Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

George Howarth Excerpts

Monday 1st November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sadiq Khan]

I was coming to that. I am not embarrassed to say that political parties have a huge role to play in a democracy. We are going around the world, not only lecturing, but helping emerging democracies. They have a lot to learn from us, so hon. Members should be careful of what they throw away in the interests of victories at future general elections.

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend prayed in aid Merseyside, but he should not take that argument too far, because Wirral now has a lot of undersized constituencies, while Knowsley, which I represent, has a very large one. It does not always work out perfectly.

[Sadiq Khan]

My right hon. Friend makes my point for me. There will be many people who are unhappy with how boundaries are drawn up—there always have been, and there always will be—but having a fair process at least makes people believe that they are involved in how boundaries are redrawn. If he is this disgruntled with the old system, let us imagine how he will feel if the only chance to object is by a written submission in a 12-week window that he might not have heard about.

[Mr Howarth]

My right hon. Friend needs to realise the fact that, because Wirral ended up with undersized constituencies, one constituency in Knowsley disappeared altogether. It was not done as a nice statistical exercise. It was basically done on the prejudices of the people of Wirral, who did not want to be seen to cross the river and be considered as part of Liverpool.

[Sadiq Khan]

As somebody who does not get the chance to go to Anfield as much as he would like, I take my right hon. Friend’s point. I am happy for him to invite me up and show me the consequences of the changes made.

The Bill’s new inflexible rules and proposals for an arbitrary reduction in the number of constituencies will mean that the situations I have illustrated will occur in many more areas. At exactly the point when public inquiries will be at their most valuable, the Government are proposing to abolish them. Even those who hold reservations about the workings of public inquiries concede that now is not the time to end their use—quite the opposite in fact. Professor Ron Johnston told the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee:

“where public inquiries had a big impact from what the Commission initially proposed to the final solution was where either a seat was being added to a county or being taken away and then everything was up for grabs and, not surprisingly, there was much more fighting over it”.

He continued:

“that is an argument for having public inquiries this time because you are drawing a totally new map with new constituencies and nearly everything will be different…This time you are going to have much more where the local people are going to be concerned because suddenly the pattern of representation is going to be very different from what they have been used to for a long time.”

Importantly, Professor Johnston’s view was echoed by Robin Gray, the former chair of the Boundary Commission for England, who told the Select Committee:

“Particularly with this first round I can see there is a real need for public inquiries particularly to enable those who are interested, political parties and others, to actually argue this through because there are going to be big changes”.

He made another important point. He noted that the main responses under the new system will come in shortly before the end of the 12-week deadline, which means that participants will not necessarily know the counter-proposals made. The main benefit of inquiries is that all those with an objection feel that they have had an opportunity to be heard, and can understand the arguments against them and why they might be unsuccessful.

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[Mark Durkan]

I do not want to dwell on this, because I spoke about it in the context of an earlier amendment, but we should bear in mind that the boundaries will be revised in every single Parliament and Assembly as a result of the Bill. Given the way in which the seats will be distributed in the various parts of the United Kingdom, the chances are that the number of seats in Northern Ireland will fall following one boundary review, rise following the next, and then fall again.

The unsettling nature of the reviews will affect Assembly and parliamentary constituencies. A computer will say, “This is what we have to do,” and it is possible that constituencies will receive the word that the computer says that there must be a reduction from 15 to 14 following the next boundary review. That will be hugely destabilising, and people will feel frustrated when they are told, “Sorry, this pays no regard to the Northern Ireland Assembly.” Another of my amendments, in a subsequent group, would enable the Speaker of the Assembly to be notified formally of all the workings of the boundary commissions. That would make at least some acknowledgement of the impact on the Assembly, which is completely absent from the Bill.

I believe that if the Government are refusing to allow local inquiries elsewhere—and they should not do that—they should at least allow, as a fall-back, a general inquiry in Northern Ireland that will take account of its particular circumstances. I will support any and all amendments that defend local inquiries.

I ask Members to bear my amendment in mind; I ask the Government to continue to acknowledge that there is a deficit in the consideration that they have given to Northern Ireland in the Bill, and to be ready to make up for that deficit.

[Mr George Howarth]

It is a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan), who always speaks with a deep understanding of Northern Ireland, with a great passion for Northern Ireland, and, of course, with eloquence.

I was elected in a by-election in 1986 to represent a constituency that was then known as Knowsley, North. I represented Knowsley, North in the House until 1997. Following earlier boundary changes—a public inquiry had been held before the boundaries were finally fixed—I ended up representing a constituency known as Knowsley, North and Sefton, East. I represented Knowsley, North and Sefton, East for 13 years. In the meantime, the boundary commissioner came along again, and I now represent a constituency known as Knowsley. I therefore speak as one who has experienced dramatic boundary changes in my constituency on two occasions.

I think it instructive to examine what happened on both those occasions. On the first occasion, when the boundary commission proposed that the Knowsley, North constituency should be coupled with Sefton, East, a public inquiry was held. Different views were expressed on either side of the boundary about what was and what was not appropriate. People had their say. I attended the inquiry on more than one occasion, and heard the debates about what links existed between the two constituencies.

Two facts emerged that tipped the balance. The first was that a large number of people living in the Sefton, East part of what subsequently became the Knowsley, North and Sefton, East constituency worked in Knowsley, which was an industrial area. The second was that many people travelled between the two areas for leisure purposes.

The leisure centre in Kirkby, which was in the old Knowsley, North constituency, was heavily used by people from Maghull, Aintree and Melling, so a link was established, but it would never have been established—nobody would have even checked the statistics on this—unless there had been a public inquiry. In the end, the original Boundary Commission proposals stood and the new constituency was formed; it became a parliamentary seat at the 1997 general election.

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[Mr Dave Watts (St Helens North) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend will be aware that the last time the number-crunching took place the Boundary Commission recommended that one constituency should be half on one side of the river and half on the other. How does he feel he could represent a constituency that had the River Mersey running between its two halves?

[Mr Howarth]

I do not think that that would be impossible. After all, two tunnels and a bridge run between the two areas, and there is a proposal for a further bridge. I do not think it would be beyond the wit of man, or even my hon. Friend and me, to commute either under a tunnel or over a bridge. The point is that, as I said a little earlier—I do not know whether he was in his place at the time—the consequence of the arrangements is that we have undersized constituencies in the Wirral and oversized constituencies in some parts on the other side of the river.

[Sadiq Khan]

Is the point not that under the Bill, as drafted—I refer to clauses 11(2) and 11(5)—numbers trump everything? All the points made by my right hon. Friend and by other hon. Friends do not matter a jot, because numbers trump everything.

[Mr Howarth]

Yes, and my right hon. Friend may not have realised it, but I am actually supporting his argument. The point I am making is that a public inquiry is able to examine any problems that are thrown up as a result of that, and that is why I am supporting his amendment 15, which would create the circumstances in which public inquiries could still be held.

[Dr Whitehead]

I wonder whether my right hon. Friend, in reflecting on the problems of the Mersey, might also consider the issues of the Solent and the proposition that 40,000 people will be taken away from the Isle of Wight and distributed to a constituency somewhere in Hampshire. They know not where, they would have no say in where that might be and, as far as I can see, the Boundary Commission may not even be able to determine whether a ferry actually connects them with where they might go. Does he think that that is a reasonable way to proceed on a boundary change—with no public inquiry and no input into what might happen in future?

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[Mr Howarth]

It is very tempting to be taken down the road that my hon. Friend seeks to lead me, but having spent a lifetime struggling with the problems of the Mersey I am hardly likely to spend what remains of my life struggling with the problems of the Solent. He makes his point effectively.

My key point is that there are practical implications to such changes. They need to be examined and the best way to do that is in a public inquiry. The hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing), for whom I have some affection—she referred to Socrates, so perhaps at this point I should say that it is entirely Platonic—outlined the argument that this issue is not important and that a lot of these inquiries were vexatious and just held for the benefit of political parties. I do not think that is true. My experience of having sat through two public inquiries into major constituency boundary changes is that people from the community—people from community groups or individuals—come along, express their opinion and either it is taken into account or it is not. If there is a valid objection, it will often be taken into account: if not, not. The point is that they are the most important people in that inquiry. It is important to them with whom they are linked in a parliamentary constituency.

I come back to the point that my right hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) was making: of course there needs to be fairness on the size of constituencies, but if we reach the point where they are purely mathematical entities and if everybody changes—if it is like a roundabout, where someone jumps on at one point and jumps off at the next election, finding themselves representing an entirely different constituency—the relationship between the constituency, the Member of Parliament and the people whom that Member of Parliament represents will change dramatically. Not only will those constituencies be a mathematical entity, but Members of this House will start to view them in that light. That will dramatically change the relationship with our constituents.

[John Mann]

rose—

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Howarth]

I shall give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) and then to my hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith). Then I really do want to finish this speech.

[John Mann]

I thank my right hon. Friend for generously giving way, and he is making an excellent point. Will the problem not be further and particularly compounded by the fact that with individual registration proposed for 2014-15, there will be a huge ripple effect throughout the country—particularly in areas where there are university residences with large concentrations of students who are automatically registered by the university authorities? If students are not automatically registered, there will be a huge ripple effect throughout the country that will alter the boundaries significantly in every constituency?

[Mr Howarth]

My hon. Friend is quite right. The ripple effect in a metropolitan county such as Merseyside, which I described earlier, would go right through the country.

[Nia Griffith]

I thank my right hon. Friend for allowing me to intervene. Does he not agree that the key point about public inquiries is that rule by consent is the basis of democracy? If people, because of the abolition of public inquiries, feel that they have no voice—if they feel that they have no chance to make their opinions heard, whether or not their opinion is the one that is found in favour of—that will do absolutely nothing to get rid of the cynicism about democracy and nothing to help people to take part. That will bring the coalition Government into absolute disrepute.

[Mr Howarth]

My hon. Friend put that argument very well indeed and I would struggle to find the words to match what she has just said.

Let me conclude. I genuinely believe that what is proposed by taking away public inquiries as part of the process is that the relationship between constituent, Member of Parliament and constituency, which is already fractured, will split completely. I think we will end up in a situation where constituencies are simply ships of convenience. I hope that that day never comes and that the Government will at some point wake up and realise that this is not the right way to do things.

[Mr Dodds]

I want to speak in support of amendment 209, tabled in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for South Antrim (Dr McCrea), as well the consequential amendment 210. It would delete proposed new section 5(2) from clause 12 so that the status quo was maintained and a public inquiry could be held by a boundary commission. As that is the purpose of my amendment, I have no difficulty in lending my support and that of my hon. Friends to amendment 15, proposed by the right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan). As regards the other amendments in this group, I am happy to support amendment 194, tabled by the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan). As he said, it is a fall-back provision if the House decides to do away with the option of having local public inquiries in general. At the very least, I agree that there should be such a provision that would cover Northern Ireland as a region because of the particular circumstances that he so ably outlined.

I want to make a few general comments very briefly, then a couple that relate specifically to Northern Ireland. First, we have had a very good debate. Everyone who has spoken in this and the previous one spoke against the Bill and its provisions. I have not heard many speeches in support of it, other than from those on the Government Front Bench. [Interruption.] I am sorry: the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing), who has returned to her place, strongly opposed part 1 of the Bill on the alternative vote, so she is in the category of having opposed the Bill on some matters but, as she made clear, she would go much further than the Bill does on other matters. I got the clear impression that she would be happy to do away with constituencies altogether and have one great list system in which everyone voted in relation to the entire country. She might be happier with such a system, but we shall not rehearse that debate as we have already had exchanges on it.

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[Mr Heath]

I am telling the hon. Gentleman why, if he will just listen.

The boundaries in force in England for the first time at the general election in May were based on electoral register data that were 10 years out of date. I do not think that is acceptable, and nor should Opposition Members.

[Mr George Howarth]

The Deputy Leader of the House makes a fair point that those registers were out of date. Does he believe it is of equal concern that 3.5 million people will not be registered by the time the new constituency boundaries are drawn up?

[Mr Heath]

Yes, it is very important that we get people registered, and it is an indictment of the previous Government’s conduct that they totally failed to deal with the gap in registration. However, I have to say that it is not relevant to the issue before us at the moment.