Parliamentary Constituencies (Amendment) Bill: Committee Stage

Lloyd Russell-Moyle Excerpts

Tuesday 19th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

That is to be confirmed, but the right hon. Gentleman is correct that the boundary commissions of all four nations will be reporting imminently. It has been a huge and very expensive undertaking that absolutely upholds the principles of democracy.

Let us get back to what is under discussion today. The motion seeks to erode the fundamental principle that it is the Crown, through its Ministers, that has the exclusive right of demanding money and of defining the purposes for which that money is required. The core responsibility of the Government is accountability to the taxpayer. The Opposition may not understand that, but we on this side of the House most certainly do.

The motion would allow the Bill Committee to consider the substantive clauses of the Bill, amend the Bill and potentially introduce new material into the Bill. The conventions of the House are very clearly set out in “Erskine May”, which states that

“any financial provisions which”—

a Bill—

“may contain must be authorised by a resolution of the House, i.e. a money resolution, before they can be considered by the committee on the bill.”

The financial provisions contained in a Bill—in this case the money clause, which is clause 5—are there on First Reading to indicate that the Crown initiative is needed. The existence of these money clauses, or in other cases the existence of italicised provisions, is the practice by which it is indicated that Second Reading is contingent on a financial recommendation from the Government. This financial recommendation must come before the House or its Committees can proceed with detailed consideration of the Bill’s contents.

If a Committee is allowed to consider the substance of the Bill in the absence of a money resolution, the Crown, through its Ministers, loses its centuries-old right to initiate and define the purposes for which that money is required; putting the power of the Executive into the hands of the legislature.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Leader of the House is trying to blow this issue out of proportion slightly by making it sound as though we are trying to overturn a years-old, decades-old, centuries-old convention. Is this motion not merely asking to allow a Committee to consider a Bill? If the money resolution did not come by the end of it, the Bill would not be passed. We are seeking to allow Parliament to get on with it. Is the point of an unwritten constitution not to allow flexibility and to understand that in times of need we can change procedure?

[Andrea Leadsom]

The hon. Gentleman walked in late and did not hear the start of the debate. If he read his own motion, he would realise that it seeks to overturn not years or decades but centuries of a very clear convention: that the Government initiate financial resolutions. It could not be clearer, and this Opposition motion, for purely party political reasons, is utterly irresponsible. May I ask: where are the previous Cabinet members from the Opposition? Clearly, they are not in this place because they, having been in government, recognise the constitutional settlement, where Governments decide on the money and Parliament consents to it and scrutinises it.

As I was saying, if a Committee is allowed to consider the substance of the Bill in the absence of a money resolution, the Crown, through its Ministers, loses its centuries-old right to initiate and define the purposes for which that money is required, putting the power of the Executive into the hands of the legislature. This questions the role of the Executive, whichever party is in power. The fundamentals of having a Government—of having any Government—are that they are there to take decisions and to be accountable for those decisions. Taxpayers want and require the Government to be accountable for the way in which public money is spent. That is what it means to be a responsible Government.

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[Mr Harper]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point, but the point about the Boundary Commission review is that there has been clear public consultation, with 35,000 responses from participants, meaning that this was a democratic process. The Boundary Commission has undertaken a clear process in coming to its conclusions.

People outside the House may think that September is a long way away, but it is only four full sitting weeks away, so it is sensible that we do what the Government suggest and wait for the Boundary Commission reports to be produced, for the Government to have an opportunity to introduces Orders in Council, and for the House to make a decision. I listened carefully to the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire, who did not take an intervention from me, but he was factually wrong in saying that a motion in the House should trump what the boundary commissions are doing. I fundamentally disagree, because the commissions obey an Act of Parliament—the law of the land passed by both Houses of Parliament. I know that he does not accept the other end of the building as a legitimate part of Parliament, but it is until that is changed. Parliament passed an Act and that is the law of the land. That is what the boundary commissions are following, and a motion of the House does not trump an Act of Parliament; only another Act of Parliament can trump it. Fundamentally, I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman’s premise.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Is not the point that a previous Parliament, which does not bind this Parliament, passed a set of guidelines for the Boundary Commission that this Parliament thinks were not accurate and do not take in the right detail, and that that has bound the hands of the Boundary Commission? We are not complaining about the work of the Boundary Commission but, unfortunately, about the work of a previous Parliament. This Parliament, which is not bound by that Parliament, has agreed that a Bill that would change those requirements should go into Committee. All that we are asking for is a consideration of this Parliament’s views.

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[Mr Harper]

If my right hon. Friend will forgive me, I will make a little process because I am mindful of Madam Deputy Speaker’s injunction about trying to keep our remarks to nine minutes.

I want to gambol through some of the points made by the shadow Leader of the House, including what she said about numbers. As the Minister who introduced the original legislation, may I say that there is nothing magical about 600? I was asked the question at the time, and it was a manifesto commitment when we were elected in 2010 that we would reduce the size of the House to save money. It was a reduction of about 10%, but we settled on a sensible number rather than a random one. There was nothing magical about it. There was a huge suspicion among Opposition Members that that was some magical number with magical properties. It was not—it was a round number that was significantly lower than 650. The reduction would save a significant amount of money, but there was nothing particularly suspicious about the number.

The shadow Leader of the House mentioned the Opposition’s wish to move from boundary reviews every five years to every 10 years. There was a specific reason why we went for five. There is a choice to be made. My own view is that we can either have infrequent boundary reviews, which will be significant, because there will be a lot of population movement in between, or we can have more frequent boundary reviews which, by virtue of that fact, will be less disruptive because they take lesser population shifts into account. The decision made by the last but one Parliament was to have more frequent boundary reviews that individually would be less disruptive. Of course, the first one—particularly if moving from 650 Members to 600, and if there has not been one for 20 years—is clearly disruptive, but once that has taken place, subsequent reviews will be less disruptive. There is much to recommend in that approach.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Harper]

I took a lengthy intervention from the hon. Gentleman, so I will make a little progress.

The issue of the so-called missing voters was raised by the hon. Member for Walsall South and in a couple of interventions, including from the hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Nick Smith). Matt Singh from Number Cruncher Politics has done a significant piece of work on this, which was also validated by the Library. There would be an issue if the distribution of new voters who are not on the register used for the current boundary review was significantly different across the country. However, analysis shows that the distribution of new voters on the electoral roll is broadly consistent with the distribution of those on the existing registers. In other words, although the absolute number of voters is different, those voters are not significantly differently distributed across the country, which means that they will not make a material difference to the distribution of constituencies.

It is worth pointing out that we have to carry out a review and draw a line somewhere, and that as soon as we start a review, it will effectively be out of date. The Bill promoted by the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton refers to the register for the 2017 general election. That is already out of date because there has been another one. If we take his logic, we will never have a boundary review, because every time we start, a new register arrives and is out of date.

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[Stephen Kinnock]

The fundamental problem with the logic of the hon. Lady’s argument is that this is about the terms of reference that the commission was given: it was given terms of reference based on 600 and on a very narrow quota of 5%. Based on that, the Boundary Commission had its hands tied and inevitably was going to end up with some of the completely absurd proposals we have seen.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Does my hon. Friend also agree with the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee in the previous Parliament, which said that the changes every five years will mean there is great disruption for communities meaning that they never settle down? It will also cost the Exchequer more because there is a five-year rotation. The Bill’s proposal would change that to 10 years, provide safety and security for communities to build, and save the Exchequer money.

[Stephen Kinnock]

I agree with my hon. Friend. It provides that stability and continuity and also, given the 7.5% quota, the changes would not be that radical even on a 10-year basis, so it is an incremental change.

Why are the Government ploughing ahead? The bottom line is that the entire boundary review process has been a bare-faced gerrymander, and that is combined with the use of procedural devices and backstairs manoeuvring to block the will of the House. That is further evidence of the Government’s willingness to abuse the power vested in the them. The Procedure Committee’s 2013 report concluded:

“Government policy is not to refuse a money or ways and means resolution to a bill which has passed second reading.”

The view of the Procedure Committee must be paramount in this case.

The Government clearly have no respect for this House or our democracy more widely: first, there was their £1 billion bribe to the Democratic Unionist party and now there is this. My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan), who unfortunately is not in his place now, is therefore absolutely right to push the Government to do right by our democracy and to bring forward his Bill.

It is essential that 2.1 million new voters are heard. It is essential that my constituents and many of the constituents across this House are fairly and properly represented. And it is essential that this Government are prevented from riding roughshod over our democracy.

[Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock), although I will be taking issue with some of the more lurid assertions he made in his speech.

I recognise the importance of this issue. I started my political career canvassing in 2009-10 and I vividly remember the expenses scandal and the anger of our constituents and voters on the doorstep. I remember, too, the calls at that time to reform this House and to look at some of these very important issues. It is therefore right that the Government at that time kicked off this process: they appointed the Boundary Commission and set about this important work as part of the wider work to reform politics and cut the cost of politics and bring transparency and decency back into this place. However, I have trouble with, and cannot agree with, some of the arguments that have been advanced in today’s debate. The debate seems to be based on a suggestion that the Boundary Commission’s original terms of reference were flawed—

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

They were.

[Rachel Maclean]

We have heard that a few times. Of course, I was not here at that time, but in my opinion, the arguments that have been brought forward today do not stack up. Did someone want to intervene on me?

[Rachel Maclean]

Well, I think “Follow that if you dare” is an apposite comment. I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention, and I will proceed with my remarks.

The hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan) is not in his place at the moment, but he is an honourable man and I respect his campaign on this issue. Of course he has garnered a lot of sympathy across the House. We have heard about the issues that our constituents have with boundaries, and they are valid concerns. It is right that we should be airing them in this House. However, the assertion seems to be that this private Member’s Bill is the best way of dealing with those issues, and I do not agree with that.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

The hon. Lady says that she does not understand the flaws of the previous Bill. The only way to correct the flaws of a previous Bill is to bring forward an alternative Bill. Surely, taking figures not from an election but from a lull period in the electoral register, reducing the number of seats and not allowing the Boundary Commission to take into account census figures, demographics, community boundaries and county boundaries are all reasons why—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. Interventions need to be brief. There are plenty of people waiting to speak, and it is not fair if interventions are too long.