Huw Irranca-Davies
Main Page: Huw Irranca-Davies (Labour - Ogmore)Department Debates - View all Huw Irranca-Davies's debates with the Wales Office
(13 years, 8 months ago)
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Alun Michael
I have given way to the hon. Gentleman several times. I wish to conclude my remarks because others wish to speak.
Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)
I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way. The signal difference between the approach that he and his predecessors in the Wales Office took and the current one is that when controversial decisions had to be made he took them to be debated and to face challenge, and heaven knows he had enough controversial decisions on his plate. That is a signal of good government. The Secretary of State for Wales does not speak for Wales; the only people who speak for Wales now are those on the Opposition Benches.
Alun Michael
It is our responsibility as Members of Parliament to enhance democracy, and those in power can help to do that only by listening and debating. That is the essential point. I am concerned about that, not only on this topic, although it is the burning topic before us, but on the grounds that for the next five years we need topics that affect Wales to be debated properly in regular meetings of the Welsh Grand Committee—
Jonathan Evans
I intend to make only a brief speech and I will come to that matter, but I first wanted to put on the record my views about the legislation. The hon. Gentleman invites me to say what the impact would be on my constituency. The Electoral Reform Society has produced a report in which it speculates on what the outcome might be, and it suggests that my seat would revert to the Labour party. However, that makes no difference to my enthusiasm for the legislation. Why? Because I am a democrat. I see a situation in which my opponent, who was a very well regarded Member of the House, and over whom I had the smallest majority, had the second largest Labour vote in Wales, yet is not a Member of the House. Why? Because 25 of the 26 Labour seats in Wales have significantly smaller electorates than our electorate. We need to deal with that.
Jonathan Evans
I am happy to give way to the hon. Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies).
Huw Irranca-Davies
On the Welsh Grand Committee’s inability to have the opportunity to express the views of Welsh Members, one of the points I would have made in the Committee is that the concoction in the Bill means that any subsequent Government of a different political colour could take all the mechanisms in the Bill and—by the simple arithmetical change of saying that instead of 76,000 electors, we shall go to 80,000 or 100,000—gerrymander directly to their benefit under exactly the same arguments of democracy: one person, one vote, and equal votes. Does the hon. Gentleman not understand that the failure to give us the opportunity in the Welsh Grand to articulate not just the parochial dangers to our own seats but the dangers to democracy in the Bill is a signal failure of the Government?
Jonathan Evans
The basis on which I look at our system in Wales is that we have a gerrymandered system. The reality is that the Boundary Commission is invited to look at the historical basis of our constituencies. That is why all those constituencies are so small and why I am an enthusiastic supporter of the change.