnesses to be among the best in the world in how we run our boundary commissions. Perhaps the hon. Member for City of Chester disagrees.

[Christian Matheson]

I am enjoying the Minister’s exposition of the constitution. The proof of the particular pudding she is talking about is in the fact that the last two boundary revisions did not have the support of Parliament. There was no formal mechanism in the way that she describes for hon. Members to express that disapproval and lack of support. It had to be done informally through the usual channels, until the Government realised that if they did push either of those to a vote, they would not have succeeded. There was no formal constitutional mechanism of the type the Minister is trying to outline.

[Chloe Smith]

I will say two things to that. First, we should be focusing on what we now need to do. Secondly, I am pleased to be here proposing a better way forward that demonstrates that we have listened to the opinions expressed by, among others, the Select Committee on Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs. We should therefore deliver what we have been asked to do by people in this country through the means of the Bill.

I will draw my remarks to a close. I need detain the Committee no longer. I think I have dealt with all the points put to me this morning. I recommend that the Committee reject the amendment and support clauses 1 and 2 standing part of the Bill.

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[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.

[Clive Efford]

I am sorry that I did not call you “Sir David” earlier. I was not trying to de-noble you and I apologise.

I support the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Glasgow East. We are in a curious situation with this clause. On the one hand, the Government are saying, “Step back, set the parameters and let the boundary commission get on with it,” but when we get to this clause they become prescriptive. The clause limits the scope of the boundary commission to consult and to set up consultations with an area in a way that meets the reaction they are getting from a local community. It says that there can only be five consultations in an area. That does not seem to me to be stepping back, allowing the boundary commission to get on with its job, and reacting according to representations from the community.

The Bill sets a rigid timetable, which is acceptable, but subsection (12) says that we will have only six weeks for the second stage and four weeks for the third, because we have a rushed timetable. In the evidence, we were told time and again that this will be a major upheaval because the boundaries are 20 years out of date. Rather than truncating the consultation period in the coming boundary review, we should at least stick to the length of time we are setting for subsequent boundary reviews. Apparently we are not doing that and we can rush at this one, like a bull at a gate.

This is a substantial review that will bring about major changes because of the age of the boundaries we have, which is quite right. I am not arguing about the fact that these changes have to be made and that we have to achieve some sort of equilibrium, which at the same time recognises communities, but it will be a difficult exercise that the Government are making even more difficult because of the timescale they are setting.

Saying that the second stage of the review will have only six weeks and the final stage only four does not seem to be consistent with the idea that we set parameters and let the boundary commission get on with its job. All of a sudden we are starting to put difficulties in its way. I would support the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Glasgow East if it were put to a vote. It is important that we give flexibility to the boundary commission so that the public have confidence in what the commission is doing and that their views can be heard. Even if the outcome is not the boundaries that the public support, at least they will have had the right to have their voices heard in a way that is convenient and in a location that enables them to participate. Putting restrictions on the boundary commission is a step in the wrong direction. I fundamentally disagree with the bit in subsection (12). On a boundary review that is well overdue and is going to be difficult, the Government have set a tougher timescale. The game is up. This really does expose the political considerations. This is all about the timing and choice of a general election date from 2023 onwards. It has nothing whatever to do with doing an efficient job in reviewing parliamentary boundaries.

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[Clive Efford]

The Bill gets more and more curious. The Minister argued consistently on previous clauses for a position that would have prevented us from getting to the clause, had we been in that position of automaticity and the previous boundary reviews had gone through. If it were not for Parliament’s ability to have a second look at what had been set in train, we would not have the clause to have 650 MPs.

It is curious for the Minister to stand up and say that is the right decision and what we should do when she has also argued for something that would have prevented us from getting to this position. That is the argument in favour of Parliament giving the final approval on whatever the boundary commission proposes. It is clear that going down to 600 MPs was a schism imposed on us by two ambitious young politicians who got together in a rose garden and completely fell in love. It was the wrong decision, and when Parliament got the chance to take a second look, it came to a conclusion that both sides of the House support. With the situation we are in, which we have been in for a long time—MPs represent greater numbers of constituents than ever before, and in some of our inner-city areas that involves many people who cannot go on the electoral register—it has been obvious that we should not cut the number of MPs. We are where we are, but that highlights how the Government are arguing for a position that would have resulted in us making a huge error, had it been in place at the time of the last boundary review.

[Christian Matheson]

I will speak only briefly. In fact, I only sought to catch your eye, Sir David, after my right hon. Friend the Member for Warley gave advice to the Minister, based on his years of experience, that she was entitled to criticise previous leaders who may no longer be with us. I thought I would therefore take the opportunity to do what I promised earlier and compliment the Minister on changing her position. I said how she would prove to be flexible, and this is what I was talking about. As my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood said, the reversion to 650 is the right decision, and I very much welcome it. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham just said, is it not great that we are in a position to do that, because automaticity was not in the Bill? I will leave it at that.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 5 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 6

Taking account of local government boundaries

[David Linden]

I beg to move amendment 8, in clause 6, page 4, line 35, before “for” insert “(a)”

This is linked to amendment 9.

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I will not support the amendment. I hope the hon. Member for Glasgow East will withdraw it and see it as a probing amendment, but it has made possible a very important discussion in this Committee.

[Christian Matheson]

I will briefly make two observations and pose a question that the Minister might be able to answer. On the amendment tabled my the hon. Member for Glasgow East, I think we heard in evidence that the Scottish building blocks reflect the reorganisation of local government in Scotland. As such, they are slightly different from those in England and Wales—perhaps in terms of size, although the right hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell has talked about wards of 17,000 people in Leeds, which are extremely large. I hope that we do not take our own experiences of wards in our areas—although I might do just that in a moment—and impose them on other parts of the United Kingdom where they are not appropriate.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

Just to quickly address the hon. Gentleman’s point—it is something that I did not say—he is quite right to say that there are 17,000, 18,000 or 19,000 people in a ward in Leeds. We have similar issues in Kirklees, and I think Birmingham has been mentioned. I am thinking about specific areas where there are huge wards, created from a bunch of wards—in order to reach the right number—that contain totally disparate communities. That is the area we need to look at. In the metropolitan constituencies and councils, that is really important. That might help the hon. Gentleman.

[Christian Matheson]

I am grateful for that clarity. I am less keen on formally using polling districts as building blocks—we will come to this issue when we debate a different amendment—on the basis that they lack the formality of a consulted-on review by an independent body.

I have a question for the Committee that might be within the expertise of an hon. Member or the Minister. In my constituency, I already have split wards. I share one ward with my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) and another with the hon. Member for Eddisbury (Edward Timpson). Split wards already exist, and it is not clear why there needs to be consideration of introducing them into the legislation now, if they are already possible.

[Chris Clarkson (Heywood and Middleton) (Con)]

Just to answer the hon. Gentleman’s question, I believe it is more to do with the fact that his constituency is currently aligned with a set of boundaries that predate the Cheshire West and Chester authority. Should the boundary commission conduct the review, it will probably try to use the current boundaries for Cheshire West and Chester. I am sure he would agree that that would possibly lead to quite an unwieldly seat that does not contain the entire city and might go into rural areas that do not necessarily accord with the more urban parts of his constituency.

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[Christian Matheson]

I am most grateful for that. That might well be the case, although the boundary review area was Cheshire as a whole. I suspect the boundary commission would not want to go over the boundary review area, but that might well be a possibility.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

The hon. Gentleman is being most generous in giving way. There is a split polling district between me and the hon. Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon). I have about 26 houses from one of his large polling districts in my constituency; there is also the M1 motorway between my constituency and his. It makes no sense at all and creates some issues. It is noticeable that, in constituencies where there has been a local boundary change afterwards and there is a split across constituencies, the public are not really affected by that. That point was made in relation to what happens when we split wards and look at polling districts. The public are interested in who their MP, councillor and local authority are. I do not think they particularly mind if a different part of the constituency uses a different local authority.

[Christian Matheson]

With the greatest of respect to the right hon. Gentleman, he is now talking about split polling districts—he is doing my head in. My head is fried. I might just jump out the window.

On the contribution of the hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton, it might be, as the right hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell said, that previous local government boundaries were superimposed on pre-existing parliamentary boundaries. That is entirely possible. If there is some clarification, that is fine. If split wards are permissible, that may go some way towards achieving our aims. I am grateful for that contribution.

[Chris Clarkson]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. I largely agree with my right hon. Friends the Members for Basingstoke and for Elmet and Rothwell, and thank the hon. Member for Glasgow East for his amendment. I will treat it as a probing amendment, and I shall not support it as it stands because we are still awaiting a letter from the boundary commission. My concern is that if we start prescribing units, it becomes dogma. We have seen that three of the boundary commissions are perfectly happy to start looking at innovative ways of splitting wards and treating postcode areas and community council areas as building blocks.

As Mr Bellringer suggested—I am not saying that this is the attitude across the piece, but it appears to be—the boundary commissions will go for the path of least resistance, which at the moment is wards. If we give them something smaller to work with, they will just work to that particular unit. We will get concomitances of polling districts snatched from area A and area B, and it becomes a more microscopic version of what we currently have. I am also concerned about using polling districts. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell said, there is the danger of reintroducing a political element into something when we are trying to take it out by introducing the process of automaticity.

I shall not support the amendment. I greatly appreciate the option of being able to split wards. I am glad that we have had this debate. The Committee has heard from Government-supporting Members that it is something that we are happy to look at, but I consider that being prescriptive is not the most helpful way to approach it.

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[Alec Shelbrooke]

I am not a historian, but there was no war between Berkshire and Hampshire—no wars of the roses.

[Christian Matheson]

I am listening to the points being made by the right hon. Gentleman and the right hon. Member for Basingstoke, but I am not quite clear where the consensus lies. There is an administrative issue that I would ask him to consider when making his argument. He might not want parliamentary boundaries to reflect local government boundaries—no, to be fair, he does not want that to be a primary concern—but there has to be administration of elections, and the fewer local authorities that a constituency is spread across the better.

Once those elections have taken place, there is also less of a workload for a Member of Parliament when he or she represents one local authority, or in some cases two. It becomes difficult to represent more than two local authorities, and the level of service given to constituents is less. Will the right hon. Gentleman take that into account?

[Alec Shelbrooke]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making those points, because I have done some research into that. My constituency is covered only by Leeds City Council, and only five wards of it, because we have such big wards—I have 15 councillors in my constituency. In fact, in most of the Leeds constituencies, there are only four wards, which might give him some idea of where we are. In the Morley and Outwood constituency, the Outwood wards are under the Wakefield authority. The Selby and Ainsty constituency, which is in North Yorkshire, has North Yorkshire County Council, Selby District Council and parts of Harrogate Borough Council and Craven District Council. Many seats are spread over more than one local authority.

I have spoken to my hon. Friend the Member for Selby and Ainsty (Nigel Adams)—he is my neighbour—and asked him about the specifics, such as whether it creates problems. He says that, overall, he is able to deal with those areas. There is a distinction between spreading across authorities in rural areas and in joint metropolitan areas, or things like that. Perhaps that is what the hon. Member for City of Chester refers to.

[Christian Matheson]

The right hon. Gentleman is being generous in giving way. I am concerned about constituencies spread across more than two council areas. Two is manageable, but I do not believe that three would be, which is why I disagree with his view that we should ignore local authority boundaries.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

As I said, my hon. Friend the Member for Selby and Ainsty has four local authorities in his constituency, but I seriously take on board what the hon. Gentleman says about more than two authorities. That still comes back to the point that I am making—a constituency does not have to stay within one local authority. We can keep like communities together and make that work—people want the communities that they understand—especially when a region has a situation: North Yorkshire is half a seat short and West Yorkshire is half a seat short, so there will have to be that crossover. It should not just be an arbitrary line drawn on a map; it is about having regard to like communities.

The only point that I am trying to bring out through this probing amendment—I hope the Boundary Commission for England will look at a way to do it—is that, although some of these things seem obvious, actually in communities they are not so obvious. That is why I used the example of the people of Sherburn in Elmet, who are in North Yorkshire and are covered by Selby District Council and North Yorkshire County Council. They are in a different constituency from me in West Yorkshire and the Leeds City Council area, but they think I am their MP because my constituency has the word “Elmet” in it.

There are local considerations that cannot be defined by the local boundaries. I hope that this probing amendment is able to bring out the need for guidance and advice, which we can give to the Boundary Commission and say, “These things are not as vital.” I am sure that it will have heard the hon. Member for City of Chester, who said that two authorities do not seem to be a problem, but it is stretching it when we start to move beyond that.

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[Chris Clarkson]

My right hon. Friend makes an extremely important point. Every Monday morning, my office sends a load of casework to the hon. Member for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd), because 30% of my seat is Rochdale and people do not automatically think that I am their MP. The reality is that if we are too prescriptive about local government boundaries, we will go back to having these odd Frankenstein seats where we are trying to conform with electoral boundaries. I do not think that being too prescriptive is the right approach.

[Christian Matheson]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman about not being too prescriptive, but he cannot have it both ways. As he said previously, he also supports the 5% absolute tolerance on the numbers. I am pleased to hear him talking about not being too prescriptive, so will he bear that in mind as we proceed through our consideration of the Bill?

[Chris Clarkson]

I can tell the hon. Gentleman that it is foremost in my mind, which is why I was very glad to have the debate that was sparked by the hon. Member for Glasgow East. We need to be less prescriptive about the units that we use to build things, but there is a common-sense approach that does not involve taking ridiculous leaps by keeping whole units together, just because they have arbitrarily been drawn one way by the Local Government Boundary Commission.