Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Lord Lipsey Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 15th September 2020 Grand Committee

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, thank you for letting me speak. As a signatory to the amendment, I should explain a little why I decided to support it. I have lived in Wales for many decades and provided healthcare to some of these communities. The geography is unique and different to the cultural mix in cities in either England or Scotland—I have done exactly the same as a GP in inner-city Glasgow.

Wales currently has 40 constituencies for its 2.3 million registered electorate. Yes, the size of the constituencies is smaller on average or on median size than other nations in the UK, but Scotland’s smallest constituency has half the number of electors of the smallest in Wales. The current boundaries in Wales allow co-terminosity, which helps co-ordination between the Senedd and Westminster. I will return to that relationship between Wales and Westminster in a moment.

To look at this and try to understand it, I spent some time with an Excel spreadsheet to look at the consequences of a rigid numerical approach. A cull of Welsh MPs to provide only 29 would be a 28% reduction in representation from Wales under the 2018 proposals. While maintaining 650 MPs, a leeway allowing a 5% margin on electoral numbers would still lost Wales nine seats—a 23% reduction in MPs. Are the Government determined to alienate their support for the union and fuel separatist nationalism? It certainly looks like that from all their behaviour at the moment. Funnily enough, as far as I can see, England would see only a rise in numbers under the Bill’s proposals.

A 15% lower margin on electorate numbers—I say lower because it is not about raising the 15%—although again hitting Wales hard, would decrease representation from Wales by 5%, or two MPs. However, it would also allow the complexity of the geography and demography to be accounted for. For an MP in Wales to represent an area with difficulties of travelling across large areas where, as we have heard, the sheep really do outnumber the population, it can take over two hours in some parts and around four hours in those same places in the winter. The South Wales valleys are indeed quite distinct zones, as the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, pointed out, and travelling from one to another requires driving north across the Heads of the Valleys road and down, or south to the M4 and up the valley. While it is reasonable to expect the MPs to do that, the constituents cannot. Many do not have their own car, have care responsibilities and cannot just access a remote MP surgery in an adjacent valley, nor do they identify with that position in an adjacent valley either. Poverty and an elderly population—9.5% is over 75—means that few have IT access to Zoom or Teams, and so on, although I accept that after Covid, that might have improved. However, on all other measures, they will effectively be relatively disenfranchised in relation to UK government.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, has already pointed out the political message that this is giving. The political message a massive cull of Welsh MPs gives is that Westminster is not concerned about Wales. I wonder whether one solution to meet the Minister’s concern about a 30% range of variance overall would be simply to delete the upward tolerance and allow only a downward tolerance. Without that, this amendment will fuel a narrative that Westminster really would like to see Wales cut off, cut out, and effectively ignored.

[Lord Lipsey (Lab)]

My Lords, this is a pretty odd grouping, is it not? You have one amendment on the links between constituencies, one on Devon and Cornwall, and one on Wales. It would have been even worse if I had not insisted on degrouping my amendment on Brecon and Radnor, for which the Committee will pay a price when I introduce it in a few minutes’ time. The grouping is so wide and disparate that I do not have a great deal to add, so I will not.

First, I totally agree with the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Foulkes about local ties, which seem wholly to have been ignored by the Government in drafting the Bill, and which I will come back to in the Brecon and Radnor context.

Secondly, I totally agree with my noble friend Lord Hain about the underrepresentation of Wales—the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, and a few other noble Lords came in behind him. I will say only that even the 15% variant would not deal with the Brecon and Radnor problem; it deals with certain problems but not with that.

Finally, on the epoch-shaking issue of Devon and Cornwall, I am in no doubt about the passions that this stirs in that part of the country, but I know nothing about it or those passions, and therefore I will remain silent.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I hesitate to intervene on Welsh and Scottish matters, in particular on the complications of the geography of Wales, beyond saying that of course all the regions of this country have large and disparate constituencies. One of my strongest memories of the early days of the coalition Government was of standing in William Hague’s office in the Foreign Office, discussing with him where exactly it was as you moved from Richmond up Swaledale that you lost mobile phone coverage, and seeing the horrified expression on the face of his private secretary as he realised that the Secretary of State would be unattainable in large areas of his extremely large and remote constituency. Yorkshire also has large constituencies.

On the question of the union as a whole, I will say only that we should all be very worried about its future. I have close relatives who live and work in Edinburgh, and each time I talk to them, I get increasingly concerned about the future of the union. The image they have of a competent Government, who also value international ties, as opposed to the incompetent and English nationalist Government in London, gives me no guarantee that if there were another independence referendum, they would not vote to support independence. We also know the games that are being played over the future of Northern Ireland. I leave it for the Minister to reflect that we have a Government who are playing fast and loose with the union even as the Prime Minister insists that he is doing his utmost to defend it, and we need to be extremely cautious about that.

I most want to focus on Amendment 18, which talks about the importance of retaining local ties. I remind the Minister that the Conservative manifesto last December made no reference to a 5% variation as the limit, but said:

“We will continue to support the First Past the Post system … as it allows voters to kick out politicians who don’t deliver, both locally and nationally.”


That is the way one can defend the first past the post system—it is about having a recognisable community which each MP represents and in which the voters are aware of the link between the constituency and the MP. When I first started out in politics, I remember many Conservative MPs who would say, “I represent all the voters in my constituency, not just the ones who voted for me”. That was the old approach to this. The noble Lord, Lord Hain, has already said that the important thing is whether you can identify with the constituency you live in. I remember in the 2010 election standing in the middle of the marketplace in Huddersfield, canvassing for the Liberal Democrats, and every other voter who came up to me on market day said, “I live in so and so—can you tell me which constituency I am in?” We are only half way towards the problem that most voters do not know what constituency they live in. If we move boundaries more and more frequently, and more and more without reference to the idea of local community, we are moving away from the principle of the first past the post system.

I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord True, knows Edmund Burke off by heart, and his references to the importance of localism—of the “little platoons” in which people live. We are in danger of losing that connection. As we lose it, we weaken the connection between the voter and their elected representatives, and we therefore weaken trust in democracy as the idea of politics becomes one of a distant game in Westminster not connected with the voter on the ground.

I fear that the devolution White Paper, when it is published next month, may make that worse. We already have in cities such as Leeds and Bradford local wards which are 12,000 to 15,000 voters per ward. That means of course that in Leeds there are only four wards per constituency, which is one of the reasons why the question of dividing wards up as you adjust the numbers for the Leeds constituency comes up so frequently. Many of these wards used to be entire urban district councils. The gap between the most local elected representative and the voter has already been severely damaged, and I fear that next month’s devolution White Paper will have little to do with devolution but much more to do with weakening local government further. I appeal to the Minister, whose distinguished record in local government I am well aware of, and as someone who cares about local government, to bear in mind how important it is to restore trust in democracy among our voters by recognising that democracy starts at the local level and requires a link between voters, their local community and democracy as such through their elected representatives.

Given that, Amendment 18 is important. We should not lose sight of this. We do not wish to follow the United States down the road where each district is redrawn after almost every election according to partisan forms. Under a Conservative Government we follow American politics far too often in far too many ways. We need politics to regain its sense of the local, the national and the regional. That is why I strongly support this amendment.

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Moved by

[Lord Lipsey (Lab)]

21: Clause 7, page 5, line 22, at end insert—
“(d) a constituency named Brecon and Radnorshire with identical boundaries to those of the existing Brecon and Radnorshire constituency”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment creates an additional protected constituency to make this seat geographically manageable.

[Lord Lipsey (Lab)]

My Lords, Brecon and Radnorshire, let me count the ways I love thee. It was quite a tie to come up to the House to be able to present my case for the constituency in person this afternoon when I saw the weather forecast suggesting 24 degrees today. I believe strongly that it should remain a single constituency, but perhaps more importantly, I have sought the views of the present Member, Fay Jones, as to whether it should be a single seat. All the views of existing Members of Parliament on their constituencies and boundaries have to be taken with a pinch of salt. As an invariable rule, they want no changes in the boundaries unless they think it is going to bring in a lot of extra votes for them, in which case they may well favour changes, but Fay Jones has established herself as a well-liked local representative of the people.

She writes as follows: “Brecon and Radnorshire is an outstanding constituency but it is not without its challenges”—you can say that again. “It stretches from Ystradgynlais”—did I get that right, I ask the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter?—“in the south-west corner of the constituency 60 miles north of Swansea to Knighton in the north-east, 10 miles west of Ludlow”. Towns include, “Brecon, Crickhowell, Talgarth, Builth Wells, Llandrindod Wells, Presteigne, Knighton, Rhayader, and Ystradgynlais itself—a huge variety and more than 3,000 kilometres, which is bigger than Luxembourg. I frequently have a 63-mile drive to get from one meeting to the next, taking well over an hour and a half to drive between meetings. Considering the additional challenge of sub-standard broadband and mobile signal, it is still essential to travel to face-to-face meetings as much as possible. Covering such a large rural area takes a huge amount of time and energy and, while I hope I am still young enough to do the role justice, an even bigger constituency may reduce the quality and frequency of the service offered by the Member of Parliament.” I endorse all that.

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[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Duncan of Springbank) (Con)]

We have had no requests to speak after the Minister so I call on the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey.

[Lord Lipsey (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate and particularly those who have spoken twice. I will make one point. The Minister expressed her support for the existing exceptional constituencies and said that Ynys Môn was of sufficient size. Not only is it a quarter of the size of Brecon and Radnorshire in geographical area, it has 51,925 electors as opposed to Brecon and Radnorshire’s 55,490. If Ynys Môn is of sufficient size, so is Brecon and Radnorshire.

This may have been an oversight by the Minister, but I did say that I and the Conservative MP for Brecon and Radnorshire would like to have a further conversation before Report. It would be extremely kind if the Minister were able to give an assurance that that request will be seriously and positively considered. Subject to that, I wish to withdraw my amendment.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Duncan of Springbank) (Con)]

Does the Minister wish to come back on that point?

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[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey. I will talk to the department and I am sure that we can work something out.

[Lord Lipsey (Lab)]

Thank you.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Duncan of Springbank) (Con)]

Excellent.