Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateJohn Pugh
Main Page: John Pugh (Liberal Democrat - Southport)Department Debates - View all John Pugh's debates with the Leader of the House
(13 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberYes, it is higher than both those figures, because it manages to reach a level that hits the number of Labour seats but not the number of Liberal Democrat seats. That is why the number has been chosen, and that is why I oppose it.
I want to calm things down a bit, and take the hon. Gentleman back to the technical point that he made before. He asked what would happen if the Boundary Commission dealt with a whole pile of seats first, got to about 95% and was perfectly satisfied, and then found, because it had to stick to the number 600, that it got into real difficulty and did some very odd things later on. If that was an issue for the Boundary Commission, we might think that some advice would have been given on it. Has he asked the Boundary Commission what its advice is on that point?
The Boundary Commission will do what it is told to do. If the law of the land changes, the Boundary Commission’s powers and duties are determined by that legislation and it will do what it is required to do.
No, I am not saying that the task is insuperable. Of course it would be possible to draw up the constituencies in the way proposed, but why should one constituency then end up with 95% of the average electorate and another with 105%? [Interruption.] The Deputy Leader of the House keeps on referring to the Rhondda. He obviously has some desire either to do down the people of the Rhondda or to visit the Rhondda, but I am not extending an invitation to him.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) made a good point about how seats might be doled out in the different parts of the Union. It is interesting to analyse what might happen to Sheffield: it would be quite difficult to construct a Liberal Democrat seat for Sheffield, Hallam that would survive—so there is a silver lining somewhere in the legislation.
Some communities will end up without their own representation if we cut the number of seats from 650 to 600 and insist on mathematical perfection. That is a problem.