Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

John Penrose Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion & Programme motion: House of Commons
Tuesday 2nd June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Cat Smith]

I thank the hon. Member for giving me the opportunity to put on record my concerns about the overstretched nature of electoral returning officers in our councils right across the country. Cuts to local government have not protected electoral returning officers and the resources that they are working with.

Turning to the issue of the electoral quota, I know that Members across the House will want to highlight their concerns about the impact of this boundary review on communities in their constituencies. Community has never been stronger than during these troubling months. Right across the country, we are seeing communities come together to support vulnerable people, and now more than ever, community connections must be valued and respected. However, the restrictive 5% quota tolerance in the Bill flies in the face of protecting community ties. I know that many of my Welsh colleagues are planning to speak this afternoon, and they will highlight some of the geographical challenges the quota throws up—by which I mean mountains dividing constituencies. In Devon and Cornwall, the Government have repeatedly ignored the historic and proud identities of those counties. Boundaries based on strict numbers that ignore identities do not carry community support, as we have seen with the so-called Devonwall seats in the last review. Will the Minister ensure that there is no Devonwall seat in this Bill? I suspect that Cornish MPs might want to table an amendment to protect Cornish identity. If they were to do so, would the Minister back them?

As the Minister knows, there is consensus among respected experts such as Ron Johnston, David Rosser and Charles Pattie, who agree that the 5% rule causes significant disruption to community boundaries. Indeed, they concluded that the substantial disruption on the map of constituencies in the aborted sixth review was not entirely the result of the reduction of the number of MPs from 650 to 600; their report showed in detail that disruption was caused by the introduction of the uniform national quota and the 5% tolerance. I commend to the Minister the private Member’s Bill introduced by the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), which suggests a 7.5% quota. Communities across the UK will be more representative if a wider quota is introduced. Why is the Minister refusing to accept the evidence and introduce a quota that would be better for everyone?

[John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con)]

Is this not an example of the prayer of St Augustine—grant me chastity and continence, but just not yet? If we are going to do this, let us do it right and let us do it now. The hon. Lady is making an argument for perpetuating inequity.

[Cat Smith]

I completely dispute the hon. Member’s argument; that is absolutely not the case. I am very keen that the Government should be able to get on with this boundary review. I want new boundaries to be in place ahead of the next general election, because at the moment we stand in this House representing constituencies based on data that is two decades old. We should absolutely move on from the status quo, but I am saying that we should ask for a quota of 7.5%, because we could then keep community ties together and represent constituencies that actually look like the communities we stand here and claim to represent.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con)]

I must confess that when I heard the Labour Front-Bench spokesman begin her remarks my heart soared. It sounded as though there had been an outbreak of agreement and peace across both sides of the aisle that we have to get on with this; that was wonderful. We all agree on the number of MPs we are going to have. That is also wonderful. Then, rather like my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson), I started to think, “Hang on a second, if we agree on so much, how come there is a reasoned amendment?” I come back to a point that I made earlier in an intervention. I just worry that people looking into this place from outside will see a bunch of MPs arguing their own book and not being honest about it. It is the point that the Father of the House made when he said that it is very difficult for any Parliament—this one or any previous one—to talk about boundaries without seeming to be mired in self-interest. It is extremely difficult to do and it is noticeable that the process comes unstuck when either the proposals of the independent boundary commission are so contrary to the views of the Government of the day that they start looking for excuses not to pass them, or the Government of the day do not have enough of a majority, as happened repeatedly in the past couple of years, to get the proposals through and the majority of the House’s self-interest beyond the Government operates to stop a statutory instrument going through. None of that makes our democracy, MPs or Parliament look good.

There is an old saying about the difference between a hedgehog and a fox. The hedgehog knows one big thing and the fox knows many small things. We need to be more like the hedgehog and remember that there is one big thing that matters above all: fairness and equal weight of votes. It is all very well to say, “Yes, but there are all these other technical problems”, and there are—there are definitely technical problems with getting enough people to register on time and stay registered and we need to fix those—but it is not good enough for us to stand here and claim that as an excuse for not having fairness and equal votes. To use that as an excuse is like the prayer of St Augustine:

“Give me chastity and continency—but not yet.”

It is time—it is past time. We need to do this now. We need to lock it in to ensure that future Parliaments, no matter who is in Government, cannot act out of self-interest to scupper this fundamental point about our democracy. If we do not get this right, our democracy’s credibility, fundamental fairness and underpinnings are fatally weakened and undermined.

We have gone on too long without fixing the problem. I will therefore support Second Reading. I urge Labour Members to reconsider their position and cleave to this idea, while at the same time, as the Father of the House said, it is up to Government Members to accept that there are other—less important but still crucial—points about trying to ensure that we get our registration process right and better voting rolls. If we can do both those things, we will have a democracy that works and of which we can proud. We do not accept that there is a trade-off between security and accuracy when we do online banking. We should not do it when we vote at the polling booth.