Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Christopher Pincher Excerpts

Tuesday 15th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

rose—

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

rose—

[Andrew George]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Christopher Pincher]

The Minister has mentioned that the Boundary Commission for England will operate using English regions. Does that mean that it will start by clustering together English counties and then work to refine the boundaries within those counties, or will this be done specifically at regional level?

[Mr Harper]

I can understand why hon. Members are asking me these questions, but these are matters for the boundary commissions. One of the things that we made very clear in the debate when we were being accused of gerrymandering by the Labour party was that in our system the boundary commissions draw the lines, whereas in some other countries those lines are drawn by political parties in legislatures. We have set the guidelines for the boundary commissions and the rules are in the Bill, which we hope will be passed by Parliament and thus enacted. The detail of how the boundary commissions go about that work is a matter for them and they are experienced in doing such work. When they have these public hearings, having published their proposals, they will set out the nature of the scheme under which they are going to listen to people, and they will be very clear about how they have reached their decisions. These are matters for the boundary commissions. I can understand why my hon. Friend is trying to tempt me on this, but it would be wrong for Ministers to try to get involved in directing the boundary commissions on how they carry out their work.