Welsh Grand Committee (Scrutiny)
Debate between Jonathan Evans and Kevin Brennan(13 years, 9 months ago)
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Jonathan Evans
We heard enough from the hon. Gentleman during the parliamentary stages of the legislation.
In Wales, we have a distorted voting system and a situation in which the Labour party, with 36% of the vote, has 65% of the seats. Anything that is done to change that voting system threatens the position of the Labour party.
Kevin Brennan
I hope that the hon. Gentleman is sincere in his belief that we can reduce the number of parliamentary seats in Wales and that he will still be able to keep his seat by carving up the Liberal Democrats. Nevertheless, does he agree that it would have been good to have the opportunity to discuss the points that he raises at a meeting of the Welsh Grand Committee?
Jonathan Evans
I intend to make only a brief speech and I will come to that matter, but I first wanted to put on the record my views about the legislation. The hon. Gentleman invites me to say what the impact would be on my constituency. The Electoral Reform Society has produced a report in which it speculates on what the outcome might be, and it suggests that my seat would revert to the Labour party. However, that makes no difference to my enthusiasm for the legislation. Why? Because I am a democrat. I see a situation in which my opponent, who was a very well regarded Member of the House, and over whom I had the smallest majority, had the second largest Labour vote in Wales, yet is not a Member of the House. Why? Because 25 of the 26 Labour seats in Wales have significantly smaller electorates than our electorate. We need to deal with that.