Constituency Boundary Revisions

Lord Rennard Excerpts

Thursday 30th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

If I understand the noble and learned Lord’s question correctly, the work is based on boundary reviews being carried out so that the number of MPs will go down from 650 to 600.

[Lord Rennard (LD)]

The Government acted speedily a few weeks ago to extend the deadline, allowing another 400,000 people to be included in the voting register. Should they not now act speedily to ensure that the 2 million-plus people added to the electoral register since 1 December are included in the boundary review? They could, as they did in 1992, simply speed up the process of the Boundary Commissions, put a little more resource into it and make sure that we get what they say they want—boundaries based on equal numbers of electors in each constituency—but only by letting the Boundary Commissions act on the basis of the registers as they now are, not as they were last December.

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

There simply is not time. It was decided that this is the way forward and it is going to happen. The Boundary Commission started its work in February of this year and it will be completed in time for 2018. Any delay would mean that we do not get it done in time for the election. The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, said in 2010 that votes should have equal value and equal weight, whether they are in the furthest reaches of rural Cornwall or in the inner cities, or in England, Wales, Northern Ireland or Scotland. Any delay will mean that that takes longer and longer to happen. We just need to get on with it.