Parliamentary Constituencies bill (Second sitting)

Maria Miller Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 18th June 2020 Public Bill Committees

[David Linden]

Okay, thank you.

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

Q Thank you so much for giving evidence. I want to probe further on the issue of automaticity in the Bill. We are currently working on boundaries that are decades out of date. Much of the reason for that and for problems in the past has been the way in which political parties in Parliament have blocked changes to boundaries. As a party, do you support automaticity, because of the ability to have automatic changes?

Dave McCobb: We support the principle that the proposals that come from the Boundary Commission should be subject to minimal potential political interference, or a majority party could use its majority to impose boundaries on other people. The critical issue is how far the whole process is as divorced from partisan political control as possible.

[Mrs Miller]

Q Surely the final recommendations not coming before Parliament would fulfil your criteria of not having political involvement at that crucial stage, which in the past has proved to be such a barrier.

Dave McCobb: I think that depends on the criteria that are set for the Boundary Commission’s review. Provided that the criteria are set for the Boundary Commission’s work in as non-partisan a way as possible, then not having a political vote at the end of it might be acceptable. Again, it comes back to the provisions that the Boundary Commission is required to work to also being free of party political influence to the largest degree possible.

[Mrs Miller]

Q Can you give an example of what might constitute influence on the Commission?

Dave McCobb: I would like to come back to the 5% variation threshold. The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe specifically recommends a variation of up to 10% when doing [Inaudible] necessary. Having that greater degree of flexibility around the way the Commission is able to be flexible, to recognise natural communities where they exist, would enable it to be more free of political direction than as the Bill is currently set out.

[The Chair]

And the issue of what constitutes pressure on a commissioner.

Dave McCobb: I am afraid I could not hear that.

[The Chair]

I think the question was, what do you think constituted pressure on a commissioner? You were going to come back to that point.

Dave McCobb: Sorry, I think I have said what I wanted to on that point.

[Mrs Miller]

Q Following up on one of the previous lines of questioning on the premise of the Bill, which is about equal-sized constituencies and the fairness of that, I was reflecting on what Nick Clegg, when he was leader of the Liberal Democrats, said about that—very much supporting that as a principle. I was reflecting on the comments that you made earlier about the need to balance the issues of community over those of fairness. If it were possible to break down the units of work to, say, a polling-district level, to get that sensitivity on communities and on fairness, which the Liberal party has put prominently in the past, do you think that you could get a better balance, if you were dealing with polling districts, rather than wards, and you could therefore live with a far tighter tolerance of the variances between different constituencies?

Dave McCobb: You make an important point, which is specific to the way in which the commission in England worked on the last review, in that it was very clear that, apart from one or two examples in its final proposals, it was adamantly against ward splitting.

The combination of the English commission’s reluctance to split council wards and the tight 5% threshold contributed to some quite perverse constituencies being proposed in some cases, in particular in some urban areas. In parts of the country, a council ward is 2,000 or 3,000 electors, so a number of them can be added or subtracted around the threshold, but in Leeds, for example, there are 17,000 electors in a council ward and, if you are not willing to split one, in one case a lot of people had to have a random ward that really had no community links with Leeds tacked to the top of a Leeds constituency.

If the commission is given clearer direction on preferring ward splitting if that helps them to retain constituencies that relate to natural communities, that is obviously helpful. We support the principle that each MP should represent a roughly equal number of residents, but we highlight the fact that the Electoral Commission last September estimated that up 9 million potential electors are not on the register and that, while there is evidence that some particular groups might be heavily disadvantaged by under-registration, giving the commission a bit more flexibility to enable it to recognise the parts of the country where there might be major issues with electoral under-registration is the right thing to do.

[Mrs Miller]

It is interesting: in Wales and Scotland, there is an ability to split wards, even to go down to postcode level. It can be done, so I suppose the question is why it is not done more in England.

Dave McCobb: It is that combination of the two factors: the English commission’s reluctance to split wards, which contributed; and the 5% threshold, which, if that were 10%, would allow it the flexibility better to match natural communities and to recognise that there will be parts of the country with much greater problems of under-registration of people resident there than others.

[Ben Lake]

Q I would like to go back a few topics to the allocation of seats across the nations of the United Kingdom. I appreciate, Mr McCobb, that you do not want to pass comment on any numbers, but I was wondering whether the Liberal Democrats have a view of how that allocation should be decided.

Dave McCobb: That is not something that I am in a position to comment on at this time, but I am happy to take that question back to colleagues and to give you a written follow-up, if that would be helpful.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ben Lake]

Q Diolch, Geraint, for joining us this afternoon. This morning, we heard from a witness from the Boundary Commission for Wales, who spoke a bit about the way in which local ties affect how the commission considers boundaries and boundary changes. When it comes to local ties, do you have any particular concerns about the commission’s considerations—its rules—not encompassing all the characteristics we might want to see reflected and respected in Wales?

Geraint Day: The biggest difference in local ties between Wales and England is the Welsh language. A large percentage of Welsh language speakers are down the west coast, but they are also in some of the upland areas in north and south Wales. Local ties do not necessarily go down the same route as that. The Boundary Commission is looking at geographical ties—shopping centres, travel-to-work areas and those types of things—whereas at times the Welsh language communities do not fit into that local-tie element.

In the past, the Boundary Commission has made attempts to address this; where it has originally proposed splitting Welsh language communities, it has made efforts to put them back together. However, I suggest that it would be better to specifically state that in the Bill, rather than just lump it in with “local ties”. If you look at the Welsh Government’s planning process and the advice it gives to local government about local development plans, those plans are required to have a language impact assessment, a requirement that originates from the Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011. The way the Boundary Commission operates is perfectly bilingual and it deserves great praise for the way it operates. However, it is not required under the current local ties rule to specifically consider the impact on the Welsh language. I think that should be included as a specific item in the Bill.

[Mrs Miller]

Q Thank you very much for giving evidence to us today and, very importantly, for bringing the Welsh perspective into consideration. One of the provisions in the Bill is automaticity, which means that after about two and a half years of review, the recommendations automatically get brought into being, removing the possibility of political influence from the Government or indeed from Parliament, which has been a problem for us in the past. Do you have a view on that and will you support that measure?

Geraint Day: In one regard, it is a very simple statement to make. However, the removal of parliamentary authority and moving that decision away from Parliament to straight implementation is a big step to make. If that rule had been in place in the last two reviews, we would now have a Parliament of 600 MPs and we would not be having this conversation.

Parliament provides a track to final proposals. If we cannot get a majority in the House of Commons, that raises questions about whether it should be implemented. I understand the trouble that the previous two reviews caused, and as one of the people who contributed and spent a lot of time putting submissions to that, it is quite frustrating. There should be some way of keeping some form of parliamentary overview of the proposals without necessarily enabling it to become a party political football in the House of Commons.

[Mrs Miller]

Q Has that check not become a full stop, which has left us in the position we are in now, with boundaries that are decades out of date and huge variance? Does it not worry you that a vote in a constituency in one part of the country has more or less value than a vote in another part of the country? Does that not cause you concern?

Geraint Day: In terms of how the Boundary Commission operates, it has been doing its job; the issue has been with Members of Parliament in the House of Commons. The way in which that is solved is something that I think Parliament needs to come to an answer about, rather than the non-elected people in society, including myself. It is really a matter for Members of Parliament, but I understand where you are coming from and I have a certain amount of sympathy. I refer back to my previous point—if this rule had been in place in the past, we would already have a Parliament of 600 MPs and not 650. I think that 650 is by far a better fit and that seems to be the general opinion of the majority of the population, so I think the check has worked, to a certain degree, despite how frustrating it has been.

[Mrs Miller]

Q I have one final question. I was brought up in Wales. I understand when you talk about the unique nature of the geography of Wales. There is nowhere more unique than Ynys Môn, where you have a very clear boundary. I am a Hampshire MP, so I have huge sympathy for the need to protect and to support those island communities. Is there anything you would like to add to your comments, in terms of the particular importance of protecting that island community?

Geraint Day: Island communities are unique and you see that not just throughout the UK, but throughout the world, not least in the fact that they even have the Island games, where various islands of the world get together and put on a semi-Olympic games just for the islands. You see it in the identity. That is something that is quite precious and unique and that we as a society need to foster and take care of.

In terms of their numbers, if the Isle of Wight has two MPs, each one will have an electorate the current size of Ynys Môn’s. If it is good enough for the people of the Isle of Wight, why is it not good enough for the people of Ynys Môn?

[Mrs Miller]

Speaking as a Hampshire MP, I am sure that the people who live on the Isle of Wight would understand exactly what you are talking about. Thank you.