Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lloyd Russell-Moyle and Ben Lake

Report stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 14th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Ben Lake (Ceredigion) (PC)]

It is a pleasure to participate in this debate, and a particular pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Truro and Falmouth (Cherilyn Mackrory), with whom I agree quite strongly that Cornwall is its own nation and should be respected. Indeed, in Committee, we received quite a bit of evidence to that effect from Cornwall Council and Councillor Dick Cole, who drew our attention to the fact that the UK Government recognised Cornwall as a minority nation back in 2014, and that its territorial integrity in terms of representation in this place must be respected.

I wholeheartedly agree with the hon. Member that that should be addressed. Where we might disagree somewhat is that I believe we perhaps need to go further —this is something that could be looked at again under this Bill, perhaps in the other place—to see how we can ensure that those safeguards for the people and the nation of Cornwall are adequately protected.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

I am a fan of the Kingdom of Sussex and I still sing “Sussex by the Sea” on our national day, but is that not an argument for keeping within county boundaries or historic national boundaries? We therefore need a higher variance on the number; otherwise, the Cornish will be saved this time, but they will not be saved next time.

[Ben Lake]

The hon. Member makes a good point in terms of the fact that the protections are temporary, in so far as the mathematics, or the population, this time around is protected and works for Cornwall, but in the future there need to be other safeguards.