Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Huw Irranca-Davies Excerpts

Tuesday 15th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

rose—

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Harper]

I think that the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Joan Walley) has first dibs.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Winnick]

rose—

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

rose—

[Mr Harper]

I will be happy to take interventions when I have made a little more progress. I think that the House would expect me to do that in a time-limited debate.

We have also amended the Bill to provide that the boundary commissions must publish all the responses to their initial consultation and allow an additional period during which people will be able to make further representations or counter-representations related to the arguments put forward by others. This is the second area where we thought that some good points had been made in the debate, and we acted in response to an amendment tabled by Lord Lipsey on the Opposition Benches. We think that this amendment, in combination with the public hearing proposals, will deliver a consultation process that represents a real improvement not only on the one that was in the Bill originally, but on that in the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986.

We have made other significant amendments to part 2. We have tabled amendments explicitly to empower the boundary commissions to use wards as the building blocks for constituencies—the other place got very exercised about that—and to give the commissions discretion to take account of existing parliamentary boundaries. The amendments respond to concerns about the degree of explicit guidance given to the commissions on what they could take into account. We have accepted an amendment expressly enabling the Boundary Commission for England to take account of the boundaries of the City of London.

In response to an amendment from Lord Williamson, a Cross Bencher, we will require that a review is established after implementation of the new constituencies at the next election to consider the impact of the reduction in the number of seats in this place to 600. There was extensive debate about that in the other place, where we heard all about the fears, largely of those who had been Members of Parliament, that slightly fewer—7.6% fewer—Members of Parliament in this place may place constraints on their ability to do the job. We thought that Lord Williamson’s suggestion of a review in the next Parliament to consider the effect of that reduction to see whether there were some lessons that could be learned was very sensible, and we were happy to accept it.