Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Greg Mulholland and Naomi Long

Tuesday 19th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Greg Mulholland]

Indeed, but the hon. Gentleman makes my point because that huge initial change should not be rushed through, certainly not a mere five years after new constituency boundaries have been formed. He knows—I have said this to him in person—that I support his particular campaign for his area and his constituency to remain as one. He provides living proof of one of the very caveats I agree with to the principle of more equal constituencies, which I generally support.

[Naomi Long]

Another issue that has not been discussed in relation to changing boundaries more regularly is that the elections for this Parliament are out of sync with the Northern Ireland Assembly elections, for example, which happen between general elections but with the same boundaries. When the boundaries change, it can lead to the anomalous position whereby my constituents in Dundonald, for example, are part of the Belfast East parliamentary constituency for Westminster purposes—so I represent them—but they are represented by my Strangford colleague in the Northern Ireland Assembly. They are sometimes uncertain to which constituency they owe their loyalty and to whom they should go with their problems and difficulties. A level of confusion among the electorate is created. I think that is unhelpful if we want to get people more connected with politics, which is what will ultimately improve registration.

[Greg Mulholland]

The hon. Lady reminds us that there are indeed many complications stemming from devolution in the three affected nations. As an English MP, however, my concern with devolution is that there is not yet a satisfactory solution for the English people at this stage—something for which I shall continue to push.

Whenever boundary changes are made or proposed, we see the disfranchisement of possibly hundreds of thousands of people. It results in two classes among the electorate. The first class comprises the people who can vote for someone again after the boundary changes are made; but then there are people in limbo in certain parts of our constituencies. We were their Member of Parliament leading up to the last election, but we knew and they knew that they could not vote for us. They could no longer realistically hold us to account. They could not realistically expect us to knock on their doors—again because they knew and we knew that they could not vote for us. They did not know who their candidates would be in the general election. That is chaos; it should not happen more frequently than once every 10 years. The idea of making boundary changes for every election is simply ridiculous. I hope that that point will be taken seriously on Report and in the other place.