Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Lord True Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 27th July 2020 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord True]

That the Bill be now read a second time.

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Lord True) (Con)]

My Lords, despite several years spent scrutinising legislation in your Lordships’ House—and, indeed, many bad years before that drafting amendments—I must confess that this is the first Bill that I will seek to lead through the House myself. It is a great privilege to do so, and I look forward to working with all your Lordships on it in the coming months. Looking at the speakers’ list, I see that I seem to be surrounded by people responsible for organising most of the successful and unsuccessful elections for the past 50 years, so I can be sure that your Lordships’ wisdom will have great weight.

The purpose of this legislation is straightforward and, in many ways, modest. Its central aim is to enable us to achieve the Government’s manifesto commitment of delivering updated and equal parliamentary constituencies, and to do so on the basis of there being 650 seats in the House of Commons. The Bill is about the composition of the elected Chamber, and it has been backed by the elected Chamber.

Noble Lords will surely agree that the updating of our constituency boundaries is long overdue. The last parliamentary boundary reviews to be implemented in the United Kingdom were based on data—that is, the numbers of electors—from the early 2000s. That may seem like yesterday to many of us here, but the sobering fact is that our youngest voters were not even born then. Our current constituencies reflect how the UK was almost two decades ago. In those two decades, our country has changed enormously, having undergone significant demographic and migratory change. We need updated boundaries to reflect that. We also need to get back on track with boundary reviews that happen and come into effect regularly, routinely and reliably. This Bill delivers that and, in so doing, makes a number of common-sense and technical changes to update the boundary review process and the rules under which the four Boundary Commissions operate.

We have engaged with stakeholders, including the parliamentary parties and electoral administrators, as the Bill has evolved, and the provisions reflect their input. I appreciate the conversations that I have already been able to have with a number of noble Lords.

It is important to say from the outset that this is amending legislation and there are many elements of the existing legislative framework for boundary reviews that it does not seek to alter. Those elements none the less remain of interest both here and in the other place, and I will today touch on the most significant of them, such as the rules relating to constituency size. However, let me start with the things the Bill does do—the common-sense, technical changes.

First, as I mentioned, the Bill provides that future boundary reviews will be conducted on the basis of there being 650 parliamentary constituencies. To make this measure effective, the Bill brings the 2018 boundary review, which would have been the first to be based on 600 constituencies, to a close, without being implemented. Noble Lords will remember that the decision to make that reduction to 600 was taken by the coalition Government a decade ago. Since the change was brought into law in 2011, the UK’s electorate has grown and there have been significant changes in demography. Members of Parliament are representing more constituents than ever before, and they are taking on the role of scrutinising legislation and overseeing areas of policy, such as trade and immigration, that have previously been the preserve of the European Parliament. Under these circumstances, the Government think it right that the current 650 constituencies are retained. The House of Commons has assented to that.

Connected to this, the Bill also removes an obligation on the Government to make arrangements to review the effects of reducing the UK constituencies to 600. As that has not taken place, it cannot meaningfully be analysed.

Moving on to the frequency of parliamentary boundary reviews, the Bill provides for future reviews—after the next one, due to start next spring—to take place every eight years, as opposed to every five years, as currently. This new timetable will allow constituency boundaries to be updated regularly but with less disruption to local communities and their MPs as a result of constituencies changing at every general election. Let me add that a parliamentary boundary review generally takes two years and 10 months from start to finish: it is a significant exercise. The Government believe that every eight years is appropriate for something of this scale, as did the stakeholders consulted.

Still on the subject of timing, the Bill enables the next boundary review—on a one-off basis—to follow a slightly shorter timetable of two years and seven months. The formal start of the review will be in December of this year and the Boundary Commissions must submit their final reports by 1 July 2023 at the latest. Bearing in mind that it takes time for electoral administrators to implement new boundaries; for political parties to reflect them in their structures and for citizens to become familiar with them, this timing of July 2023 is important. It gives us the best chance of there being updated parliamentary constituencies in place ahead of the next general election, whenever that may be. The reduction in time is achieved by the Boundary Commissions expediting some of their processes and by shortening the public consultation process by six weeks, from 24 to 18.

The Bill also makes a small number of changes to the boundary review process—the nuts and bolts of what happens during a review. First, there is a change to the timing of public hearings. Every boundary review, as your Lordships know, includes extensive public consultation arranged over three separate periods. This engagement with the public and with political parties takes a variety of forms. For example, proposals can generally be viewed online, and comments submitted to the Boundary Commissions via their websites or by letter. In addition, there are public hearings, events at which individuals can make representations in person to members of their Boundary Commission. The commissions for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland must hold between two and five public hearings in their respective nations. The Boundary Commission for England must hold between two and five in each of the English regions.

Under current legislation, public hearings take place early in the process, during the first of three consultation periods. This means that the Boundary Commissions need to decide locations and book venues before they are able to get a sense of where feeling about their proposals is strongest. During our engagement with stakeholders, we heard that this timing could be better. The Bill therefore makes provision for public hearings to take place later, during the second consultation period, allowing the commissions to consider the responses received during the initial consultation and assess where public hearings are most needed. To make this change effective, the length of the consultation periods is adjusted, allowing more time in the second period for the public hearings to occur.

Secondly, the Bill makes some practical changes in relation to the data that the Boundary Commissions use when developing their proposals. Boundary Commissions look at a variety of data sources. First and foremost, they look at numbers of electors so that they can devise constituencies that fit within the size range set by legislation. The Boundary Commissions draw information on elector numbers from the electoral register, generally deriving that data from the version of the register that exists on the 1 December at the start of a review, known as “the review date”. This date is picked because it generally falls immediately after the completion of the annual canvass, the process by which electoral registration officers verify entries on the electoral register. I should add here that annual canvasses are not required in Northern Ireland in the same way, but a revised register is still published every year by the Chief Electoral Officer for Northern Ireland. The electorate data drawn from the registers in Scotland, Wales and England is then checked further by relevant government agencies: the National Records of Scotland and the Office for National Statistics. The collated information—a complete and current picture of the number of electors in all four nations—is then published centrally by ONS. From this point it is used by the Boundary Commissions.

I hope noble Lords will see that the rationale here is that boundary reviews are based on the most up-to-date, robust and transparent information on elector numbers. This approach has been in place since the Boundary Commissions were created in 1944 and we do not seek to alter it. That said, the Bill makes one change in relation to electoral data for the next boundary review only; I hope that your Lordships will understand that it does so in direct response to Covid-19. Rather than being based on the electoral register of 1 December 2020, the next review will use the version of the register from 2 March 2020, before the pandemic. The aim is to sidestep any potential impact that Covid-19 may have on the operation of this year’s canvass or the electoral register. I am pleased to say that this one-off change has been widely supported.

Still on the topic of data, as well as elector numbers, Boundary Commissions will of course look to devise boundaries that reflect the other factors that they may take into account, including geographical features, local ties, existing parliamentary constituencies and local government boundaries.

The Bill introduces a change to the way in which the commissions take account of local government boundaries. Currently, the commissions can work only with local boundaries that have been fully brought into effect at an election before the start of a review. This means that, in places, a Boundary Commission may be looking back one, two or even three years to how the boundaries were at the time of the last local election in that area.

The Bill changes that. In future, Boundary Commissions will be able to take account of prospective local government boundaries—that is, boundaries that have been made by an order but not yet used in an election—at the review date: the 1 December formal start of the review. This measure will help keep constituency boundaries better aligned with local government boundaries, where appropriate. For the next boundary review, it will mean that new local government boundaries in London, Hertfordshire, Berkshire, Devon and Cornwall may all be taken into account where previously they might not have been.

We now come to the end of the process: the point where the Boundary Commissions have done their work and submitted their final reports. Here, the Bill introduces what in the marvellous world of policy is described as “automaticity”. Automaticity is simply the idea that the recommendations of the Boundary Commissions, developed through the meticulous and consultative process I have described, should be implemented without political influence or interference. Recommendations will still be brought into effect by an Order in Council; however, the draft order will no longer require approval by Parliament prior to making. As part of this measure, the Government’s ability to amend the draft Order in Council if rejected by Parliament is also removed.

In the other place, there was a degree of misunderstanding about the intentions of this change. I assure your Lordships that the purpose of this measure is straightforward: to bring certainty and confidence to the citizen and the elector that updated constituencies will be implemented without interference and further delay. I suspect that I am not alone in remembering what delay and interference look like; I will not touch on anybody’s sensibilities by referring to episodes in this country’s recent history.

I am sure that others will have different interpretations of the ins and outs of why boundary reviews have been delayed in the past, but I hope we can all agree that there is a vulnerability in our current legislation in this regard, and yet also an urgent need for the next review to start in good order and deliver updated boundaries promptly and reliably. Automaticity is the answer to that conundrum, and we are not the only ones to think so. In moving to this system, we draw on the experience of countries such as Australia, Canada and New Zealand, where a similar approach is used.

We also heard support in the evidence sessions of the Public Bill Committee in the other place. Witness after witness spoke up for automaticity, including party representatives, the Electoral Reform Society and several academics. As they pointed out, the removal of Parliament from the end of the boundary review process in no way alters the fact that Parliament remains sovereign and continues to set the rules and parameters within which the Boundary Commissions operate. The contesting of a parliamentary constituency will always be about politics, but this Government believe firmly that the process by which that constituency is proposed, revised and implemented should never be.

I will finish by talking about aspects of the current legislation that the Bill does not fundamentally change. The key topic here is tolerance. Under existing law, the Boundary Commissions are required to propose constituencies that are within plus or minus 5% of the average UK constituency electorate, which is known as the electoral quota. This provision, which was introduced by the 2011 Act, ensures that constituencies across the United Kingdom are broadly equal in size, within a 10% range of the electoral quota. The Government are not changing this because we are committed to delivering not just updated constituencies but equal and updated ones. Both goals are crucial. Equal constituencies mean votes that carry equal weight. Our democracy relies on our electors having confidence that they are fairly represented, yet how can an elector in Milton Keynes South—one of 97,000—feel fairly represented when up the road in Northampton North, their fellow elector is one of only 59,000?

Within our broad ambition to achieve equal constituencies, we accept that there are a handful of locations in the British Isles whose unique geographies demand a greater degree of flexibility. The law therefore includes a limited number of exceptions to the tolerance rules. By and large, we are leaving these untouched. For example, the exception that exists for Northern Ireland remains in place, allowing in certain limited circumstances for a slightly wider tolerance to be applied. This recognises that nation’s small number of constituencies and the disproportionate impact that certain rounding effects that result from the allocation of constituencies to the four nations can have there.

Similarly, an exemption for very large, sparsely populated constituencies also remains in place, as do the four protected constituencies that were included in the 2011 legislation where the tolerance rules do not apply. Those four protected constituencies are Na h-Eileanan an Iar, Orkney and Shetland, and two constituencies on the Isle of Wight.

The one change we are making here, following an amendment supported by the Government, is to add a fifth protected constituency for Ynys Môn—Anglesey. This move addresses an anomaly and has been widely welcomed. All the protected constituencies are islands and Ynys Môn falls within the range they set in terms of both geographical and electoral size.

To conclude, we have before us a Bill whose core purpose is electoral equality and fairness, delivered through equal and updated parliamentary constituency boundaries. Debates and witness testimony in the other place have revealed a clear consensus that this goal needs to be met—and soon. We need constituencies that reflect the electorate as they are now, not as they were at the turn of the century.

The Bill makes sensible and supported improvements to the way boundary reviews operate. We are legislating for an appropriate number of seats, a better frequency of reviews, an improved set of review processes and a more certain method of implementation designed to enhance the independence of the impartial Boundary Commissions. The people of the UK deserve fair votes; they deserve effective representation; and they deserve to have trust and certainty in the boundary review process that delivers those things.

I commend the Bill to the House. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord True]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for what he said and I thank all noble Lords who have spoken, including those who have ventured to be kind about me. I have found in life that it is not the smile you get at the front door when you arrive that really counts but the curses you hear when the front door closes behind you when you go, so I will try to serve the House as well as I can.

There have been some incredibly important and thoughtful contributions. I shall not follow the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, and my noble friend Lord Naseby in pointing out that probably never so many wise contributions have been made on elections by people who do not have the right to vote in them. It has been fascinating.

If your Lordships will forgive me, I will concentrate on those areas that are in scope of the Bill. We heard a lot about, for example, PR. The noble Lord, Lord Liddle, said that it is an argument for another day. I thought it was an argument that had already had its day. I hope that we can concentrate on some of the important issues that have been raised in the debate. I am pleased by the support voiced across the House for many of the key elements of the Bill—there have been doubters and how could there not be doubters in this great House?—in particular for maintaining the number of constituencies at 650. Although I noticed a small number of those voices on my side—I see my noble friend Lord Hayward in his place—I think the majority were for 650. I am also glad of the general support of the House for the new eight-year cycle and the addition of Ynys Môn as a protected constituency.

Let me come to the first issue which has been a matter of interest, to use a value-free word, to your Lordships’ House in debate, which is the so-called automaticity. I anticipated this in my opening remarks and that proved to be correct. My noble friends Lord Dobbs, Lord Mancroft, Lord Pickles, Lord Hayward, Lord Young of Cookham, Lady Pidding and many other noble Lords supported the changes to allow the automatic implementation of boundary review recommendations, as we propose. We believe that automaticity will give the public confidence and certainty that the boundaries recommended by the commissions will come into effect without risk of interference or further delay.

I note the opposition, ably expressed by the noble Baronesses, Lady Hayter and Lady Barker, my noble friend Lord Empey, the noble Lord, Lord McCrea, and other noble Lords. However, the purpose here is to remove both Government and Parliament from the process, so that those finalised recommendations of the independent Boundary Commissions are brought into force promptly, with no opportunity for blocking or meddling of any kind. Under current legislation, the citizen does not have certainty that this will happen, and the boundaries of constituencies are now woefully out of date as a result. I repeat that other countries such as New Zealand, Canada and Australia have similar arrangements for implementing boundary reviews which do not involve the final approval of the legislature. I hope that, on reflection, your Lordships will come to see that that does not present the dangers that some fear.

Under the Bill, the Government will still be required to give effect to the recommendations of the Boundary Commissions. As now, an Order in Council will be used for this purpose. As noble Lords have said, the change, which some have objected to, will be that Parliament will not play a role in approving the draft order and Ministers will no longer be able to modify the proposals in the event that it was rejected by Parliament. We are reducing the role of both Parliament and government. However, Parliament does remain sovereign and can amend the primary legislation, providing the parameters for reviews as it sees fit.

My noble friend Lord Young of Cookham, followed by other noble Lords, queried the possibility of future Governments delaying implementation of the Boundary Commission recommendations—as has happened before —by taking more time than is necessary to submit the draft Order in Council for making. I am conscious of the hour, but I will give a bit more detail, because I was asked to respond. The wording of this requirement has been modernised to reflect current drafting practice. As some noble Lords have pointed out, the current legislation says,

“as soon as may be”,

and the Bill includes the more common, up-to-date language of

“as soon as reasonably practicable”.

However, the meaning remains the same: any Government would be legally obliged to make the Order in Council promptly and without unreasonable delay.

My noble friend Lord Young of Cookham, supported by my noble friend Lord Blencathra, the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Pittenweem, and other noble Lords proposed that there should be a fixed time limit in which a Government should lay an Order in Council. We are not minded to go in that direction, purely in order to maintain some flexibility for the necessary work in preparing the draft boundary order and the associated order that designates the returning officer for each newly drawn constituency. Time would be needed to allow for this preparatory work, and setting hard time limits can cause practical difficulties down the line. I reassure the House that there would be little scope for undue—certainly not unreasonable—delay. Any Government who sought to drag their heels over the submission of a draft Order in Council would be at risk of legal challenge. With something as high profile as a boundary review, it seems likely that the move to challenge would be swift. We believe that to be an effective and appropriate safeguard against delay. However, I have no doubt that noble Lords will return to this in Committee. I assure the House that this Government’s firm and sole intention is to deliver the updated and equal constituencies that are now long overdue and to implement the recommendations made by the independent Boundary Commissions.

I do not wish to try the patience of noble Lords, but the other issue is tolerance and limits. During the Bill’s evidence sessions in the other place, witnesses pointed out that the setting of tolerance is a matter of judgment. The House has heard differing judgments today; some noble Lords have agreed with leaving it as it is now, which is plus or minus 5%. This is, effectively, a variation of 7,000 or more in the size of electorates, as pointed out by some noble Lords, including my noble friends Lord Taylor of Holbeach, Lord Dobbs and Lord Sheikh, with whom I agree.

We believe that the current tolerance level strikes the right balance between achieving equal and fair boundaries and allowing the Boundary Commission the flexibility to take account of other factors. There are other factors and noble Lords have spoken about them, such as physical, geographical features and local ties. However, this is subject to the overriding principle of equality in constituency size. For something as critical as the right to choose the Government of the day, surely equity and equality must be the overriding principles. The fundamental principle of “one elector, one vote” should be upheld as nearly as possible. The same should be true in Bangor as it is in Blyth. We intend to uphold that principle. The elected Chamber voted on three separate occasions against amending the 5% variance. I urge noble Lords to consider this as the Bill progresses through the House.

Many noble Lords spoke up for the union and were concerned about the impact of this legislation on the union. There was particular mention in this context of rural constituencies with sparse populations. I understand where such noble Lords are coming from; I was particularly struck by the very powerful speech on this by the noble Baroness, Lady Gale. Our union of nations is the most successful in history. This Government are determined to sustain it and of course I share that desire to see it at its strongest. It is a matter of judgment, which we can test in Committee, but the Government believe that equal votes for all the electors of the union is an important part of maintaining its strength and the democracy at its heart. That is why the Bill does not change the tolerance level put in place by Parliament in 2011 with, at the time, very strong support from the Liberal Democrats. The purpose of the Bill is to achieve parity of representation for all electors across the union and within its constituent nations. Surely, wherever a vote is cast, it should have the same power in deciding who governs our country. That principle is a solid one and the Government continue to support it.

The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, and my noble friend Lord Bourne, asked about Cornwall, mentioning the controversy caused by the 2018 review, when a constituency that crossed county boundaries was proposed. It is important to recognise that that review was based on 600 constituencies. While this will be a matter for the independent Boundary Commission, the changes under review are based on 650 constituencies and are likely to be less dramatic. I welcome the comments made about public hearings and the move to allow the public to come in later in the proceedings, although I take note of the point made by the noble Lord, Lord McNicol of West Kilbride, that the Boundary Commission must be flexible.

On the question of the Boundary Commissions, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, and the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, and my noble friends Lord Dobbs and Lord Taylor of Holbeach all raised the independence of the Boundary Commissions. The noble Lord, Lord Janvrin, referred to this as well. They all wondered how important this is in the light of automaticity. I agree—and the Government agree—that the commissions are independent and neutral; they must and will remain so however their recommendations are implemented. When Ministers formally appoint commissioners, it is done only after a rigorously fair and neutral recruitment process under the Governance Code on Public Appointments and overseen by the independent Commissioner for Public Appointments.

Finally, some noble Lords talked about the building blocks on which constituencies are based. No doubt we will return to this in Committee as well, particularly the question of whether or how the Boundary Commissions might split wards into smaller geographical units. Other noble Lords spoke about polling districts. I will write to the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of Cradley, on the specific points she raised about the local government reviews. As far as the 20 March date is concerned, as I explained in my opening remarks, this is because we do not wish to wait to use the December 2020 date, given the potential impact of Covid. Therefore, that is effectively the latest date not affected by Covid.

The noble Lord, Lord Mann, spoke powerfully—as always—about community, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Gale, and others. I recognise that that matters; I have spent most of my lifetime representing a ward and was proud to do so. Whether or not to divide wards is an issue for the independent Boundary Commissions when conducting their reviews. It is already within their power to do so if they judge it to be necessary, in their expert opinion, and after receiving representations. Political parties and individuals will be able to make representations.

A number of noble Lords returned to the issue of underregistration. This was a widely and properly expressed concern in the House. Online registration has made it easier, simpler and faster for people to register. It can take as little as five minutes and there are no significant boundaries, if you have access to a computer. But not everybody does, and it is vital that we get to the hard-to-reach people. We all want eligible electors to be registered, but we do not wish to compel people to register. That is a matter for the individual, not the state, and we are not tempted by the course referred to of compulsion. I have no doubt that we will have other discussions on this, not only on this legislation but later in the Parliament. Without going into it at length at the moment, there are a number of ways in which the Government are looking for ways to increase the level of registration.

In response to those who raised the possibility of using alternative data to estimate electors—for example, the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, floated the issue of census data—again, we can perhaps get into the detail of this in Committee. However, the Government consider that the current process of using data from the electoral register represents the most robust and transparent picture of the electorate on which to base proposals. Boundary reviews have always been based on registered electors, and we believe that that approach should continue.

On votes at 16, which was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, who I see is in his place—I owe him a reply, since he asked for it and is here—I have great respect for noble Lords who have long campaigned to lower the voting age in parliamentary elections to 16. However, the Government have no plans to do so and were indeed elected on a manifesto commitment to retain the current franchise at 18. We may differ on the principle—I see from the noble Lord’s expression that we do—but that is the position which the Government have adopted.

In summary, I am incredibly grateful to noble Lords for their excellent and constructive contributions. I have not been able to find an answer to my noble friend Lord Trenchard on high sheriffs, but I will write to him on that point. If I have not answered any of the points in the debate, I will try to make sure that a letter is made available to all those who have taken part covering points that, on reflection, I feel that I have not addressed. I realise that I will not have convinced everybody to withdraw from the positions they have taken up—positions that I respect. I look forward to discussing the Bill in greater detail in Committee, but I hope that I have made the Government’s position clear.

The provisions of the Bill have been endorsed by the elected Chamber, to which it relates. To be frank, our current boundaries are horribly out of date and we do not see a case for further delay. We believe that this legislation will help the Government to meet a manifesto commitment to deliver updated and equal parliamentary boundaries to ensure that every vote counts the same, and to do so on the basis of 650 constituencies. I urge noble Lords, on reflection, to support the Bill and I commend it to the House.

Bill read a second time and committed to a Grand Committee.