Constituency Boundary Revisions

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Thursday 30th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

I do not want to make a political point but this appears to be a cynical delaying tactic. In the previous Parliament there seemed to be a conspiracy to delay the boundary review by legislating to put it back until 2018. Here, we have new excuses to push it back again, but to do so would mean that the next general election would be fought on incredibly outdated constituencies. We need to move ahead and have the boundary review in place by 2018. We need to be able to put our candidates into their constituencies in time to fight the 2020 general election. This has been decided as the way forward. For goodness sake, let us just go ahead and do it.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I do not dissent from what my noble friend has said. However, can I again make a plea for the Government to look in an open-minded way at the issue of compulsory registration, which would solve many of the problems that have been referred to? That way, if people did not register they would be liable to a penalty. It would be entirely right and proper to insist upon compulsory registration. I beg my noble friend to have an open mind on that.

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

As my noble friend knows, my mind is always open. However, in this case, I do not think there will be any change.