Constituency Boundary Revisions

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Thursday 30th June 2016 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Tyler]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they will take to ensure that constituency boundary revisions take full account of the electoral registers on 23 June.

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen (Con)]

My Lords, Parliament has approved that the current boundary review should be based on the December 2015 registers. Unless there is a defined date and a set of registers to assess, it is impossible to run a review. Changing the date now would risk the work of the Boundary Commissions not being implemented for the next election, meaning that it would be fought on demographic data from 20 years ago rather than last year.

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

My Lords, will the Minister take this opportunity to confirm that if there were to be a general election this year or next, it would be on the basis of the present constituency boundaries with no reduction in the number of Members of Parliament? Does she recall that when the register was looked at in December 2015, the Electoral Commission made it quite clear that some 2 million people had been excluded, while last week we were told that some 2 million additional people had come on to the register? Would it not be extraordinary to use those previous figures, which are now so out of date as to be bogus and demonstrably unfair, as a basis for allocating the new constituencies, to an extent where people will think that it is gerrymandering? Those were not ghost voters who voted last week, as Ministers implied would be the case earlier last year. Would it not be ridiculous to use out-of-date figures in this context?

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

It is important to remember that there are always similar upturns in registration—for instance, ahead of a general election, as publicity and media coverage drive up registration activity. There are always peaks and troughs throughout the year and registers for the boundary reviews are necessarily a snapshot. Let us imagine the expense if we kept updating them every couple of months. A great many recent amendments to the register will be people who have moved but want to ensure that they can vote at their local polling station. Moreover, a number—we do not yet know how many—may be applications from people who have already registered and are therefore duplications.