Draft Warrington (Electoral Changes) Order 2016

Gary Streeter Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd February 2016 General Committees

[Mr Gary Streeter (South West Devon) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your distinguished and experienced chairmanship, Mr Evans.

I apologise to the Committee that it will take me about 12 minutes to put on the record the background and process surrounding Warrington. The Local Government Boundary Commission for England is independent of the Government and reports to the Speaker’s Committee on which I serve, which is why I am responding to the powerful speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South. I commend him for his diligence in raising this issue in Parliament. As we all know, he has a reputation for being a real fighter for his constituents in this House, and he has demonstrated that in earnest today. It was also good to hear from his neighbour, the hon. Member for Warrington North, who made some very helpful points.

It might help if I gave the Committee some of the background to this matter. The commission carried out its electoral review of Warrington Borough Council to correct the high levels of electoral imbalances between local wards, which is what it is charged to do under statute. Several of Warrington’s wards currently have over 10% more or fewer voters living in them than the average for the borough. For example, the three councillors elected to Fairfield and Howley ward represent well over 10,000 voters, whereas the three councillors for Penketh and Cuerdley—I hope Members will forgive my pronunciation—represent just under 7,000.

That pattern of imbalances was identified by the commission in the council’s electoral register for 2014 and is repeated across large parts of the borough. In fact, nine of Warrington’s 22 wards—41% of them—have significantly more or fewer voters than the average for the borough. The levels of variance across the borough comfortably breach the commission’s long-standing threshold for triggering a review. The situation means that the value of a person’s vote in council elections varies to a considerable degree depending on where they live in Warrington.

The commission’s programme of electoral reviews is targeted towards authorities with the highest levels of electoral variance between wards or electoral divisions in all 352 English local authorities. Warrington was included in the programme on that basis. The review followed the commission’s well-established electoral review process.

First, the commission asked for evidence from the council about the total number of councillors who should be elected to the council in the future. Warrington Borough Council put forward a case to increase the number of councillors serving the borough by one. The commission analysed the council’s case under three broad headings: first, how the council takes decisions and conducts its business; secondly, how those decisions and decision makers are scrutinised; and thirdly, the representative role of councillors in the community. The commission concluded in May 2015 that an increase of one councillor was justified—that is quite unusual around the country at the moment—and therefore proceeded with the review on the basis of 58 councillors being elected to the authority. There was little contention in the early parts of the electoral review.

In May 2015, the commission started to consider new ward boundaries for the borough. It held a public consultation over 10 weeks to ask the council, local organisations and members of the public to put forward ideas for new ward boundaries. After considering the proposals put forward during the consultation, the commission drew up draft recommendations for new boundaries, which it published in August.

In the north of the borough, the commission’s draft recommendations were largely based on the proposals put to it by the council during consultation, with some minor tweaks. Unfortunately, the submissions received in the south of the borough—largely below the canal—simply did not work within the formula that the law requires. Accordingly, the commission drew its own pattern of wards for the southern tranche. In particular, the council’s proposal for the Lymm area of Warrington would have left that ward with an electoral variance of 19%. The ward would have included more than 500 electors too many to deliver electoral equality.

The commission is flexible in the way that it interprets electoral equality. It recognises that achieving boundaries where each councillor represents exactly, or near to exactly, the same number of voters is likely to lead to perverse outcomes. That is why it will routinely accept variances of up to around 10% and, in exceptional circumstances, more, where there is compelling evidence in relation to community identities or geographic features. My hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South made great play of the issue of variance in Lymm ward, where 19% variance was considered by the commission to be simply too high.

That flexibility is evident in the review of Warrington, where the recommendations allow for two wards with variances of 10% as they reflect community ties and logical boundaries. However, the commission still has a statutory duty, as my hon. Friend rightly said, as set out in the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009, to ensure that each councillor represents roughly the same number of voters. As I said, the commission considered that a variance of 19% would not meet its statutory criteria. There simply was not sufficient community, geographic or local government grounds for allowing such a high level of inequality, even though the commission looked hard, deep and long to see if it could find such supporting reasons.

As a result, the commission sought an alternative pattern of wards and concluded that Lymm should have two borough wards, rather than one. By having two wards, electoral equality could be achieved. As is the case in nearly every boundary review, delivering electoral fairness for Lymm had a knock-on effect on surrounding areas. In order to build a pattern of wards, the commission divided parishes in south Warrington between borough wards. Of particular interest was its decision to divide Appleton parish council and Stockton Heath parish council, both of which were mentioned by my hon. Friend.

The commission’s adherence to its statutory criteria for ward boundaries had a consequential impact on the electoral arrangements of the parishes in question, namely the parish wards to which local parish councillors are elected and the number of parish councillors elected to each ward. Legislation is clear on the procedure when a parish is divided between wards: the commission must abolish the existing parish electoral arrangements and redraw parish ward boundaries so that they match the district or borough ward boundary. In short, no parish ward can cross borough ward boundaries. Therefore, the commission, in its draft recommendations, abolished the electoral arrangements for the two parishes and redrew them so that they matched the proposed ward boundaries. It then consulted on those new arrangements over eight weeks in the summer and autumn.

While the consultation yielded opposition to the proposals, the process did not identify alternative arrangements that would meet the statutory criteria that the commission must follow. Although parishes and others argued eloquently in favour of retaining ward boundaries that matched parish boundaries, they were unable to produce a solution that solved the problem of electoral equality in Lymm while delivering an overall warding pattern for Warrington that balanced the criteria. In fact, the most popular solution put to the commission would have unwound its entire scheme in the north of the borough, which, as the hon. Member for Warrington North confirmed, was broadly supported locally, without setting out how it might be redrawn.

Nevertheless, and in the absence of workable propositions, the commission investigated an alternative pattern of wards for the southern part of the borough as it recognised the strength of feeling about the proposals. Unfortunately, despite its best efforts, the only way it could deliver a scheme that avoided the division of local parishes was to build a ward or a series of wards that straddled the Manchester ship canal, but it did not believe that crossing such a strong and identifiable boundary would support its obligation to promote effective local government.

The commission considered all 144 responses to its consultation on draft recommendations and, in the absence of a coherent solution, it did not feel able to amend the recommendations. That is why the draft order under consideration today includes the proposals relating to Appleton and Stockton Heath Parish Councils. The consequential proposals for new parish wards follow the letter of the law. No parish ward boundary crosses a borough ward and the existing arrangements are abolished.

The commission accepts the well made arguments against its ward boundary proposals. However, it must not only consider local views, but come up with alternatives that can be implemented. In the case of ward boundaries for southern Warrington, it did not believe that any of the alternative proposals would be a better balance to its statutory criteria than the draft recommendations. Similarly, no alternative arguments for parish electoral arrangements were put forward that specifically took into account the changes that had to be implemented by the ward boundary proposals. That is why the commission simply proposed the parish warding arrangements that it was obliged by law to make.

In terms of process, procedure and the legal framework in which it operates, the commission has fulfilled its obligations. However, it accepts that the new parish arrangements leave parish wards that elect several parish councillors next to wards that elect only one or two. That is inelegant to say the least and the commission will look to learn lessons from the review for future purposes. However, it would like to suggest a potential solutions to the issues raised.

Warrington Borough Council may hold a community governance review immediately following elections in May this year. Such a review could look at the lopsided nature of the parish arrangements, which is the source of contention here, and recommend new arrangements that provide for a better spread of parish councillors. To implement the outcome of the review—new parish wards—it must then make a local order, which can specify a year of election.

The council could therefore recommend that new parish arrangements come into force in 2017. There could be an election in 2017 on those new parish boundaries that the review might recommend and the council could hold the next elections in 2020 to bring them back into line with the borough council elections. That seems to be at least a partial solution to meet my hon. Friend’s fierce advocacy on that point.

There are a couple of caveats. First, the council would need to seek the commission’s consent to change the parish electoral arrangements in that way. However, the commission has already indicated that it will not unreasonably withhold consent. Secondly, an additional election for the parish councils in question is required. Nevertheless, it offers a more immediate solution to the problem.

My hon. Friend asked me a number of questions. He asked whether the commission visited Warrington. Yes, it did. Staff and/or commissioners visited Warrington on four occasions during the review, and the commission staff and the lead commissioner toured Warrington to see first-hand the areas of contention and assess the potential boundaries on the ground.

There are three criteria in the 2009 Act, and the commission considered all three carefully when coming up with its proposals, which I hope I have explained. Similar reviews have resulted in no changes between the draft and the commission’s final order—South Buckingham and Milton Keynes are two examples that spring immediately to mind. It is accepted that the parish council arrangements for voting in the next election in the two wards in question are far from ideal, but a partial solution has been suggested. The unfortunate ballot paper that my hon. Friend circulated will be used for just 12 months, and after that we will be back on track. It can then coincide with the elections for the rest of the area.

In conclusion, my hon. Friend made some important points, but sadly the commission cannot withdraw the order without starting the process all over again. That would leave the variances in place for another four years, which is simply unacceptable. The electoral arrangements for all 163,000 voters in Warrington are contingent on the draft order, which will deliver electoral fairness for the long term. As a courtesy to the House, the commission held back from making the order, despite the fact that it completed the process under the negative resolution procedure. Given the proximity of the forthcoming local elections and the partial solution I just mentioned, the commission hopes to be able to make the order shortly so the new, fair electoral arrangements can be implemented for the whole borough.