Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Jonathan Edwards Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

I do recall my hon. Friend raising the matter of “The Wrong Trousers” and Wallace and Gromit, but I think his metaphor does not work in this case. Gromit was laying down pieces of track ahead of him, whereas the Government are laying down pieces of track behind them—pieces of track that they have not been over; this is putting the horse before the cart before the horse before the cart. There is a real problem in the process that the Government have adopted, and I very much hope that their lordships will want to examine it carefully.

What is also wrong is that because the Government have tabled 28 pages of amendments that we have to debate on Report, they have had to set aside a chunk of time for us to do so. That has been done not because the House wanted it, or to bring about greater consensus on the Bill, but to meet the Government’s own business needs, and as a result of their own haste. The fact that we have not had a single moment’s debate about the decoupling of seats in the Welsh Assembly and their coterminosity with Westminster seats is a disgrace. If, as we had requested, a knife had not been put in yesterday night’s proceedings, it would have been possible for us to have debated that matter now, rather than the measures that we have to debate at this point.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree when a clause is specific to a constituent part of the United Kingdom, there should be allotted time to debate that clause?

[Chris Bryant]

I am afraid that I sort of disagree with the hon. Gentleman. It is important that there should be time to debate such a clause. We tabled an amendment yesterday that a clause should be deleted from the Bill, just so that we could have that debate. On Report there is no other way of having that debate—but I am not sure that it is always right to put in knives, because that leads to some complexities in the management of time. That is why we argued that we should not have knives.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr MacNeil]

The hon. Lady is right. I wish that the status that the Scottish Government, the Welsh Assembly Government and the Northern Ireland Government should have were enshrined in legislation.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for speaking to the amendment. On the respect agenda, can he explain to me, because I do not understand, why the UK Government are against holding a referendum on further powers for Wales on the same day as the Welsh Assembly elections, yet are in favour of the referendum on AV? Obviously the referendum on further powers is far more relevant in terms of the Welsh Assembly elections.

[Mr MacNeil]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point, because that is an example of a lack of joined-up thinking, and, if the Government were to undertake this process again, they would not start from here, as it were. They find themselves where they are and have to employ the best arguments, regardless of how sticky the wicket might be.

This Bill, like the spending cuts, has moved fast, and had some respect been shown, we might have supported it to a far greater extent than we have been able to. I shall not push my amendment to a vote, because I am sure that the Government have heard my point. Indeed, I think that the Minister has confirmed that the relevant costs will be the sole responsibility of the UK Government, and that makes me very pleased. However, it is my sincere hope that, until Scotland gains its independence, the Government will give us the respect that we truly deserve—the respect that was shown today to France and on other days to Norway.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jonathan Edwards]

Does the hon. Lady recognise that historically there has always been a weighting in favour of the Celtic nations to ensure that we do not have an England-dominated Parliament?

[Mrs Laing]

No, I certainly do not. The hon. Gentleman’s point has no validity whatever. This is the Parliament of the United Kingdom—of the whole United Kingdom—and every constituency in this United Kingdom should be of equal size and should have an equal number of voters. Every Member who is elected to this Parliament should come here with an equal weight of electorate behind them.