Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Lee Rowley 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

[Lee Rowley (North East Derbyshire) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I shall try my best to fit what I have into the minute and a half or so that I have.

I welcome the Bill, and I am glad to see that it has been brought forward. It has been a long time coming, even for those of us who are relatively new in this place. It provides clarity on a national level, or will do, and it also provides clarity on a local level for constituencies and seats, such as mine, that have been moved around in the proposals over the past 10 years or so. It will be good to get a final, clear view about what is going to happen and when.

If I may, I will make two brief points before the wind-ups begin. First, I support the principle of equalisation. One person one vote is important, but so is the representation of those people being equal in this place. As competent, as capable and as excellent as my colleagues are in other parts of Derbyshire, it cannot be right that one Member of Parliament in Derbyshire has 10,000 people less than me and another Member of Parliament has nearly 9,000 people more than me. That variation does raise questions about how we represent our constituencies in this place. It is why I am not convinced by some of the arguments that have been made in this Chamber on this matter, including, unfortunately, by the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones).

Secondly, it is vital that we have up-to-date information and data on this. While the data itself came later, the processes for starting the data in the fifth periodic review, on which I was elected in December, were done before I even became eligible to vote. Since then, I have voted in six general elections, I have stood in three of them and I have had the privilege of being elected in two. It cannot be the case that we continue to use data that is that far out of date. It undermines the legitimacy of this place, and I look forward to its being corrected in the Bill when it goes through the House.