Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Jim Fitzpatrick Excerpts

Monday 1st November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mark Tami]

rose—

[Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mrs Laing]

I will not give way to the hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami) again, but I give way to the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick).

[Jim Fitzpatrick]

Does the hon. Lady support—I fully presume that she does—the building of the big society, as outlined by her right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench? Is not the Select Committee’s suggestion that the boundary commissions should have this arrangement for people to make representations an acknowledgement that the elimination of public inquiries is creating a vacuum and depriving citizens of the opportunity to make such representations, and therefore totally contradicts the big society in preventing expressions of disappointment or concern about the proposals from being heard?

[Mrs Laing]

The hon. Gentleman is, as ever, very clever in the way that he puts his point, but this has nothing to do with the big society. I take his point that the boundary commissions must be seen to be operating fairly, but I argue strongly that there is no need for them to take year after year, spending more and more taxpayers’ money, listening to political parties making points that are cleverly disguised as being about ancient boundaries, communities and so on, when in fact they are about the perceived electoral advantage or disadvantage of each particular political party. Anyone involved in politics knows perfectly well that that happens. At a time when we should be spending money on the real big society issues of which the hon. Gentleman is only too well aware, we should not be spending enormous amounts of taxpayers’ money on keeping the boundary commissions doing that year after year.