Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Greg Hands Excerpts

Monday 6th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I will make a little more progress.

The commissions will continue to use the electoral register as the basis for their reviews. That has been a feature of the system for decades, under Governments of all shades. With registration in Great Britain at well over 90% and in line with comparable countries, the register remains the best basis for reviews. That is not to say that where people are not on the register, we should do nothing. That has been the attitude for far too long. Under-registration exists in coastal areas and the inner cities, among younger people, including students, and minority ethnic groups. There is no silver-bullet solution. We are investigating a number of solutions, including freeing up local authorities to use existing public sector databases to identify people who are not registered, and then actively encouraging them to register. We are also acting to tackle registration fraud, accelerating the shift to a system of individual, rather than household, registration—a process started by Labour Members.

[Greg Hands (Chelsea and Fulham) (Con)]

Does the Deputy Prime Minister share my consternation that, for the first time in 50 years, under the previous Labour Government, the total UK electorate registered in this country declined when the UK population was rising—between 2001 and 2005? If Labour was serious about getting people on to the electoral register, it did a pretty poor job of doing so in government.

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

It is a distinguishing feature of this debate, and previous debates, that Labour Members are now very animated about matters that they did absolutely nothing about in government.

I now turn to the referendum on the alternative vote. Fewer, more equally sized and more up-to-date constituencies will help to bolster the legitimacy of parliamentary elections. However, in parallel with that step, we must address the question of reform of our voting system. Some believe that we are better served by sticking with the current system, which, they say, benefits from its familiarity and strong constituency link. Others believe that it leads to too many safe seats, giving many MPs jobs for life with only minority support from their constituents. Advocates of AV note that it would retain the current constituency link, but that it would give people more say over their vote by allowing them to rank candidates in order of preference. As a general rule, therefore, MPs would come to Westminster with the support of the majority of their voters.

--- Later in debate ---

[Greg Hands (Chelsea and Fulham) (Con)]

I rise to support the Bill, although I shall talk mainly about part 2, on parliamentary boundary reviews, as somebody who was heavily involved in the boundary review in my own area of north London last time around. It was a very lengthy process that began in 2001 and ended in 2007. That is the important point—reviews are currently extremely long-winded affairs. It is crucial to understand that they are far too long and infrequent, and as a consequence we have electoral data that are far too dated to produce a modern electoral system and lead to far too many constituencies being either too small or too large when the boundary changes finally come in, as they did most recently this past May. In fact, the boundaries introduced then are based on electorates drawn up in 2000, so we have just kicked off with new boundaries that are already 10 years out of date.

Under the old system, we would normally be expected to have those boundaries for up to three Parliaments, which could mean that they are in place until such a time as 2024, for example. By that time, the electoral data will be a colossal 24 years out of date. In the last Parliament, the electoral data were already 16 years out of date in 2009. It is very important that we have more frequent and thorough boundary reviews based on current data.

I want to say a couple of quick words on the alternative vote, which I do not support. I will campaign for a no vote on AV, and if I had a free choice I would not put it to a referendum. However, it is clearly a constitutional matter, and it is important that such proposals should be put to referendums. I welcome the coalition Government’s commitment that such questions, including a proposal to change the voting system, should be put to a referendum. As it currently stands, and as I believe the Labour party offered to the Liberal Democrats in the abortive coalition negotiations in May, any Government can come along and arbitrarily decide to change the system through legislation without having a referendum. I therefore commend the Government for seeing that the matter needs a referendum, which will set an important precedent.

There are two possible objections to having more frequent boundary reviews, and especially to their being held every Parliament. One is cost, and the other is administrative inconvenience for Members of Parliament and others involved in electoral administration. Those are the only two possible objections to more frequent and regular boundary reviews, but unfortunately the Labour party has chosen not to have one of them as its grounds for objection. It is objecting, on absurd grounds, to the creation of equality for electors in a parliamentary constituency, something on which it and its predecessors have been campaigning since the early 19th century. Suddenly, Labour Members are the people defending the principle that constituents should be unequal, which is entirely wrong.

It is perfectly possible to have boundary reviews much more quickly. The previous one lasted six years, but the meat of it lasted about a year and a half from the time when the first proposals were made to the time when they were approved by the Boundary Commission. Thereafter, it mainly came down to approval by Parliament.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Greg Hands]

I will give way once.

[Geraint Davies]

Given that it has been said that the savings would be £12 million, how many hundred million pounds does the hon. Gentleman estimate the reduction by 50 MPs will cost, given the judicial activity and so on that will happen?

[Greg Hands]

That is a bit of a red herring because judicial activity that is happening through the current system, with the local reviews, is extremely expensive. I personally think that those matters are not for the court or lawyers—they are administrative matters. They should never have been given over to QCs and other lawyers because they are simply not matters of law. We are considering reviews of how parliamentary boundaries are drawn, and they should be more frequent and more effective.

I want to end by examining the Labour party’s position. It has set out to oppose equal-sized parliamentary constituencies. Let us consider that for a moment. The right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) used the word “gerrymandering”. He should know better; his use of it was an abuse of the English language. One cannot describe a way of formulating a set of seats as gerrymandering, but one can so describe its execution, for example in an irregularly shaped constituency, particularly one made for party political purposes. However, that will be down to the Boundary Commission, so thankfully there cannot be any gerrymandering—we have an independent Boundary Commission to conduct the execution.

Let me mention three points of 19th-century history. The right hon. Gentleman studied law at university. Perhaps he is like Tony Blair, who, having completed his time in politics, thinks that he should have studied history instead of law. The Labour party did not exist in 1832, but many Labour party members believe that the Great Reform Act of 1832 presaged the development of the modern Labour party. Yet that was all about abolishing rotten boroughs and trying to create a system of parliamentary constituencies of equal size. Before that, we had constituencies such as Gatton with seven electors, Old Sarum with 13 electors, Dunwich with 32 electors and so on, while the whole of Yorkshire, including the great cities of Leeds, Sheffield and Hull, had some 20,000 electors.

I shall pray in aid the Chartists. The right hon. Gentleman knows that their people’s charter of 1838 is frequently cited as one of the origins of the modern Labour party. Many people in the Labour party hark back to the six points in the people’s charter. Point 5 is:

“Equal constituencies, securing the same amount of representation for the same number of electors; instead of allowing small constituencies to swamp the votes of larger ones.”

That is from the people’s charter of 1838, which Labour is seeking to revoke.

I welcome the commitment that AV is a constitutional matter. I welcome more frequent and faster boundary reviews, but I am afraid that Labour’s opposition to the Bill is cynical and self-serving. Their predecessors would be deeply ashamed of what they are doing today.